Villages burned to the ground.
Mass gang rapes.
Genocide in Myanmar.
In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,
close to a million Rohingya find refuge.
Among them, Unia,
a proud mother of four.
Today, a mother of two.
Her shelter,
two blankets tied with ropes
held by twigs.
She looks at the camera,
wonders if anyone cares.
Canada listens, responds.
In a unanimous vote,
the House of Commons
passes a motion
to revoke Aung San Suu Kyi’s
honorary citizenship.
Carleton University
even strips her
of honorary doctorate.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
