Andualem Arage (Kality Prison)
Born in a lifeless desert,
Searching for freedom so desperate,
Traveling day and night,
With no peace of mind,
With no sigh of rest;
Under the hovering darkness,
Walking at a tip toe stance,
Knowing well freedom is ahead of us,
In a journey where there is no going back,
Trying to escape the imminent attack,
The zeal and the pain combined,
We somehow kept our eyes focused.
Lest we forget our goal of freedom,
Lest we be frightened to ask for our rights,
The indomitable spirit insists we fight a non-violent fight.
Though battered by the storm of repression,
Exhausted by the sweltering heat of dictatorship,
Stifled by the paws of the beast,
So staggering the might of the desert
Somehow, we forged ahead without any respite.
The whirlwind so stubborn to subside,
Blocking our direction, our clear sight,
Disoriented with a last glace of it,
Very sadly, dinosaurs were quickly lost
As the terror continues to build,
The struggle almost died out;
Like a summit of a mountain,
Dictatorship high above the horizon,
Freedom nowhere to be seen.
A journey so clueless,
A life so lifeless,
A struggle so formless,
A bewilderment total chaos;
The people under the nagging despair,
Freedom seeming under immortal danger,
Fell into the deep of the quagmire.
As the day was getting late,
The attack was ever imminent;
Locked in Iron Chains,
Forgotten like the dead ones,
And meandering became the road,
Quickly shunned by the “Cultivated”,
The struggle, our journey trivialized.
Shall we go back to our hamlet?
Shall we succumb to the beast?
Shall we die in the desert?
Or, shall we keep the fight?
What shall we do next?
In the dry, dead desert,
In the dark and dreary night,
Confirming that there is still light,
The indomitable spirit kept us awake;
It simply gave us the go ahead.
No matter how dark and dreary the night,
No matter how many of us are lost,
Dignity and honor of inner being,
Real freedom is worth anything.
Until the caricature of democracy is removed,
Until the heap of lies is demolished,
Until the camouflage is unmasked,
Yes, we still are in the fight,
Yes, we shall still be in the fight.
Until freedom shines like daybreak,
Until the truth is firmly established,
Yes, we are still in the fight,
Yes, we shall still be in the fight.
In the dry land of the desert,
And in the dark and dreary night,
Though our feet so exhausted,
Our struggle is our passport,
The land of freedom in the far off.
As clear is the goal we seek,
So is the path of our trek,
Freedom based non-violent.
Oppressed for so long,
The people, the cajoled,
Though not ideally suited,
Rather than to go ahead,
Had no option in their hand.
In the lifeless, dead desert,
In the dark and dreary night,
For so long lost the way out;
However, we saw it the way of the optimist.
In the face perverted justice,
While the “tents of the nation are in distress”,
In the face of naked existence,
No matter how chaotic the process,
While freedom is in our glimpse,
No, no, no, there is no going back;
While the red sea is in our sight,
The indomitable spirit once again reaffirmed.
The journey to humanity’s very essence,
The fight against the pervasive meaninglessness,
Determined to transform tragedy into triumph,
Gathered a momentum and persevered;
Drifting into the battle of the shore,
Heard the beast’s last roar,
Saw it groaning and prostrate afar.
The day in our countless dreams,
The reason for our untold sacrifice,
The day to which we had endured suffering for so long,
The day full of purpose and real meaning,
The day has just dawned;
A brand new day has just dawned.
O brotherhood our roaring cannon,
O the radiant sun of freedom,
O the alluring moon of love,
O the heavy rain of peace,
O the mighty flood of justice,
Gone are the age old misery and strife,
Gone the age old dreary nights,
This day, our fate – our destiny,
It is a brand new day,
Oh! Reign supreme in our sky.
