Suicide Nation

This is how you commit suicide.

First, you decide that your neighbour is not human,
Worthy only of your contempt.
Having succesfully dehumanised your brother,
You then exclude him from jobs and self-respect,
Stripping his dignity to the raw-bloodied bone.

Next, you go hard - not soft -
And resist his inevitable reaction,
Tightening down the screws,
Destroying all that he believes in,
Showing - in every way -
Your superiority.

Now you realise that you have unleashed a whirlwind,
And are too shame-faced and bolshy to back down.
In your stupidity you must go forever forwards,
Destroying all that is importantFor the sake of your own self-image.

As your soul begins to corrode
Your voice gets ever shriller
And your self-justification ever louder.
Your brother is now causing all your pain,
And therefore it is your brother's fault,
And nothing to do with you.

As you descend into self-contempt
And a louder, brasher outside that hides
The trembling, fearful inside
You elect a hard-faced mass murderer
Who will hide your shame in simple certainties
And loud, heroic deeds.

Now you must destroy, destroy, destroy,
Because there is no backing down from your hardness
Which is your certainty
Which is all that you have left
In an uncertain world.

First you destroy the infrastructure of your brother's land,
So that he must look to you - with loathing -
For jobs and food,
And this in turn feeds your utter contempt.

Then you murder -
Loudly proclaiming your 'war on terrorism' -
All the minor leaders in your brother's government,
Thinking that this will destroy your brother,
When all it does is make every individual
Their own leader.

Finally you destroy all your brother's law-enforcement apparatus,
Thinking this will render him impotent,
When all it does is render you impotent,
For now you have a lawless
Leaderless
Angry mob
With nothing left to lose
Looking down the long barrels of your guns.

Unsurprisingly, your actions have now driven hatred
Deeper
Into the heart of your brother and his family,
And you must now reap
What you have sown.

You can now murder your way
Through every one of your brother's family,
His close friends,
And then his friends across the water -
Or you can sit down and reason.

Unfortunately your leader is beyond reason,
Which is why you elected him (For his moral certainty)
And he would rather destroy his own nation and the world
Than lose face.

Your suicide is nearly complete.
It awaits only the actions of one maddened general,
And then it will be done.