About a Movement
I was going to say:
I need a house
But then I changed it to:
Everyone needs land
Note: everyone
I thought about
a protest movement
but how’s that possible
on my own?
I’m not a holy man
who can live on a handful of rice
and a pitcher of water
I need a shirt and a pair of pants
to cover my nakedness
I thought about a protest movement
but how’s that possible
if I don’t speak out?
(Anonymous poem on the calendar-poster Tanah Untuk Rakyat. The author, Wiji Thukul, is still missing, assumed kidnapped and later killed by the military during the 1998 reformasi movement.)
(Translation of Tentang Sebuah Gerakan)
Source:
Land for the People: The State and Agrarian Conflict in Indonesia
by Anton Lucas
Ohio University Press Athens
© 2013 by the
Center for International Studies
Ohio University
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