Cripple

Come, let’s do something amazing:
Let’s vilify him some more
The one whom everyone calls a tyrant   Where my brother’s hand
  is sowing the seeds of oppression
As my father’s hand
  harvests the crop of exploitation
And my clan, on various occasions,
  through words or silence,
  has sided with murderer and thief
All that – we will not discuss
Until we all agree
  on the identity of the murderer
We shall stay quiet
We shall call ourselves fine people    We hide our truth in a shoe box
  stowed away in the lowest shelf of the cupboard
Away from the withering rays of the sun
Proofed against rain
If this is our strategy
then, this truth, of mine, too is crippled, no?   ===This is a translation of an Urdu poem, ‘Bauna’, written by Hassan Rehman, for publication on the first anniversary of the assassination of Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab. Taseer was murdered by one of his own bodyguards who was outraged by what he perceived to be Taseer’s blaspehmous public defence of a Christian lady, Aasia Bibi, herself accused of blasphemy.