In deserts born where tyrants preach and cloisters breed the chain,
A creed was carved with iron tongues to weld the soul to pain;
They wrote their laws with women’s blood and sealed the courts with stone,
Then crowned the lash, entombed the lamp, and made the house a throne.
Where once the veil of modesty was cloth and not a cage,
Now walls rise high to blot the face and smother youth and age.
The window bricked, the whisper banned, the breath beneath the yoke,
And silence falls like funeral snow where once the daughters spoke.
But lo! across the salted sea where Magna Carta dwelled,
Where parchment throned the freeman’s rights and tyrants once were felled,
A murmured call from foreign courts now stirs in polished halls,
A softened voice, a veiled plea, to raise the Crescent’s walls.
"Let law be plural," scholars urge, "let cultures shape the land,”
Yet who shall plead for woman’s will, or take the maid’s cold hand?
For when the cleric’s writ invades and Custom trumps the Crown,
The sword returns, the lights go out, and woman’s voice goes down.
Recall, O land of Boudicca, how bondage came in peace,
How honeyed words and golden coins made firm the grip of Greece.
So now beneath the Minaret, a whisper wears a grin:
“Why fight the law, let faith decide what counts as crime or sin.”
But freedom forged in martyr’s flame and paid in bloody coin
Cannot be bound to tribal creeds nor let its foe rejoin.
For every inch that Albion yields to those who veil the sun
Is one more nail in woman’s fate, one more false war begun.
Where are the sisters robed in cause who once defied the rod?
Where march the crowds who cried for rights and chanted loud for God?
The square is bare, the posters gone, the microphones are still,
And all that stirred for paper straws is mute at Kabul’s will.
Their silence rings, a steepled hush, not wrought from lack of care,
But cowardice, that foul disease which kills the heart of dare.
They fear to speak, lest names be cast, or "phobe" be stamped on skin,
So truth is chained, while Afghan girls are sealed and starved within.
O Albion, fair Albion, forget not who you are,
Not birthed by crescent, mosque, or shrine, but under northern star.
Your mothers fought, your daughters rose, your sisters bled for grace,
Not to retreat behind the veil, nor yield the public place.
Let no imam, no council sly, no woke or weak decree
Exchange your shield for fettered peace or turn your soil unfree.
For law is not a market stall where every voice may trade,
But citadel, where Justice sits and Freedom holds her blade.
So raise the bell and bar the gate to codes that breed the chain,
And hold the line where Right was drawn through flood and fire and pain.
Let no more inch be given o'er to creeds that scorn the dame,
For every mosque where silence rules may bear a deeper shame.
Be kind to all, but clear and firm where liberties are pressed,
For not all cloth is woven kind, and not all laws are blessed.
A state that yields to tyranny abroad will taste it near,
So cast out law that veils the eye,and make your vision clear.
(By John Shenton)