A passenger on the bus says… Nothing impresses me. Not the radio, the morning newspapers, Or the fortresses on hills. I long for a weep. The bus driver says: Wait until we reach the station, And weep alone as you can. A lady says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I spoiled my son upon my grave, He enjoyed it and slept without saying goodbye. A university student says: Me neither. Nothing impresses me. I studied archeology without finding An identity in stones. Am I really me? A solider says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I guard a ghost that always haunts me. The angry driver replies: We are close to our last stop, Get ready to leave. They scream: We want what is beyond the station, so go. As for me, I say: Drop me here. I am like them, nothing impresses me. But I am tired from traveling. —Mahmoud Darwish
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51