MAYBE AND PERHAPS

Maybe we are a little stubborn and, seeming, a foolhardy lot about our demand for separate administration Perhaps that’s how the excruciating affliction that bedevilled ‘manipulated’ us into thinking Possibly, we will seem like people who don’t wish for ‘peace’ in the eyes of others
Whose ‘peace’ are we talking about anyway? ‘Peace’ as defined by the oppressors or the oppressed?Maybe our ‘peace’ entails the idea of the creation of an ‘exclusivist and communal ghetto’ as their ‘progressives’ and ‘liberal’ intellectuals self-righteously scorned
Perhaps that ‘project’ is anathema and even inimical to the ideals of liberal democratic principles like ‘co-existence’, ‘diversity’ and ‘multi-culturalism’ in contemporary societies
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking that cannot co-exist with constitutional democracy like ours
Maybe our devious ‘agenda’ is to sever the umbilical cord of the ‘territorial integrity of the state
Isn’t the idea of ‘territorial integrity’ a fictional notion?
Perhaps we are ‘partitionists’ daydreaming about some distant, utopian ‘homeland.’
Aren’t we sneered and mocked that way?
Maybe all these instincts make us seem like people irredeemably fixated on parochialism and tribalism, bordering on becoming uncivilized savages with human civilizational values having no bearing on us Perhaps we don’t seem enlightened enough and lack the swagger they exhibit with all these medieval aspirations and ‘myopic’ vision of separate existence
Maybe all these tendencies have been given birth by what we have gone through in the preceding dark months that left a blood trail wrought by unprecedented violence in our quiet villages and homes
Maybe these are the inarticulate expressions of deeply anxious and tormented voices looking for eager listeners crying for justice
Perhaps it’s a voice that wants to break free from the shackles of exploitation, of being derided with names like narco-terrorists, illegal immigrants and poppy planters
Maybe it’s a voice from the wilderness that has now found a warmth embrace on the alleys of the streets amongst the mourners
Perhaps it’s already too dehumanizing an experience to carry on living together with people who see you that way
Perhaps it is a voice that cries out in angst and asks, ‘What humans can carry themselves with dignity and self-respect with such derision and mockery’?
Maybe it’s the fear of life itself that stalks us every moment with the existing status quo ante
Perhaps our attitude will sometimes appear obstinate and even inconceivable at times with the fence-sitters
Maybe they have not seen what our eyes have seen, heard what our ears have listened to and spoken what our mouths have spoken
Perhaps if they could only have comprehended our existential crisis, they would have opened their eyes to our agony and listened to our cries with empathy
Maybe the voice from the wilderness of history that laments, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’ still echoes amid this unravelling story of suffering
Maybe that still and calm voice of yore will eventually triumph.