HE LEFT HIS LAND, Federico Baena

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,  

whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the  

holy name of liberty or democracy?

GANDHI 

Father left his land dry and dead 

looking for a life elsewhere  

where the future would allow him to walk 

among the sad, war-torn ruins. 

A time of horrors and darkness 

A night wrought with injustice 

brimming full of greed 

for those who lost so small. 

He had to emigrate, understand another language 

suffer the labours of the conquered  

without that liberty they took from him. 

But, by dint of his efforts, forgetting the past, 

he built a worthy, renewed future 

He gave his children what was taken from him. 

When men are wolves to man 

and their passions turn them into beasts. 

There may be another place, another horizon 

perhaps from the south or from the north  

where refugees are installed in peace  

And where love and life are what matters  and hope in the future suffices. 

The webdoc is financed by the programme Horizon 2020,
RAISD – Reshaping Attention and Inclusion Strategies for Distinctively vulnerable people among the forcibly displaced

raisd-h2020.eu 

 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822688.