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In this age, we no longer know
Who the hunter nor the hunted is By Azly Rahman
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http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/
[to be read in solitude]
O' enlightened ones
Let us retreat to the cave, this very moment
For the State is going mad, this nation asunder
Plagued with this mental condition that debilitates
In high places these secret deals they skillfully orchestrate
Whilst the masses are made to eat dirt
and toil till their back hurts
and their dignity for sale in a Zimbabwean marketplace
and fed with the ongoing saga of oil price rising
and promises of change-a-coming
Let us move forth, the poor and the dispossessed and all
beyond the hypocrisy of this cult of Hadhari and all
or the pledge of allegiance of a Fourth July a-coming
or on a Berjaya Times Square the masses a congregating
beyond the hypocrisy of those screaming and yelling amidst confetti falling
More than just a night of fireworks in the sky, adorning,
Of drag racing,
Of disco-dancing
Of well-wishing
Of drunk-driving
Of stories of sodomy
Of our nation's frontal lobotomy
Of moles and plants a-plenty
Of mass anger and panic of a state of emergency
And next, another year of national forgetting
… a nation in amnesia we are made to be in
Let us not forget what must lie ahead
As we retreat to the "cave"
As we battle this Kafka-esque political wave
In a wasteland of sound bytes and cyber-terrorism
In this cave
Let us think of shadows on its wall
Of those chained
Between maya and sangsara
Between epicureanism and hedonism
as philosophy
In-between the pauses of these secret conversation of Arjuna and Krishna
In the battlefield of Kurukshetra
And to reflect upon the "doctrine of reminiscence"
As the ancient prophet of the Greek hath once said
As he drank the hemlock in honor of what had to be said
In the name of supreme knowledge, over the abyss of ignorance
We are drunk… from the river of forgetfulness we drinketh, intoxicated thence, our consciousness asunder
In this cave we congregate
And begin to look at this Reality we have constructed
Inside and outside of us as we are made to become cogs
in the wheels of Industry
played up by the propaganda we are fed with daily
through the system that knows not justice, wisdom, knowledge, nor human security
Inside and outside of us we build Neon Gods and bow down to these
and their creators
Inside of us we have become these Gods
How must we destroy these from within
So that we will be at one with the Self
in its entirety?
In the cave we must contemplate
The nature of perpetual revolution we must initiate
We can no longer wait
This revolution that must begin with the mind and end with the mind
And in-between these we gather all those amongst us
Those not yet intoxicated by the fireworks displays nor the hypocrisy of celebrating
Against the backdrop of world's poor suffering
And in between these-- come forth will those be in full force
to bring this corrupt system down its knees
From inside of us, into the outside of this
So that the world within
the world outside
unites
… a revolt that must begin with the end in mind
In this age, we no longer know
Who the hunter nor the hunted is
We have become one
We have become the cause of things asunder
Our bhodi our bhakti detached in a cycle of life we no longer see
In this cave
We are one
We are many
We are the powerful and the powerless and we are once the power abusers
We speak the language of Nature
Of one that will bring down this world of Material Culture
Of one that will rewrite our History
So that the past will be closer to our Primordial Nature
So that the future will be close to our Heart's desire
This will be our cave, for this fleeting moment
In it we will speak of Politics and Culture in its most Ideal nature
So that we may speak of The Culture of Vultures outside this cave
this vulture culture that is corrupting Human Nature
making the rich filthier
the poor poorer, trampled upon much easier
fed with crumbs from cigar-smoking ultra-nationalist screaming double-speaking politicians
This will be our cave, our solitude away from the maddening crooks
Wherein we no longer speak of the national economy
Calibrated by statistical lies only, trumpeted globally
In fine imitation of the language of composite indexes and Standards and Poor
And how bulls and bears will roam the streets running amuck
to the tune of the velocity of money
as currencies move globally creating national tragedies
as barrels of oil give rise to bourgeoisie armed with double-barreled ideology of
progress and national security
as recession breeds depression breeds desperation breeds desolation breeds revolutions
This cave will be our place, in it we seek solace from the ills of the marketplace
Wherein we no longer speak of how many billions and gold bullions we will need
To prop up the next emperor with a kris
Nor a place wherein we talk about curbing corruption
Whereas we ourselves are too corrupt to curb ourselves
In this cave
There shall be no fireworks to burn
There shall be no slogans to fog the timid mind of the people we govern
There shall be no strategies of deception and intrigues of politics to renew
There shall be no plans of monopolizing the prime media to honor
the Neon Gods anew
In this cave
There shall be dialogue our politics and pedagogy once knew
There shall be conversations around the idea of:
Who should rule?
Why should we be ruled?
What is a just government?
When does a government become ineffective, abusive, oppressive,
and tyrannical?
and what then must we do?
Must investment bankers become emperors?
Must future leaders ally with global corporate raiders?
Must we disobey unjust laws?
How must we learn to question authority?
How must our children be taught?
How must their intelligence be respected?
Must these young minds be developed by State-conditioned educators?
How must we stop the decay in our universities?
How must we reclaim its prosperity and recapture its dignity?
And vote out those who rule with arrogance and intellectual brutality
What is an ideal society, a perfect government, a philosopher ruler
How might we create a messiah out of wisdom and virtue?
How might we make these possible?
Through a revolution of Pure Reason
That will overthrow governments run by robber barons
This will be our cave
As what Socrates once spoke of
In which Muhammad found illuminations in
In which Lao Tzu would had also once retreated to
Let us all go back to the cave
Let us first make our way to the mountains
There is no mountain high enough
Come into our cave---
Educators, university professors, Vice Chancellor, students, activists, enlightened politicians, social workers, farmers, rubber tappers, fishermen, doctors, lawyers, judges, engineers, entertainers, religious leaders, military officers, artists, artisans, musicians, comedians, petty traders, currency traders, multimedia producers, princes and princesses, schoolchildren, …
Come into our cave---
Revolt we must against the Gods
of Materials Culture and Political Vultures
Who reign through the Divine Right of Kings
Reigned through Hidden Terror
Mandated by the Modern State it Legitimates
Through the use of The Ideological State Apparatuses it Finely Decorates
So that the Masses will be cleverly subjugated
Let us, when we are ready, come out of the cave---
To create a radically new social order
For—this world is too much for us.
But we are not merely a speck of dust
We have choices. And evolve. we must. In this radical scheme of things
With Fate conspiring we must Desire
Get out of our cave, let us now
Onwards to the march of this and that
We do not have anything more to lose
We have lost our souls
Peddled by demons dressed in deceptions
dancing in circles worshiping diamonds and deals worth billions
arming the army with criminals against humanity
To this matrix we build
Out of bread and circuses crafted by ever-smiling dictators
hiding behind invisible walls
parading power and madness, guns and roses
in a panopticon and synopticon of a world we built
in this Despotic State in which we are hungry
... because they have guns
... and they have guns ... therefore
we are hungry
Our apocalypse is finally here.
Have a cigar, we will go far,
While the end is near, for this sinking bahtera.
Alas, let there be peace, in a nation gone haywire.
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n 
No thinking needed.