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'Quinquireme of Nineveh'
Felicity Arbuthnot Dec 2005

  
 
'Quinquireme of Nineveh, from distant Ophir, rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, with a cargo of ivory and and apes peacocks, sandalwood, cedar wood and sweet white wine'. wrote John Masefield (b.1878)

In Mosul irrigation is believed by some to have been developed nearly twelve thousand years ago. The nearby golden temples at Hatra were built at the same time as Petra:'rose red city, half as old as time.' The winged bulls - humanity's heritage, which guard the palace at Nimrud; archeological pearls abound, strewn before the occupation-born swine. The imagination of the inspired thrown aside with the people whose forbears gifted the world with beauty, academia and that we call civilised.  

Under the west's watch, their descendents are disenfranchised,slaughtered, kidnapped, raped, displaced, degraded.    

Am I emotional, as sometimes accused? You bet I am. Just when it seems our shame can be plumbed no deeper another horror in the name of those chilling, nauseating words :'freedom and democrocy' - which should be banned forthwith from dictionaries, speech and school books - rears its head.That two headed monster, 'Freedom and Democrocy' seems to translate directly into state or state condoned terrorism.

Felicity Arbuthnot
December 2005       

  
 

 
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