This is a topical piece on the state of Pakistani politics by Freddie. See what you make of it. Feel free to comment on the metaphors, the syntax, the rhyme and the analogies. What, if anything, particularly struck you about this poem?
There once was a man
He created a land called Pakistan.Soon came a landlord
Wealth innumerable he would hoard.Then came a lady, self-appointed messiah,
Preaching virtue, succumbing to desire.Along stroll a portly chap,
Into a self-generated power trap.A generalissimo followed therein,
All common sense gone down the bin.
All the while, many a talented soul came.
All the while, too much of the same.How I wonder, in a nation so promising,
Could meritocracy only hollowly ring?Take us back in time, maybe we can forget.
Turn a different corner, all these despots never met.This unholy cartel that is a beast,
Unimaginable affront to that soothsayer of the East.This unlearned ragged rabble,
Bombarding us with psychobabble.A reputation of a nation stained,
Relentless madness unexplained.There was a man who made us proud,
A man who never followed the crowd.Surging ahead he left the baton,
Half the battle he had won.Too many pretenders now there are,
Too many unworthies who would be czar.Emperors we have ad nauseum,
Visionaries alas, rarer than platinum.Yet all across the land, from Larkana to Jhelum,
Shrieks out the emphatic demand:
Fiat justicia ruet caelum.
Freddie: Great poem. I don’t know much about poetry, but it seems like everything falls into place - the rhyme, the syntax, the metaphors and the analogies.
More importantly, the content acuurately portrays my thoughts about the current situation. We’ve tried many different things from landlords to industrialists to generals, but nothing has really worked.
I love the way you end it with the one thing that almost all Pakistanis demand - Justice!
For those who are not sure what the last line means, it is in latin meaning:
Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall.
Nevertheless, there is not much I can add to what you have talked about in your poem. Beautifully expressed.
Like many young Pakistanis, Freddie is a bit sketchy on Pakistani history.
Long after Pakistan’s creation –in fact a full ten years — Pakistan was led by decent men, the founding generation of the country, compnaions of Quaid-e-Azam. Then came the Field Marshal and his idea of military-guided governance.
Ziaul Haq ans his militart successors have made sure that we all end up believing Pakistan never had good choices. So we tend to jump from the foundation of the country to ZAB’s government, without regard for how rule of law was trampled to make way for converting Pakistan into an American protectorate ruled by the military.
The military has occasionally shared power with flawed politicians but very smartly made us hate its creations (ZAB, Nawaz Sharif, the Chaudhries these days)to a point where we don’t even focus on the Khaki role in running the country into dust (Khak mein milana).
Wasiq’s comments, honestly speaking, make no sense at all. Even worse, they are nebulous in merit.
Firstly, there is an irritatingly and unjustifiably condescending tone in his opening line. The implicit boast that Wasiq himself is some transcendent wizened sage who knows better is an empty boast, judging by the acute lack of foresight and cogency in Wasiq’s other numerous and oft analytically forgettable posts on Micropakistan.
Second, my Pakistani history is not sketchy as Wasiq would have you believe. As a matter of fact, I spent a year studying Pakistani history under Dr. Bettina Robotka in Berlin, Germany’s top expert on Pakistan affairs (she is mentioned numerous times in Dawn newspaper). The fact of the matter is, if Wasiq would kindly indulge his aesthetic sense, poetry is about vivid images. That is hard to do for the Quaid’s companions. Yes, they were decent. But how many ordinary Pakistanis remember them much, apart perhaps from Liaquat? It’s hard to have vivid images of the faces that time forgot. That’s why the line is “All the while, many a talented soul came./All the while, too much of the same.”
Third, “ZAB, Nawaz Sharif, the Chaudhries these days” didn’t need the military’s help in exposing their petty parochialism and lack of sincere ‘hamdardi’ for the ‘aam log’ of Pakistan. That’s why no one talks of the “Bhutto” or “Sharif” legacy- there is none. So all Wasiq’s murmurs about a supposed military conspiracy theory to actively undermine their own stooges is a red herring at best.
“Ziaul Haq ans [sic] his militart [sic] successors have made sure that we all end up believing Pakistan never had good choices.” No, we enact our own fault lines. We believe we never had good choices not because Zia told us, but because that it the long and short of it. For all the talk of ZAB as the next Jinnah, all that ZAB’s sermon of thunder did was to tell us how close the storm was that he had brought. And unlike Buddha when he first heard the thunder, he neither gave, nor sympathized, or even properly controlled.
But by all means Wasiq, if you can write a better poem, please do post it up on Micropakistan. And unlike you, I will show myself capable of giving an appreciation of it’s literary merits as a piece of poetry, something you were wholly incapable of with mine.