The Scent of Nostalgia (2)

The reality of nostalgia reeks of unkempt gardens, reaching pristine perfection to distort it with truth. A nostalgic memory is a relic of revolution; unfettered and resilient, with an intrinsic ability to flaunt the spurious invasion of stale rhetoric.


Nostalgia sustains ideals, and ridicules the oppressive stance that emulates pride rather than honesty. To the dreamer, nostalgia confirms the scent of exile left by revolutionaries, and a path leading to continuity in an era that defies shame and embraces both history and future.

Administering a Form of Justice (3)

It is impressive how certain forms of justice are enamoured of masquerades.

In these well rehearsed acts, the wronged crowd is forced to don masks that smooth tears into the skin beneath the painted facade. Hands are manacled to perform the monotonous ritual of applause honouring the usurpers of freedom.

Those who dare to expose their faces are scalded and maimed; their appearance serving as a reminder to other echoes that might be harbouring a yearning to defend their reason.

Justice leads reason to excavate dungeons in which philosophy is shackled to damp walls. Following this transgression, justice annihilates the intellect that marble halls strive so hard to deny.

Administering a Form of Justice (2)

The door was flung open with the intention of coercing those hands into exposing the tearful eyes, however, it was met by a stance of rebellion.

The eyes resembled dehydrated amber fossils, devoid of misery, repelling every bout of humiliation. The aggressor's serenity dwindled, and he returned to reciting idioms and proverbs he had discarded during the years.

But there was no solace for a traitor who upheld democracy as a dictatorial system to accommodate a decadent majority.

The world that logic shades consists of the following

• People greeting relatives separated by barbed wire fences
• People scooping soil into their hands as a keepsake before resuming their exiled lives.
• Some people who enjoy indoctrinating and coercing others to adhere to a certain belief.
• Daily intimidation of people.
• Racism, discrimination and oppression
• Exploitation of poor countries in the name of progress
• Landmines and butchered people
• Propaganda serving to infuriate or placate voters under the pretence of serving patriotism.

Some people dare to dream, and the logical powers deem it an extravagant form of extremism. Dreamers are replaced with puppets who follow the rules obediently, until even scrupulous obedience dissolves into arrogance, creating disorientation to mire the spectators into a restriction of democratic duties and a parcel of regulated rights.

Administering a Form of Justice

Cowering behind the door was someone with eyes hidden behind trembling hands. To be offered advice by those who sealed and stamped destinies seemed a heinous crime. The expectation that those calculated words ought to have been taken seriously was an abomination.

A Rigmarole Called Rights (3)

There is a certain dissonance when the outcome of applying rights is termed as justice. Justice is portrayed as a triumphant stance in which spectators applaud the tenacious individual or group, and institutions bestow the rewards they deem appropriate in order to excuse a particular violation.

It is nothing more than frivolous atonement by the institutions creating the conditions that fuelled the discourse of rights. Depicting justice as an honour to be bestowed at random is despicable.

The coined term does not compensate for stolen lives.

Hallucinations

One day, the crowd will gather around the wronged person; not out of curiosity, but through a surge of unity. Even solidarity will be discarded, for it is a term implying a partial sense of egoism obscured with the charitythat promotes material generosity.

The solitary tears will create cascades of water, threatening to engulf the entites that destroyed minds and liberties at random.

But when I look at the silhouette the pen falters, and the balconies in cities and other central places stare, as stately as ever. Carpets, ribbons and other garish trinkets clutter the quiet alleyways, annihilating the only respite from the maddening confusion.

A face peering though the curtains hesitates as sunbeams illuminate the listless eyes. Is it fear that instigates blame, or blame that instigates fear?

Either way, the face vanishes behind the heavy drapes ...

I like to think that the gesture was one of defiance, rather than terror. For when I gazed at the scene again, the carpets, ribbons and trinkets were as tattered as a beggar's clothes.

And that face became an anonymous artist.

A Rigmarole Called Rights (2)

I forgot to mention gratitude.

A wronged person may hasten to exercise the right to protest against transgression, falsely believing this restriction to be a free choice.

The various outcomes are:

1. Gratitude towards the society that allows us this form of retaliation that is sanctioned by the dominant perpetrator.

2. Indignation at being patronized by the perpetrator who has all possible means to trample on freedom, and also the privilege to appear unjustly accused of all oppression.

3. Helpless when faced with the realisation that not even gratitude towards the means to defend one's self can destroy corrupt power.

Which goes to say that not even rebelling against this conformity may bring any relief. Rebelling against the injustice of using rights as ordained by a power that absolves itself unjustly confirms you devoid of sanity.

How bleak to equate revolutions with vengeance, when the latter is found in lethargic applications of an ideology called democracy ...

A Rigmarole Called Rights

A right that can be manipulated is generally forced onto a subdued nation by a hegemony that stabs expression within minutes of conception. Thus, the question arises whether rights are an obligation regaled to the masses in return for acquiescence.

Needs and rights have become interchangeable terms. But it is needs that create rights.

The oppression of the majority stifling diverse opinions creates the need to defend intellectual independence. It is the violation of natural freedom that created the terminology of rights disguising the destructive facade appeasing people with a gift that reduces liberty to the art of begging and scavenging.

A Brief Note on Colours

One day, the colours in the distorted spectrum might yearn to separate into their distant, original hues. However, restoring that natural balance is impossible without reconciliation with history.

Ridiculing history into oblivion debases the present and provides the future with the dissonance of an identity relegated to shame.

The contradiction that springs to mind is 'How can progress be opposed to the memory of revolutions?'

A Spectrum ...

Colours separate and mix according to popular whims, and identity is relegated to a silent account smothered under raucous pretence.

A spectrum fuses into brown, directions point towards a centre bearing the crown of righteousness.

The mass of followers may find that the power of decision making is simplified to an equation of popularity, majority and mediocrity - components of indoctrination.

Are rights natural, fundamental or a convenient gift reminding us of obligations towards the entities relegating our freedom to a farce?

The Scent of Nostalgia

Splitting nostalgia into overlapping dimensions ... a recollection of cherished memories, and a yearning to have been an insignificant spectator of the years I did not witness.

All that is left is the scent of revolutionaries and ideals - mired in a senseless world that does not accept the need to strive towards a fragment of justice.

A morose attitude stemming from a society that stifles voices infiltrates life frequently. But dreams are the shield protecting ideals that are bludgeoned even before being voiced.

An era that ridicules dreamers is void of tenacity.