Convenience over Conscience
A poem from the Brazilian Poet Mari as seen on Twitter/X @mariresisting
“They want change—
but only if they can stay safe
while someone else bleeds for it
They could have chosen sacrifices, yet they chose themselves
So they talk about dictators, they talk about fascism
But fascism is not just governments,
is a culture of compliance,
shared among those whose comfort is sustained by it
Fascism is letting power grow
because you are too afraid to stop it,
and your personal convenience is too “precious”
They say it’s their government’s fault
They say it’s the system
They say they would help—if they could
As if every revolution did not start
with people who had less than them
As if every liberation wasn’t built on risk, on defiance,
on those who stood up
even when they had nothing
They want freedom
as long as they don’t have to fight for it.
They want justice, as long as it is easy.
They are not interested in listening or amplifying the victims of their tax
money-warmachine, their gov spreading “democracy”—
they talk over them
They do not hold space for grief,
they turn it into a political argument
They are detached, unbothered, cynical,
breaking down slaughter and destruction
like it is just another intellectual exercise
And when they are done playing,
they close the conversation, leave the victims behind,
turn their humanity off then on again
as if they weren’t talking about real people, as if it isn’t their lifestyle &
money funding decades-old bombs around the globe
They pretend it was never a choice
They pretend their hands are tied
that they had no control
But they did—their inaction is a choice
and they know It,
They could change, they’re not being deceived now
They say they are victims while living in excess——they are its willing
customers & perfect products
They know their comfort is stolen
they know their whole lives is built on someone else’s tragedy,
someone else’s land,
and yet they do not stop benefiting, consuming
They could have stood for something
made themselves uncomfortable
for the sake of whole populations’s survival. But they didn’t
knowing full well
the heinous costs of it
They could do more than watch—
they will say they have families to feed
while seeing others give everything
to break the chains they pretend to hate—they call this solidarity,
when really,
it’s just another mask
Every liberation in history
was achieved by those who had everything to lose
and fought anyway
But they don’t. Not because they can’t.
Not because it’s impossible,
or they are powerless
But because they are too selfish to try
Because action has a cost,
resistance is inconvenient,
and taking responsibility
means admitting they could have
done something all along
And so, they do nothing
let the world burn around them,
and call it fate
They look at starving children
and feel nothing—they see them
They know they’re real
But is easier to cry for a fictional character—when they see real
suffering,
real agony, real horror,
it doesn’t haunt them
Their emotions are trained. Their grief is performative.
Their sadness is only safe when it is meaningless
They have lost the ability to feel anything deeply
grief, rage, guilt, love—
everything is temporary,
everything is shallow, mechanical
like an algorithm predicting the correct response
They act out mourning in small,
socially acceptable ways.
A post. A hashtag. A single tear
before they move on,
before they entertain themselves,
before they return to their bubble
And that’s the difference
between those who suffer and those who—barely—just watch,
one never stops feeling
the other never truly starts
Because to truly feel,
to truly let the weight of the world hit them, would break them
And they know they are too weak
to survive it
Meanwhile, a child is dying searching for water
Someone else’s family just disappeared—
war is what keeps their economy going, they know all of this
and yet, they sleep peacefully
They laugh. They complain about the most meaningless things.
What kind of mind has the ability
to walk past the dying
and not feel its own sickness?”
The Original can be seen here: Convenience over Conscience
