A poem by Com Saketh Rajan on the late nigerian journalist,poet and non violent activist Ken Saro Wiwa

The below quoted poem was written by Prem alias Saketh Rajan, the poem was a reaction to the judicial murder of Ken Wiva in the year 1995.

Ken Wiwa,poet Playwright, Fist against Shell oil’s might.

Oil of Ogoniland
Oozes and drains
Rows of cocoa, cassava yam.
Slain hero
Okonko’s hoe
Again lies in vain.

From Lagos to London and Holland
Dollars decorate the road
Like a miracle from an oracle’s wand
Pound and Gilder
Girdle Africa’s ankles and hands.

Torso of Ogoniland
Is riddled by the junta
Flames leap up from the rigs
Fly-ash fills the sky.

Ken,
You were killed
On a cloudy night.

Heavy,
The sky
Wept acid-rain
In the streets and the slums
Courtyards of Prisons
A torrent of tears flooded Nigeria’s terrain.
Ken, sorrow of Agonyland.

Niger,
Deep in your delta there’s oil
It boils;
Fresh in your heart there’s blood
It curdles;
Full in your eyes there’s water
It wells.

Nigeria,
Across your beautiful body
Pipelines crisis cross like veins
Blood circulates as oil.

Ken,
You were courageous
Like Okonko
But not keen.

Poet Playwright
Fist against
Hell’s might.

Like the shattered Okonko
You faltered.
Your fist
Was not clenched
In the fight.

Poems and plays–
They’re fine.
They too are weapons
Landmines
In the pathways of the enemy’s mind.

But Abacha
Was a confirmed butcher
Backed by a John Major
And a no-regret Thatcher.
They rule as not by penning sonnets
But by piercing wombs with bayonets.

When they hung Okonko
Perhaps they did not know.
When the Ogonis were shot
It didn’t register a spot.
Anger, you gulped and swallowed
As you walked up the gallows.

But,
It was a lesson
You learned too late.

Your pen
Playwright
Should’ve been backed
By the gun, alright.

Viva Ken,
Poet,
playwright
Wake up
Its past night
Your corpse sleeps in the coffin
Your spirit fills the air.
Stab the heart
That pumps out oil,
Shell the brain
That causes the drain,
Avenge the Saros of humankind.

This poem was written in memory of Ken Saro Wiva, who was a poet playwright and an environmental activist from Nigeria, Africa.

Ken Saro Wiwa(October 10, 1941 – November 10, 1995)

Ken was born in Nigeria in 1941 and he studied in the University of Ibadan. He was hanged by the regime of Nigeria lead by Abacha in the year 1995 (10th of November) though he was not proved guilty of being responsible for the death of four people during the march taken on the eve of world labor day that year.

Ken was an environmental activist who fought for the cause of Ogoni people in Nigeria who were being affected by the multinational Shell Oil Company who had set up their business in Nigeria with the help of the Nigerian regime.

Ken Viva had authored A Forest of Flowers (1987) which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1985), Basi and Company: A Modern African Folktale (1987) and Prisoner of Jebs (1988). His collection of poems is titled Songs in a Time of War (1985) His play Basi and Company became a long running television comedy series of eighty episodes.

In January 1993 MOSOP(a organisation Ken headed) organized peaceful marches of around 300,000 Ogoni people – more than half of the Ogoni population – through four Ogoni centers, drawing international attention to his people's plight. The same year, Shell ceased operations in the Ogoni region, while the Nigerian government occupied the region militarily.

Saro-Wiwa was arrested again and detained by Nigerian authorities in June 1993, but was released after a month. In May 1994, he was arrested and accused of incitement to murder following the deaths of four Ogoni elders. Saro-Wiwa denied the charges, but was imprisoned for over a year before being found guilty and sentenced to death by a specially convened tribunal, during which nearly all of the defendants' lawyers resigned in protest to the trial's cynical rigging by the Abacha regime.

The resignation of the legal teams left the defendants to their own means against the tribunal, which continued to bring witnesses to testify against Saro-Wiwa and his peers, only for many of these supposed witnesses to later admit they had been bribed by the Nigerian government to support the criminal allegations. The trial was widely criticised by human rights organisations and half a year later, Ken Saro-Wiwa received the Right Livelihood Award for his courage as well as the Goldman Environmental Prize

Very few observers were surprised when the tribunal declared a "guilty" verdict, but most were shocked that the penalty would be death by hanging for all nine defendants. However, many were skeptical that the executions would actually occur, as the Nigerian government would face international outrage and possible sanctions and other legal action should the penalties be carried out.

But on 10 November 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP leaders (the "Ogoni Nine") were executed by hanging at the hands of military personnel. According to most accounts, Ken was the last person to be hanged and thus forced to watch the death of his colleagues. Information on the circumstances of Saro-Wiwa's own death are unclear, but it is generally agreed that multiple attempts were required before the hanging finally brought Saro-Wiwa to his end.

Via Crazymindseye


Strange..

Both were journalists,writers and took very different paths yet both of them are dead today.

Moral of the Story - ????

R.I.P Lal Singh Dil

Ironically Lal Singh died yesterday - the 15th August 2007.He was 63 years old.


Jo ladna nahi jaande
Jo ladna nahi chohnde
Wo gulam bana liye jaande ne - Lal Singh dil

(Those who do not know how to fight
Those who do not want to fight
They are turned into slaves) - Lal Singh dil

He was the first member of his low-caste family to finish school. At university, he turned activist and joined the far left Naxalite movement. He used to run a highway tea-stall at Samrala, Punjab, and wrote one-line poems to be painted on the back of long-haul trucks

Lal singh Dil is no more

Dil was heart of Punjabi poetry
Voice of the poor, he was soft yet powerful
Amrita Chaudhry

Ludhiana, August 15: As 63-year-old Lal Singh Dil breathed his last at Dayanand Medical College and Hospital last night after a brief hospitalisation, an era of revolutionary Punjabi poetry ended.

With him, Punjabi poetry lost one of its brightest gems. Born and brought up in Samrala, Dil was the voice of the poorest of the poor.

Having faced the worst forms of oppression in name of casteism, Dil found poetry an outlet of his pain.

His four works, Naglok, Bahut Sare Suraj, Sathar and Satluj Dee Hawa, are regarded as Punjabi classics.

Sarod Sudip, a well-known Punjabi poet and a close friend of Dil, says, "He was the most honest amongst all Punjabi poets. We all have egos but he was a man who was very humble. His elevated the level of Punjabi poetry."

Sudip remembers, "Each time we had a poetic gathering, we prayed that Dil should not participate as his renditions would make all other works look little. Even in his anger, he had softness. Though he was a contemporary of Paash and both vented their anger against oppression, when Dil wrote, the words hit more, for he was polite, yet firm."

Dr Sutinder Singh Noor, well-known Punjabi critic, says, "Dil was a soft poet. His anger would never harm others but motivate to bring about the needed social change. There are some of his poems in which he talks of violence, but as a critic and having read most of Dil's works, I would say that part is miniscule. Dil is a part of the great Punjabi poetry brigade comprising Paash, Harbhajan Halwarvi, Surjit Patar and Amitoj."

All those who met Dil during their lifetimes could never get over his charm, as Nirupama Dutt, a poet and journalist, recalls, "I remember translating two of Dil's short poems way back in 1979 for a magazine called 'Springthunder'. Amarjit Chandan, who is Dil's friend and fan, gave me this task. I had not met Dil, as at that time he was underground for being an active naxalite. And finally in 1993, I got a chance to spend some time with him when I offered him and Sarod Sudip lift from Jalandhar to Samrala. I had never seen a man so very chivalrous and charming as Dil. He was honest to the core, bereft of dirty politics, and very sensitive."

Dutt adds, "In April this year, we did a musical on one of his poems."

Indianexpress

Tags: Lal singh dil, dead, naxalite, poet, maoist, punjab, jalander, spring thunder

Faiz on Freedom

This one comes from Pranav Jani over at ScarletGuju. He writes:

“Subh-e Azad” (“Dawn of Freedom”) by the brilliant Urdu Marxist poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, best expresses to me the sense of tragedy and possibility of 1947 for ordinary people caught in the worldwind of historical events: an independence brokered through ethnic cleansing, refugee crisis, communalism, rape, and horrors of partition.

An excellent counterpoint–ideologically and symbolically–to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous “Tryst With Destiny” speech, “Subh-e Azad” reminds us, on this 60th anniversary of Indian/Pakistani independence, that while we all must keep seeking the “dawn of freedom,” today’s South Asian dawn for nuclear testers and global corporations, for car-owners and the wealthy with their bloated bank accounts while farmers commit suicides and poverty rates rise–this is not really what freedom was supposed to be about.
But pay attention to the last line: this is not just about despair…

“Dawn of Freedom” (August 1947)

–Faiz Ahmed Faiz,
translated from the Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali

These tarnished rays, this night-smudged light–

This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,

we had set out in sheer longing,

so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored

a final haven for the stars, and we would find it.
We had no doubt that night’s vagrant wave would stray towards the shore

that the heart rocked with sorrow would at last reach its port.

Friends, our blood shaped its own mysterious roads.

When hands tugged at our sleeves, enticing us to stay,

and from wonderous chambers Sirens cried out

with their beguiling arms, with their bare bodies,

our eyes remained fixed on that beckoning dawn,

forever vivid in her muslins of transparent light.

Our blood was young–what could hold us back?

Now listen to the terrible rampant lie:

Light has forever been severed from the Dark;

our feet, it is heard, are now one with their goal.

See our leaders polish their manner clean of our suffering:

Indeed, we must confess only to bliss;

we must surrender any utterance for the Beloved–all yearning is outlawed.

But the heart, the eye, the yet deeper heart–

Still ablaze for the Beloved, their turmoil shines.

In the lantern by the road the flame is stalled for news:

Did the morning breeze ever come? Where has it gone?

Night weighs us down; it still weighs us down.

Friends, come away from this false light.

Come, we must search for that promised Dawn.

leftyprof

Tags: Faiz, ahmed, faiz, poetry, false, independence