Omair @omairahmad@mastodon.social

The tall oak
fell to their axes;
the willows,
so used to bending,
were bent
forcefully.
Now they have come
to us, the weeds,
in their war
on the Green.
We, who are
more root than tree.
They will have to destroy
the earth itself
to rid themselves of us.
See them try,
see them try.

...

of ignoring
whole states
turned into the fire,
of not watching murders
on video.
There must be a number,
a special, special number,
tattooed on the arm
of men and women
still alive,
that can tell us
how much
we must practice
at ignoring
the man murdered
for his moustache,
of an old man
battered to death
in the streets,
just because.
We are educated
now,
scientists even,
learned in both history
and lore.
Surely we can deduce
this magic number,
this engineering
of the human soul.

How much practice
does it take
to look away?
How many millions
of girls aborted,
ignored?
How many wives
'mysteriously' dying
in the blaze
of kerosene?
How many rapes
does it take,
how much torture
in the national interest?
How many pogroms?
How many young men
reduced to ash?
There must be
a maths to it,
a formula,
for not watching
men descend, choking,
into sewers of shit,
of looking away,
every time,
at the beggar child
outside your
airconditioning...

An incredibly important point of why people didn't take Stalinist and Nazi crimes seriously, they thought they were dealing with "normal" states.

"Injustice is the Indian condition, even if the ­Cons­titution promised its exact opposite. In their misery, Muslims became no less Indian than their hundreds of millions of fellow citizens deprived of rights in a state and society that privileges the very few over all others."
https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-shards-of-a-broken-dream/302549

I also wonder how much of the hate is directed at the average policeman because he/she is of a class that many activists cannot be bothered about.

We have to rescue people from the state, some may be irredeemable, but to brand whole institutions as such will lead to nothing except a call to destroy them all.

That, to me, is not a wise road. Others may disagree.

I do not understand the empty virtue of merely hating the police.

The police is a brutal institution, governed by the same rules of procedure put in place by the colonial state. It has been brutal before, it will be brutal again.

While some individuals may be kind or cruel in themselves, the institution itself is designed to be unjust.

For me, hating the average policeman rather than the bringing to account the specific agrressors, is a pointless distraction, just divide and rule.

I put this on the hate site, and received a lot of hate for it.

"Late last night, at police HQ

Me: Bhaisahib, chai kahin milegi?

Cops: Yahan paas nahin, magar khana chahiye toh aap humaare se le lijiye. Hum bhi yahan se nahin, Outer Delhi se aayein.

The police are human too, it is a mad state and bad laws that makes monsters of them."

This was at ITO after the Jamia attack - which was a crime by the state.

I just don't think you can get justice without understanding how the police work.

The sea recedes,
taking with it
all those bright things
bobbing happily
on the surface:
joy, hope, life.
It recedes
and recedes
into a yawning abyss
of despair
littered with all the dead hopes
that never made it
to the shore,
that never will,
and then something comes,
a bird maybe,
or the dream of one,
an omen
I cannot name,
and I rise,
the dread wave
is coming,
the tsunami
is on the way,
but I smile.
I have life.
I will fight.
I will die
right,
damned be the sea,
damned be the sky.

Was it too much,
the strain on our heartstrings,
did we exhaust
the little compassion we had,
were our hearts so small
that we could not imagine
that others had a right
to our love as well?
How did we become
these vicious strangers
living in the same house,
full of bitter invective
and bowed under
failed expectations
and willing to lash out
at the most vulnerable amongst us?
When did we decide
to throw them over the side,
from this ship,
forgetting that they were us?

When did we become
a Republic of such little joy
and so much hate?
Yes, I know,
the darkness
was always there,
the broken children
outside our upturned windows,
the hidden lives
suffocating in the shit streams
of our sewers,
the broken bodies
paving our roads,
but when did we decide
that it was okay
to hate the poor?
When did we accept
that the wages of humiliation
were contempt and rage?
When did we turn
to our shadow,
embrace it,
make it our face?
What happened,
my brother, my sister,
to us?