Amazing how every country in the world has had it’s Empire.
There’s Egypt, of course,
And Rome,
Turkey,
Britain,
France,
Spain,
Those Viking types,
The Greeks (remember them ?)
The Aztecs and Mayans and Incas,
India,
Germany (had a go!),
And no doubt Africa has had its’ conquerors
(Mali, Ghana, Songhai ?),
Japan’s been there,
Persia (Iran),
Crete,
The Arabs
(Whose Islam brought Optics, Music, Medicine, Chemistry, Mathematics, Astronomy
And a civilisation more tolerant even then than Christianity),
China
Russia
And now we’re in Pax America -
So tell me, America, will YOU be leaving behind culture and wisdom,
Or will it be just a string of burnt-out McDonalds in a concrete desert,
A remembrance of arrogance, meddling and indifference
And a world struggling to recover from your foreign affairs ?
Because it’s somebody else’s turn now, Uncle Sam,
And if you’re ever going to do the right thing
(Looking after the world instead of trying to destroy it)
Then you’d better get off your backside and start doing it now.
Every nation has its empire, the equivalent of fifteen minutes of fame.
