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You sift through the pages of the past. The world was a safer place back then, some tell you. Neil Young was a younger man. Some things meant a little more, even if they were spoken in insanity.
The Wall was a division, a giant mistake, but it was still better than the world you endure now. The air was purer, napalm smelt sweet in the heat of the night, and journalists looked you in the eye when they lied. The beauty of the people around you passes you by as you close your eyes and pray to the Heart of Gold.
Who is going to want you now? Where do you exist in this fruitless time? On a scorched earth where the war on drugs and the war on terror collide and copulate, even as those in dark suits and powerful homes betray your trust over and over again. That black mark on your finger means you are just another sucker who bought into it; another toy they will hysterically scream about on prime time T.V: the happy participant in the democratic process.
You think of Churchill, that drooping cigar and those drunken speeches- a hero who murdered without a care in Dresden. You think of Nixon, that long faced and sharp minded man, who became king and abdicated in shame, but pulled out nonetheless, from that revered graveyard of the Western world they called Vietnam.
You think of the Red army, those valiant soldiers your parents devoted their lives to; they who said they would make the world a better place; they who said they would save you from your oppressors. Stalin and Mao came and went, leaving behind burning nations and ruined ideals. Pol Pot smiled from his Communist throne when he saw the steaming skulls he would devour that evening.
Then the wall came down and you were still smoking cigarettes and thinking of Neil Young, romancing the Politics of Love. They twisted his words and sang them in honour of the “End of History.” But you knew the truth, Mr. Young didn’t have the Wall in mind when he penned the deranged social comment he called "Rocking in the Free World". And the world kept turning- barely.
You sat with an open book in your hand and watched the scene spin out of control; the streets burn in the dizzy hatred of power; the thin White Men in suits crowd the corridors of life and shove instruments of corruption (known otherwise as money) down throats. You watched the signs go up- for everything: cars, scooters, fridges, homes, chairs, tables, beds, alcohol, bikes, men, women, children, and even the androgynous agent of the Free World.
You watched the masses in spotted green nightgowns and thick conservative pyjamas flood the markets in search of the latest gadget. And you watched the masses in barely any clothes at all, starved to the bone, blood congealed on their invisible stomachs, being run over by the machinery of the Dominant. Neil Young floated up from your past with his immortal chant, “Four dead in Ohio”. Race became another enemy (again).
Now no more in shades of Black and White, but the Race of Men and Women itself. Men pulled no punches, and some Women joined in. Those who did not (such as yourself, admit it!) were dragged in front of the jury of the Demented who read out your crimes. When they protested, they were banished to the Margins (where they had forever been in any case) and told to hold down the fort some call home.
Children wept at uncaring mothers, and mothers gave them all they had. The Nuclear clouds of death rained from time to time and everyone covered their eyes, noses and lips, afraid that the very child we had so lovingly created might turn on us with the ferocity of a machete.
The Americans made war more than love (and with greater enthusiasm!) Reagan (do you recall?), that actor who found his calling in Politics (irony or truth, I wonder?), became an activist in the cause of the Death of Nicaragua. Bosnia exploded like a timebomb in a Bengali fish market when you were drinking coffee. Clinton bombed that aspirin factory (because he mistook little white pills for Big Men in Bandanas carrying Rifles and screaming Holy War.)
The World Trade Centre towers were razed to the ground when you were drying your eyes at your father’s death. Tragedy magnified as you watched flashes of three thousand unknown faces, to the manic voice of Neil Young beckoning you to peace and contemplation, "Comes a Time". You regained consciousness in the months that followed and adjusted to the Race Tension.
Afghanistan was burning with Imperial Passion as the Men in decorated costumes blew its people off their own land in the name of Revenge (at least there was no veil on that one.) Sorry excuses for debate raged through Public Channels controlled by Private Men with aristocratic ideas of Decency and Tradition. You turn a page and watch the Unholy Land of Babylon being scarred by enormous bombs, thundering tanks and assassins in a Friend’s disguise (albeit, not a good one.)
Smiling Men (and Women) with microphones narrate the story of a small man with a paunch, who shot five times because he couldn’t say “Hello” without kneeling down (he had arthritis, says our brilliant reporter who will surely win an award for braving the sticks that came his way in this desert they call Hell.)
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