[singlepic id=91 w=320 h=240 float=left] The UN just announced a new program for Syria: The distribution of rations to drought victims. According to The World Food Program, some 190,000 Syrians are starting to receive the rations with still another 110,000 Syrians who remain in need of help in the drought-ravaged region of eastern Syria.
Mismanagement of water and lack of rainfall have contributed to Syria’s predicament. Under the Assads, Syria has become a beggar nation rich with calamities.
While Syria suffers and begs the UN for food, Assad has sent Syrians on the Gaza flotilla to assist the Palestinians. This reminds me of what the great Lebanese philosopher Khalil Gibran wrote in a short poem entitled “Pity the Nation”, which fits Assad like a glove. Worth reading.
Pity the Nation
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.
Pity the nation that acclaims the bull as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.
Pity the nation that despises a passion in its dream, yet submits in its awakening.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.
Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting and farewells him with hooting, only to welcome another with trumpeting again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
Khalil Gibran
The garden of the Prophet (1934)
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