Birth
The piercing cries ..... eclipsing silence
Savouring the breaths of nature
The joy of deliverance
The ray of hope
To etch the future
Yes, these fragile beings thoroughly blessed
... with pure innocence of universal unity
These heavenly sparks of humanity
Exploding into two ... the polarity of earthly spirits
Bursting again into thousand contradictions
.... the very essence of life to be
The expectations of yet to come
Provoke these humble beings
To harness such lingering earthly energies
To grow and to glow as one universal family
Youth
Searching for the elusive truth ... the lasting dream
Fathoming the uncharted identity called "self"
Glimpsing the future with awed silence
Seeking guidance from placid history
But their solemn guardians
Trapped by intellectual apathy
Bickering to condition society
Wreck havoc .. for these young ones
Religion of hope shattered by warped religiosity
Democracy moulded .. rationalizing society
Swooping shamelessly to the tune of profitable justice
To bury development in ever confusing directions
Yet youth rebelled
Braving the uncharted dream
Seeking lessons from demented realities
Wishing to penetrate this hostile future
Adulthood
Seeking and flirting ... for glory and fame
Compromises upon compromises .. to redefine realities
Is this the language of opportunists ? or
A phrase of mature strategists ? or merely
Another word for desperate escape artists !!!
But then we are reminded. these spectral hues of contradictions
Are but one of the same .. of contending polar extremes
Penetrating the hidden agenda of political patronage
Laced with oppression, exploitation and manipulations
Compressing humanity into the bins of historical obscurity
Clinging desperately to the decaying culture of capitalism
Yet options remain .. the giant step forward
Yet we appeal for compassion and sanity
Yet they declare war on mother nature
To decorate the privileged few
Yet they are troubled by the conscience of youth
Unbending in simplicity .. to forge a better future
So the adults invoke the wisdom of uncertainty
A legacy of passivity
Merely to subvert humanity and inquiry
But the never ending question continue to reverberate
Of untold stories tormenting anger, misery, humiliation and fear
"Who should bell the cat ?" says the profound ones
Deliberations upon deliberations upon deliberations
Whilst the loved ones wallow in poverty, helplessness
And untimely deaths
Silence stabbed from all sides
Where is the unity that we brag far too long ?
Where is the ideology that we proudly usher
....to harmonize these universal beings ?
Silence ravaged from all fronts
So be it
With you ... without you ... or inspite of you
This struggle rages on ... in ever fiery circles
Transcending time and overshadowing boundaries
Lamentations upon lamentations
Sighing ... What if ! .. If only ! .. Maybe ! .. But then !
Yes .. the dreaded curse caressing infantile minds
Bragging over untruths .. half truths
Upstaging the inquiring minds
To worship wishful thinking
Stumbling graciously into intellectual senility
While grieving over lost youth and pampered scenarios
Deaths abruptly stake their claims
Whisking away these babbling fools of lost ideals
Death
A moment of silence
Tears dramatized
A call cries out to the dead
"Where have you been all these years?
I traveled through time .. to seek your wisdom
Only to see your footsteps leading nowhere
Why didn't you stand up and say NO !
When things were bad .. so bad .. so unforgiving ?"
The dead remained silent and the living lost for words
Yes ... mother nature snatched you away
Trying to reconcile your absurd being
Salvaging the universal essence .. that you led astray
This time when history betrays the struggle
The young ones will pick up the pieces to remould humanity
A grain of idealism
A dash of aggression
A sprinkle of experience and
A streak of reflective wisdom
To turn the wheels of change
...growing to the rhythms of universal truth
.. from the voices of toiling masses
To unite the thousand contradictions
... a blessing from heaven and earth
... the very essence of life to be
nasir
October 27th. 1997
10 years after Operasi Lalang
(ISA- Detention Without Trial)
Mr. Nasir Hashim, a PhD holder in nutrition, was the former Chairperson of the Urban Settlers Movement in Malaysia, former President of the Academic Staff Association of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and former Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the university. He was imprisoned under the ISA for 15 months, and had been arrested several times.