Political Prisoner by Jean Arasanayagam
for Steve Biko and others (1985)
In a prison cell
he lies dead
when did it happen?
we were all asleep.
It was somewhere towards dawn
we did not hear
his silent scream
or grating whimper
he died alone
who mourned
was it a person or a nation?
In a prison cell he died
his breath twisting round the bars
no one sat by him
although a multitude stood outside
in a prison cell
he died we read it
the next morning
in the papers
in cold dead print
perhaps you passed it by
he died alone quite alone
in his prison cell
four walls a roof
locked doors and little else.
You’d be in there too
but you wear masks you’re clever
at disguise you’d rather not.
in order to be safe, speak out your
thoughts aloud,
you don’t want bullets passing
through your ribs to burst your lungs.
let others spill their blood and wound their flesh
your lips in silence clamp down tight
guns continue to splutter
bombs go off
if you step from the forest
onto the road in pools of blood
you’ll slither.
But look the hangman’s noose
drops lower, it’s a ring of rope
that slowly tightens round your neck
snaps the bone,
watch it coming
swinging closer
do you recognize that face?
cry out in recognition?
he is one of yours.
Is he the friend
and you the foe?
Jean Arasanayagam was a Sri Lankan poet and fiction writer. She wrote her works in English. The theme in her work was ethnic and religious turmoil in Sri Lanka. Jean Arasanayagm had experienced the ethnic turmoil in the country and captured the feelings of victims of that in her poems. She seems to try drawing parallels between the tragic assassination of Steve Biko with the similar incidents happen in Sri Lanka during that grim period of time.
Bantu Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. On August 18, 1977, he and a fellow activist were seized at a roadblock and jailed in Port Elizabeth. Biko was found naked and shackled outside a hospital in Pretoria, 740 miles (1,190 km) away, on September 11 and died the next day of a massive brain hemorrhage.
She seems trying to wake up a sleeping nation to speak against the human right violations. She accuses the people who turn their blind eyes to the injustice happening in a country. She calls them people in disguise in order to save themselves from death. Indirectly, she accuses such people cowards and opportunists who yield the benefits of others sacrifices. She warns people who keep their senses shut like three wise monkeys. She asks to stand with the people who stand against injustice or else, you will be the next one to face the devil’s face of injustice.
Though Jean Arasanayagam had written the poem about a past incident, it has the universal value as political prisoners still give their life in order to give a better world to the others. Her poem is an eye opener to the world to protect the people who try to make the world a better place.
May this post be a tribute to the heroes who selflessly sacrificed their lives for a better tomorrow. May this post be a strength to people who stand against injustice and raise their voice against human right violations.
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