This is a poem written in memory of Hugo Chavez and Nelson Mandela, two noble souls who uplifted human civilization in a world otherwise drenched in inhumanity and bloodshed, dominated by military might and corporate control of human lives.

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(Article changed on January 14, 2014 at 12:49)

(Article changed on January 14, 2014 at 11:09)

[I wrote this short tribute to Chavez and Mandela as part of my annual write-up on 2013 (a series I call Varsha-Shesh in Bengali, meaning At Year's End).  After a few months' hiatus from Opednews, I intend to contribute again to its liberal and progressive work based on a Universalist ideal.] 

 

In 2013, two spectacular and noble lives were ended- those of Hugo Chavez, the indomitable Venezuelan leader, and of course, Nelson Mandela, the larger-than-life leader of oppressed South Africans.   Their lives illustrate for us that there will always be higher pursuits and nobler causes for the transcendent human spirit to strive for more than money, glitter and consumption.   I have stated elsewhere that the post-apartheid Mandela, who took on the mantle of elder-statesman, was nevertheless limited and even flawed.  Sadly, he was likely hamstrung by the machinations of the very military-industrial enterprise that he once so vigorously opposed.  From all indications, those forces of greed and control are increasingly influential in the new South Africa.  Personally, I also feel a sense of sorrow at the humiliation and obscurity that was inflicted upon Winnie, Nelson's devoted partner.   She stood as a most inspiring figure for so many of us during the period of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment; somehow, the treatment meted out to her, to me, smacks of grave injustice.  Nevertheless, in retrospect, I find reason to be optimistic that through the struggles and achievements of the likes of Mandela and Chavez, humanity's greatest triumphs- those of identifying with simplicity, dignity, humility and compassion, and all those qualities strewn around us in the meadows, the hills and the streams- will persist beyond the brow-beating and muscle-flexing that characterize the deeply flawed ways of the mighty.

  Wishing one and all a joyous and adventure-filled 2014.

The Meaning of Triumph

Remembering Hugo Chavez and Nelson Mandela

Monish R. Chatterjee 

  

Rise up and face the justice of the oppressor.

Live through the squalor and hopelessness

Of the ghetto  

Witness the walls of separation, real and imagined

The tears, the blood, the indignities  

The barbed wire, the bayonets, the hounds  

  The sounds of trampling from Soweto to Pretoria.   

You knew, humanity deserved better.   You were young

Then, your life lay ahead, promises, dreams-   

Winnie stood there with you, and the children.    

Then they took you away, placed you in solitary.   

  Twenty seven, prime, irreplaceable years.      

But Robben Island was no match for your will.  

  You read, I am told, the Bhagavad Gita in your cell.  

Inheritors of the rampages of colonial tyranny

Everywhere, looked upon you with admiration.   

The voices against the privileged plunderers     

  And their enablers in zones of affluence   

Gathered strength.   From behind the prison walls

The mighty wave of your inspiration worked its magic    

  And twenty seven years on, the walls of apartheid fell.

Free at last, it was your time to heal your people.

  To the oppressors, bigots and killers, you showed  

Unmatched kindness.   Truth and reconciliation-

Tell us the truth, they were told, and you will be set free.    

  Yet, the machines of profit, the weapons of stealth

Are mighty, their web tangled and vicious.   I know not  

  Alas, what happened to the valiant Winnie.  

You were a beacon for mankind.   Yet the road remains

Forked, and predators linger still in the dark.   

 

Hugo- whence did your courage arise?

You picked up the baton from Nelson,

From Fidel, from Biko, from Salvador.

  Who would ever forget your handing

   The Leader of the Free World

That copy of Open Veins of Latin America?

Or, better yet, the references to sulfur at the podium?

With the world lying prostrate before military

Might, n'ary a word of protest anywhere

  Against naked aggression, cluster bombs

Depleted uranium, and epics filled with lies

  And the uncontrolled arrogance of barbaric greed

You, almost alone, brought a breath

Of fresh air; I for one felt I could breathe again.

The good die young, oft we hear

And history bears testimony.   You mocked

And defied the tyrants- the chameleons that wear

  Ever-changing cloaks of piety; the kind that now declare

Nelson a Hero, after having done everything

To put him in jail, and aid the machine of apartheid;

Defeated at last, spewing words of piety to steal the limelight.

Thus, indeed, death took you much too soon.

But life extracted from you the last full measure

  Of assurance and solidarity to the hungry, the naked

The disinherited, the voiceless and the exploited.

I stand by the needy even in the land of plenty,

You declared, post-Katrina.   From Africa to Cuba,

From Tehran to Timor, they hailed your victory.

May your Bolivarian revolt, aglow with moral righteousness

Smite the tyrant and aid the weak for ages to come.

Authors Bio:

Monish R. Chatterjee received the B.Tech. (Hons) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from I.I.T., Kharagpur, India, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, in 1981 and 1985, respectively. Dr. Chatterjee was a faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at SUNY Binghamton from 1986 through 2002. Dr. Chatterjee is currently with the ECE department at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Chatterjee, who specializes in applied optics, has contributed more than 100 papers to technical conferences, and has published more than 70 papers in archival journals and conference proceedings, in addition to numerous reference articles on science. Dr. Chatterjee's most recent literary essays appear in Rabindranath Tagore: Universality and Tradition, published by FDU Press (2004); Celebrating Tagore, published by Allied Publishers (2009); and Tagore: A Timeless Mind by ICCR and the London Tagore Society (2012). He is the author of four books of translation (Kamalakanta, Profiles in Faith, Balika Badhu and Seasons of Life) from his native Bengali. In 2000, Dr. Chatterjee received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005, Dr. Chatterjee received a Humanities Fellows award from the University of Dayton to conduct research on scientific language. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, OSA, and SPIE and a member of ASEE and Sigma Xi.