Winning over the Barbarians

“What are we waiting for, gathered in the market-place? The Barbarians are to arrive today… And now, what will become of us without the Barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.”
~Constantine Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians (1904)

Winning over the Barbarians

What are we waiting for?
 
      The Barbarians have been here.
 
Why is the Senate debating?
Why are the Senators sitting there without legislating?
 
      More Barbarians are coming today.
 
Have the Barbarians been legislating?
 
Why did our President get up so early,
and why is he taking so many calls?
 
      Because more Barbarians are coming today
      and the President is waiting to find out who their leader is.
      He’s got to find out the names,
      loaded with titles, of the Barbarians who have been here, the Barbarians who are coming today, the Barbarians who are coming tomorrow, and those who are becoming Barbarians by welcoming the Barbarians with open arms.
 
Why are our politicians flaunting their mansions and cars?
Why are their net worths growing so fast?
 
      Because more Barbarians are coming today
      and money brings the Barbarians.
 
Why don’t our journalists and pundits comment truthfully instead of say what they have to say?
 
      Because more Barbarians are coming today
      and “their” rhetoric must be heard.
 
Why this gradual bewilderment, this confusion?
(How belligerent people have become.)
Why are the streets and squares filling up so rapidly,
everyone fighting for a cause?
 
      Because night has fallen and the Barbarians have been here.
      And some of our men patrolling the border say
      More Barbarians are coming today.
 
Now what’s going to happen to us surrounded by so many Barbarians?
 
Those people are a kind of problem.
 
The only solution is to win them over,
Lest we be destroyed by “them,”
Or worse,
Lest we become Barbarians ourselves.
 
What are we waiting for?
 
Winning over the Barbarians must happen,
Today.