A helpful poem for simple folk

em = By Rosemary Evans

(After Rudyard Kipling's “If”)

If you keep muddling Kurds up with Kuwaitis

(It's easy, as they both begin with K),

And if the two Husseins sometimes confuse you --

There's Saddam, and the little king of J --

If sometimes you are sure that Noriega

Is that brave Sandinista state so small,

You're not the only one who thinks politics ain't fun,

And who cannot understand the world at all.

If the intifada is the Palestinians

Who want their areas back from Israel,

Then Inkatha is the rather fishy Zulus

Who fight the ANC and give them hell.

Iran, Iraq -- one tiny misprint

Can blow the situation all to bits.

And far-off Czechoslavia, also Yugoslovakia --

They puzzle you and simply give you shits.

Well, if you think your brain's simply not coping,

And of you normal senses you're bereft,

You'd better not despair, better not tear out your hair --

And what is more, you'd better read Green Left!

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #17 19 June 1991.

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