Law Dispensed With Senseless Zeal

31 cows are all it takes; it is the Sudanese
way of equating justice to a formula that
makes their Law a donkey. I could write
ass but know it takes a swipe with literal

sense whichever way you might pronounce
it. To say a suicide denies the victim’s rights
for after-life and ‘blood money’ only buys a
second chance for six accused tried for a crime

they had no hand in flies surreal in the face of
evidence. But this is Sudan! So think again – where
a Judge declares the autopsy (both of them) were
wrong and doesn’t clear the air on whom to blame.

Death demands a balance; in the absence of choice
the Law decides who lives and dies – an lo, George
Forbes et al, ignites an ancient sense of tribal rite with
justice but a faint lament and only glimmered on

reversed event horizon – all for a price of 31 cows.
George et al, with no appeal until a relative agrees to
dia within the presence of a Law dispensed with
senseless zeal, is innocent for 31 cows but stands
at worst to hang for them.
© 24 May 2007, I.D. Carswell

The utter inanity is expressed much better at this site:

[http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2007/05/southern-sudan-dia-and-george-forbes.html]