Hillol Ray

PEACE: THE TOUCHSTONE OF LASTING HUMANITY

In my memory lane, I can vaguely remember
That perfect justice has rarely accompanied peace on Earth –
‘Cause oppressive regimes have directed hardship
Towards the oppressed through the sanctions’ hearth!
They have enriched themselves by increasing
Their political powers over too many years –
And rewarded their cronies while punishing the opponents
Through starvations or death fears!
War crimes and crimes against humanity are brutal episodes
That have shaken up the recent global peace –
Followed by wars, terrorism, and armed conflicts,
Causing the ripple effects daily that we can afford to miss!

Every day we wake up to carry on our daily chores,
But for strange reasons, we seem to feel uneasy –
‘Cause we have to enter a world full of problems,
With images of death and destruction, to keep us busy!
People are being clubbed, stabbed, shot at,
And burnt alive to occupy the media and our mind –
While the accounting of casualties rings a bell of distrust
Over insane reality that we tend to find!
It happens quietly and mercilessly in the countries
That we have never heard of or visited before –
And over there, men in uniform perform their tasks
Of indiscriminate killings more and more!
The History teacher, trying to explain culture of peace,
Dialogue, and respect for diversity of a democratic rule –
Gets packed in a plane and sent to villages
Of “unpronounceable” names to face the slaughter tool!
People are being drafted and commissioned to make war
Before they even learn properly to think –
And at times, they are being cajoled into committing
Atrocities, or getting killed in the process to sink!

Waging war is an abomination coming from the past,
And peace is the fundamental human rights –
While the culture of open dialogue, and respect
For our fellow men, be promoted with real foresights!
In “H-Ray Vision”, modern war is a connection
To our cannibalistic past, and nonetheless a shameful deed –
And it’s promoted as a show of strength and power
From richer nations to the poor to plant the conflict seed!
Sometimes I wonder, if cannibalism was exulted
By electoral campaigners, what would be the outcome?
In our civilization of third millennium, surely the voters
Would reject them to wash away the sadness scum!
War is only a show of foolishness with madness,
And we ought to “graduate” as men to please the gods –
And in order to be men, we have to understand
And love justice, like ancient Greeks, to get “Their” nods!
So, as long as we keep waging the absurd wars,
We are not worthy of calling ourselves as civilized men –
Like the Nazi leaders, who plunged the world into wars
And chaos, have been despised by history to erase the pain!

The present leaders who preach the gospel of war
Will inexorably fall in the waste bin of history page –
As no one will dare now to name his or her children
As Hitler [1] or Goering [2] to amaze!
Their rigid thinking, appealing to basic instincts,
Was pushed through a relentless repetition of lie –
While they presented themselves as common men,
Interested in helping the workingmen, till they die!
But tactfully they represented only the powerful cliques
And divided the world in us –
Like the ones worth richness and life, and the others
Worth enslaving or death, without any fuss!
They spoke of peace, the touchstone of lasting humanity,
But waged war, and the fools acclaimed them as their hero –
And even followed their paths towards crime
And self-destruction with a tolerance zero!

Through “H-Ray vision” and “Hillolscope”, I manage to see
That we are repeating the history over and over again –
‘Cause men have not really learnt to abhor war,
Or that the right to peace is our human rights, not in vain!
We have not learnt yet to recognize how astute leaders
Can fool the people to stay in power –
And manipulate their minds to achieve
Cannibalistic frenzy from their palace or ivory tower!
The destruction of other human beings
And sacrifice of own lives become imminent for sure –
While the Hitler-Goering Syndrome runs rampant
In a hurry for the common men to endure!

Crazy leaders, psychopathic leaders, and deceiving leaders
Seem to be abound in every society now –
And they are producing the malady of war, the ultimate
Mental disease, with an extinction vow!
Unfortunately, no prevention, no vaccine, and no cure
Have yet been devised against this abysmal thought –
And we, the humanity, will be the victims of lethal frenzy;
Instead of learning from wars that we already fought!!