What Shadows We Pursue Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

Sir Winston Churchill while he was
In the thick of it (he had very nearly lost his life) ,
Wrote on one of the frontier battles, (on his side)
‘Looking at these shapeless forms, coffined
in a regulation blanket, the pride of race, the pomp
of empire, the glory of war appeared but the faint
and unsubstantial fabric of a dream; and I
could not help realizing with Burke, "What shadows
we are and what shadows we pursue".

This is a century and a quarter ago,
Today, there is nothing new,
But that, an increasing isolation -
Bastions of ignorance, mad mullahs,
Perpetrated schemes, and hardened
Mindsets. Valor, war, and savage freedom aside,
They harbor feigned kings, sheiks and princes.
None can sight, a school of learning,
(Those built are being bombed)
A well neigh job or a decent living.
And their mothers give birth to cannon fodder.
Smugglers, ‘thieving children from laps',
Some social indicator, a path built, a fair thought.
They forever, are boosted, as a second army,
Mercenary, easy to buy and sell, -out of simplicity.
The pariahs of the world, now, sans dignity.
The stereotype is hackneyed speech,
A stick in hand, tottering gun, and always ‘doubtful',
They are khans, religious fanatics, and block heads.

To cap it, in the words of Field Marshal Lord Roberts,
‘Burning houses and destroying crops'
Leaving India in 1893, after forty -one years
Of military service, ...
‘unless followed by some sort of authority and jurisdiction,
mean…for us a rich harvest of hatred and revenge'.

-The quotes are from Charles Allen, God's Terrorists,2006.

Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
July 2,2014.