The Lie Behind War
Every Battlefield Ends at Someone’s Home.
(English Translation of the verses from the Poem)
There is work yet to be done, yours and ours alike.
Millions sleep in hunger, yours and ours alike.
Why must childhood, meant for games, inherit only death?
They are tender, blameless children, yours and ours alike.
Come, together let us wage our war on want and ignorance,
For so many dreams lie unfulfilled, yours and ours alike.— Rehman Faris
This is not just a poem about war; it is also a poem about Humanity. It reminds us of a truth too easily forgotten that comes after the cries of victory and the patriotic slogans: Every war leaves two countries grieving.
History is recalled in the redrawn maps, and the victories won, but fewer records are kept of the empty tables at dinner parties or the unreturned voices.
A woman waits for her husband.
A small boy asks his father when he’ll come home.
A girl waits on the doorstep, waiting for the gifts he had promised.
A sister misses her brother, who made her invulnerable.
A little brother waits for the familiar laughter; waits for the small coins that slip into his hand.
A mother cooks up her son’s favourite dish, but she does not know that her son will never eat it again.
A dad hopes that his son will come home from the war and return a flag, but instead he gets a folded one.
A husband.
A father.
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A brother.
A son.
A person on whom the whole family depended.
One day, the news comes.
The soldier who stood where others can’t has fallen.
A family loses not only a life, but a protector, a provider, and a part of a family’s future in one moment.
In the meantime, the country is celebrating the win.
Medals are awarded.
Flags are raised.
Speeches are delivered.
However, there is no celebration to replace the silence that descends on a house when a voice is never heard again.
Victors in History Book.
It leaves widows and orphans, grieving parents, and generations with wounds that treaties cannot heal in homes.
Every nation speaks peace, and it is too soon to give it up for pride, ambition, fear, and power. The world yearns for peace, yet it keeps taking the path that leads away from it.
The words end here.
The grief does not.
The best test of war is not the territory it conquered nor the countries it subdued.
It is those who will never sit at their tables again in numbers.
