Ideal of the Refugee - edit

[dukealien]

edit;


What dreams call refugees to flee old homes
for hope of welcome in America?

Those yearning for fresh enclaves featuring
their own tribe with its language, and their chiefs
dispensing wealth Americans will grant
must be denied as no true refugees–
mere colonists who won’t assimilate
but circle closed minds under foreign flags.

Those driven by grim nightmares of contempt,
minorities by race and history
whom native lands revile and dispossess
may be admitted as true refugees,
become Americans, fit in, befriend,
revere its faith in full equality.

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Another reboot, with thanks to @busker for the critique.  The previous version had a stanza (later removed) characterizing the non-assimilable emigrants as colonists; when that theme was carried over to the one about valid refugees it looked ironic rather than comparative.  So here it's only in its proper place (though I think the idea of a good new American colonizing himself has merit, it needs more preparation).  "Colonist" is another woke hate-word and I do mean to rub it in,  with justification.

On the road to beautification, blank verse seemed like a possible halfway house between free verse and Kipling-esque rhyme.  I considered throwing in "voortrekker" and "lager" in characterizing immigrants who won't assimilate, but that seemed a little too on-the-nose.  And Musk is gone.

Talk about irony!  Ramaphosa and his ANC want to bind those sons to serve the Party's and the Race's needs, alright, and don't you dare lay down that white man's burden, you owe us, you owe us, your debt can never be repaid!  If the Afrikaners leave, the lights go out for good and the waterworks never run again.  Then who would be willing to rebuild such a place?  Well, I can think of one country who'd do it for the mineral rights... not sure how the ANC would like being  local frontmen in a Chinese... colony.

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For @RiverNotch - the BBC might have been more convincing if they'd picked someone other than a hopeful tour guide to shill the ANC line.  Which is along the lines of, "it's all lies, and we're only seizing their land to equalize property, and we kill more of our own people than we do of them, so what's their beef?"   I can't help recalling "A Bend in the River" where a man was seen to run  ahead of the African Big Man's entourage to intercept all curses and bad luck.  "And the man was white."  Naipaul knew the drill.