The Suicide Bomber

Little boy standing at the corner

No one to give him food

No one to teach him to read and write

His only knowledge is manual work

To earn himself a bite to eat

And maybe shoes to put his feet

If someday he gets really lucky.  

You take this boy and give him food

Give him clothes and give him words

Teach him to read and write

Tell him what’s wrong and what’s right

Make him love you like a son

And when you ask him, in return

He’ll become a suicide bomber. 

Daddy’s boy watching his father work

Day and night and robbed of his reward

Watching the rich get richer on his father’s sweat

Watching his mother starve herself and fret

That her children still don’t get enough to eat

That they will never find any kind of job

Wonders what’s wrong with his world.

You take Daddy’s boy to the mosque

Tell him the mosque has the answers

Tell him if he wants he can taste paradise

All this world is sin and vice

All he needs to do is take up the gun

To fight back against evil and injustice

He’ll become a suicide bomber.

Mullah talking to man and wife

Explains their son hasn’t died

Just been translated to another plane

Honours of a martyr to his name

And he will reserve a place in paradise

When their time comes round at last

So they shouldn’t mourn, but rejoice.

Mom and dad sit side by side

Mullah man gone back to the mosque

Wonder where the music’s all gone

Wonder why all this is so wrong

And despite it all they weep

Till they cry themselves to sleep

For their son, the suicide bomber.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2007