Isn’t it ironic that …?
Every time we look away, we confirm the system. Every time we stay silent, we become the system. This is only our choice.
“I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again.” — Anne Frank, The Diary (May 3, 1944)
Isn’t it ironic that …
Isn’t it ironic that a dictator sues a dictator for human rights?
Isn’t it ironic that democracy elects its own tyrants?
Isn’t it ironic that we trade facts for comfortable euphemisms?
Isn’t it ironic that sanctions punish the hungry, not the rulers?
Isn’t it ironic that networks promised freedom and delivered surveillance?
Isn’t it ironic that our heritage is stolen by the machine and sold back to us?
Isn’t it ironic that machines now think while humans are discarded?
Isn’t it ironic that the Enlightenment traded for Dark Enlightenment?
Isn’t it ironic that we condemn violence while arming those who kill?
Isn’t it ironic that we call our bombs humanitarian?
Isn’t it ironic that one death is tragedy, a thousand just an "operation"?
Isn’t it ironic that the former colonizer is now being colonized?
Isn’t it ironic that self-determination means the genocide of others?
Isn’t it ironic that a refugee drowns in waters we call safe?
Isn’t it ironic that a soldier sends love home while erasing families?
Isn’t it ironic that revolutions build prisons from their own stones?
Isn't it ironic that we wage war for peace and harvest more war?
Isn't it ironic that we profit from the diseases we cause?
Isn't it ironic that resistance is funded by the system it resists?
Isn’t it ironic that we starve in a land full of food?
Isn’t it ironic that a homeless person freezes to death in a city of wealth?
Isn’t it ironic that a newborn froze in a tent while we debate terms?
Isn’t it ironic that truth is presented as terrorism?
Isn’t it ironic that the protector becomes the executioner of its own people?
Isn’t it ironic that we know the truth and yet we remain silent?
It isn't irony. It never was irony!
The child frozen in winter streets is not ironic.
The child without legs in a hospital bed is not ironic.
The child without parents buried in rubble is not ironic.
The child crying near his murdered mother is not ironic.
The child abducted to erase their name and soul is not ironic.
The human stripped of humanity is not ironic.
These are the consequences of our silence, our apathy, and the medial euphemisms we accept. To look away means to live a lie. And to live a lie means to be part of the system that kills. As Elie Wiesel said: “I remember: he asked his father: “Can this be true?” This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” — Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (December 10, 1986)
We have the opportunity to fight evil. It’s just a matter of choice.
“Individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.” — Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless (1978)