Of Hypocrisy, bideshis and the Mind Mafia

Notes: Last night (19th November 2016)  at the Dhaka LiT Fest panel discussion #FightingWords_poetry_through_dissent it looks like I upset a lot of people by saying 'we are a hypocritical nation'. Friends thought since most of the audience has never read my English poems or heard any of my Bengalee songs - it would be better if I could explain myself. Thank to them - a 'poem' was born this morning !!

Of Hypocrisy, bideshis and the Mind Mafia

by Mac Haque

I didn't have to say we are a ‘corrupt nation’

- for the bideshis have proved the point many times over

and told that to us on our face

and we have shamelessly gulped it

- because it was the truth…..or am I wrong again ?

I didn't say we are a blood thirsty ‘jihadi nation’

- or accuse ourselves of closet fundamentalism

cause the bideshis again have proved that point

and made a signed sealed and delivered case

thanks to the unholy occurrence at holey artisan -

but never forget

it was our own 'English educated' kin that

slaughtered them and here we are

reciting 'our bideshi' poems?

Because you have lost your human identity

you indulge in the ‘politics of identity’

and all you are left with

is to gulp secularism forced down your throat

because that’s the essence of a hypocritical nation

where you willingly accept a hypocritical system

that votes your hypocritical leaders to power

and you and I shed hypocritical facebook tears

on the Santhals being shot, their land burnt and grabbed

about Sanatan Temples and Buddhist pagodas being desecrated

about Chakma women being raped

of my friend Ishrat Akhond preferring death over forced Muslim prayers!

Shockingly the villains aren’t always

our known or sworn enemies the mollahs 

but the 'people of the people of the people of the people'

who you continue to vote for more power

as if there is no available option?

I’d rather not talk about nepotism but parochialism

for one way or the other your thought processes

are trapped in the time warp of your peasant ancestors

who today – you hate – because you think

you have moved on in life

thanks to your hypocrisy

of the 90 percent of ‘them’

as opposed to

the urbane pseudo sophisticated

that constitutes less than 10 percent of our population

and that’s ‘us’?

All I know is your living God is the Mind Mafia that remains ever so 'powerful'!

Back in nineteen ninety six

the hypocrite in us refused to listen to the improper pOET

when he first cried wolf (in a Bangla song)

about the impending 'mollah invasion'

Back in nineteen ninety six

there wasn't no Al Qaeda, ISIS or JMB

and all the pOET did was forecast (not 'predict')

the unfair weather that we are enveloped

since two thousand and thirteen

and the mess we are in now

- was a forecast - a loud warning was sent

.....but then the poet said things

your pretty hypocritical ears did not want to hear

I was termed a provocateur,

a 'no good' human being, a mad man -

because as hypocrites

we pretend in our so-called ‘sanity’

it is actually our un-sanity

that is our dominant nature?

Your hard souls neither listen to music nor have the time for poetry

Far from the point, hypocrisy for the nation

is now a genetic problem

We cannot easily shed off the coat of

fascism, communalism, xenophobia we wear

and all the hypocrisies in the name of religion.

I provoked by saying

‘the atheist debate isn’t new.

a belief in Bangladeshi politicians

equates to a disbelief in God.

......If there is atheism in Bangladesh this is it’

And I was told off in ‘propah Bangla’

By a bidesh born shodeshi patriot

how much I have belittled my nation

by saying ‘unpleasant things’

about our ‘own people’

in front of bideshis (foreigners)

WHAT HYPOCRISY?

How frail is patriotism

How frail are we as a nation

that a public exercise

to the democratic right of free speech

Is thwarted - not by the government

but by the Mind Mafia controlled people

Of this sorry nation?

I am staying away from stronger words like racism and fascism,

Breath easy folks.

We are at war with the Mind Mafia

The going isn’t going to be easy

If you are going to slumber or even sleep

It’s the job of the Improper pOeT to provoke

To wake you up

To make you think

Impropriety is in my genes

I am offering no apology!

Pallabi, 20th November 2016