Running Away from Peace
The opposition is not war and peace,
With ceasefire as coitus interruptus in-between:
It’s people at the butt-end burning up
While talk flourishes and the time is never never
right
“To reorient the peace discourse” – an aptly pompous
phrase –
So that the mating between state and would-be-state
Should take account of these messy hordes that rhetorically
at least
Must needs be given human form, and then dismissed
or patronized,
Spoken for, against, over, to, and even, at specially
desperate times, spoken with,
Though populism they really must close ranks against,
of course.
This peace – or ceasefire to call it by its proper
name – is debilitating for me.
My friends are happy: travel to the beaches in the
East is back in vogue,
The diaspora, more-upwardly-mobile-than-ever, can
visit home in peace,
Pledge cautious guilt-edged cash to relief, rehab,
poor relatives and more.
New projects can commence, old research be revived,
even business is on the mend, they say,
The World Bank will manage relief funds, for a fat
commission ignore the graft,
The threat of suicide bombs – the only real danger
big shots faced while playing deadly war –
Is off, hurrah, their kids can put security squads
to better use, as a training ground for things to come,
Politics here, is family business, and one must
start young,
Boys will be boys, a doting father says – he dispatched
hundreds, his son just one for starters.
War dulls the sense of making cash, stifles initiative,
you know,
Less bang for the buck, so see, private enterprise
is squarely on the side of peace.
The time is not right, not right to talk at all
Of extortion, conscription, slave labour, the abduction
of children,
Mostly this abduction stuff, no time is right for
that, no way,
Spoiler, you’ll jeopardize everything, how insensitive
and crass,
We’ve worked so hard for peace, they say, so fragile
yet, so fraught,
How can the time be right to clobber peace with
your scruples about human rights,
Peace is better than war, right, so what’s all this
fuss about some kids
Dare you dissent, spoiler war-monger you’re no different
from the racist creeps
Who want the war at any cost. Whose side are you
on, anyway, they ask?
So they want war, and you want peace at any cost,
but peace for whom?
Both former fighters plunder peace, declaring open
season on the poor,
Yesterday, three were taken, last week ten, in Batticaloa
alone:
Report it they say, if parents are threatened afterwards,
report that too,
People must show commitment to peace, take our lead,
We’ve told both sides when they are wrong.
The LTTE has promised us, UNICEF, Otunnu, no more
children,
We think they’re serious this time, they’ve told
us so,
And the Government only kills civilians when it
has no choice,
The independent investigation established this beyond
a doubt
At only 1000 violations in one year we’re doing
fine
Though Committees that worked so well in war have
now retired hurt,
And Sinhala chauvinists debate the Tamils’ plight
with wolfish glee
The Muslim issue awaits negotiations over Cabinet
posts,
Yet the Peace Lobby holds its peace, the time is
wrong you see,
We must be patient, strategic, give them space,
It’s easy to be critical, they say, and the lobby
lobbies on
Behind closed five star doors they sagely nod, prepare
papers on the most current federal fad,
Devolution will surely end discrimination, resolve
pain, another family member gets to rule.
Fascism will fade away, what’s it Marx said? when
the time is right.
You can raise these issues at our conference in
Kandalama, luxurious on an ancient tank bund,
Incidentally we opposed it when it was being built,
on environmental grounds,
Now it’s the place to be to talk of peace –
A nicer ambience than Colombo, and better food,
To discuss weighty matters such as these peace hiccups
that’ll pass.
Without embarrassing either side – we can’t afford
a loss of face at such an early stage
Come on, don’t tell me you aren’t scared this peace
will shatter, turn into a million slivers
One for each life the war will surely cost?
But is it time to ask how governments get mandates,
for peace or war, from elections that are rigged?
How any one can claim and be sole representative
of any group, unless by killing off the rest?
Unhelpful questions that betray a war-monger on
the prowl, they sadly say, neatly choking me .off.
Of course, first-world-overseas, there’s space and
time to probe the current status quo,
In fact, in certain circles it’s de rigueur,
must be done, but careful where and how,
Lest you interfere with peace, or incur the wrath
of either of the former foes
And your number will be up –whether in Melbourne
or Toronto it matters not
One loose-tongued youth abroad was shot in Colombo
on a visit home,
A mistake, we are told, it should have been an accident;
Unlike the state they never make the same slip twice.
My heroes, Sripathi, UTHR(J), the villagers of Vakarai,
survived the war,
Can they survive this peace? The signs are not so
good, but, we are told by those who know
The time is not right just yet to speak of individuals,
Wait and see. Things will work out, support this
peace and wait and see.
This peace is hard for me, more alone, less sure
of the enemy I attack,
My inevitable sickness almost a comfort zone.
I say this is not peace, but war by yet another
name –
What else but war can legitimize violence against
civilians on such an awful scale?
And the danger here is that it just might last
Long enough for the now united fighters waging peace
against the poor to win.
So I shall run away, an irrelevant casualty of this
hidden-war-as-peace,
Lock myself within the personal space I have for
years locked myself out.
I rehearse my feelings on my own, lose them in repetition,
feel used up, then let them go.
Looking for rock violets – where have all those
flowers gone, so common when I was young and brash –
Is as good a cause as any now for marking time for
life after peace, violets for my mother’s grave.
Why, you may ask, this preoccupation with one natural
death as still point in a world gone mad,
I pee on another plot and tend this one with exaggerated
care,
Content to be suckered by the attendant who promises
stolen plants
Then borrows them again for another well-heeled
visitor-type with quick-fix need –
Who really suckers whom I’m no longer sure, nor
care.
Having lost my way in peacetime, I am leaving home,
Redundant, angry.
Leaving to find depression somewhere else, at higher
pay.
Arjuna Parakrama is a critic and social activist currently based in Kathmandu,
Nepal.
