respect


how can you possibly ask for respect
for something you didn't achieve
by your own hands

respect for a certain country
respect for a certain religion
respect for a certain tradition

just by historical and geographical chance
you turned out to be Musa, Moshe or Moses
and you do not eat cows, pigs or shrimps
with sticks, fork and knife or your right hand

somewhere somebody sometime
would have a healthy laugh at you

and there is nothing wrong with that
if you just manage to accept
that everybody is living
in his or her own strange way and place
neither way being one and best
or grounded on a higher truth

choose and enjoy
your private decisions
if you have any
and spare the world asking
to bow down before your personal deity



25.10.2002