Looking forward to sing A Celebrato

[nin@xxxxxx]

Dear ALL,

A poem has been put to my attention and I think that it is timely 
as well as most fitting to share with all of you while we ALL are 
looking forward to sing A Celebratory Song for Burma.

BURMA: for 'some of us', Burma is the mother land and, 
       for 'the rest of us', Burma is the land of beauty which 
       deserves their attention and support. Please enjoy the 
       following poem all together.

With metta and solidarity,
NiNi
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Cecil Rajendra's came from Don Borrie's paper to the 
Anti-privatisation conference - privatisation by NZ 
local authorities


Until they Right the Wrong, I shall sing no Celebratory Song
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So long as car parks take precedence over hospitals.
Multi-story hotels over homes for people,
Irrelevant factories over fields of our daily sustenance

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

So long as law comes before justice
The edifice before service
The payment before treatment and appearance before essence

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

So long as the poet is debased and the businessman praised
The realist rewarded and the idealist degenerated

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

So long as foreign investors devastate our estate
and the voice of capital speaks louder than the pleas of fisher folk

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

So long as blind bulldozers are allowed unchecked to guard our landscape

and multi-nationals licensed to run amuck across this land

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

So long as the rivers and streams, our beaches, our air, our oceans, 
Our trees, our birds, our fish, our butterflies, our bees
Are strangled, stifled, polluted, poisoned, crushed, condemned by
lopsided development

I shall sing no celebratory song no matter how many suns go down
This tongue will be of thistle and thorn until they right the wrong!

Cecil Rajendra
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