Thursday, June 3, 2010

IT'S A COLD BLOODED MURDER

At times, death is a mercy and at other times, it is justice. In my case I should say it is both. Today this nation is going to be meted out with justice. My death is what she cried for. Here it is my last breath; if it has any character to it, it could be guilt or repentance or maybe neither. On a second thought, victory, it has a faint smell of victory.
I am Amal Kashish. I am a couple of years older than twenty, I am told. I am not contesting it. I am the son of a nation which finds itself in a deep well of failures today. I am destined to die in this alien land which would have been my home if history was scripted not out of men’s ego but out of their heart. I was born to a family of means nothing to boast about. My parents were truly the children of the earth, who lived and raised us, my siblings and me, with whatever it gave. By the time I was born even she, I mean the earth, seemed to have grown old and tired. All this beside the point, I was born poor. Often not realized, this is more than a reason to take up Jihad, the Holy War. There is another angle to it, money causes memory loss. Morality and righteousness exits your life when your door is knocked up on by riches. So I was born poor, luckily. It is rather a mundane angle, you would think.
Considering the previous lines of this narrative, I am certain that you have guessed what my career is, well actually what my career was. For the sake of record, and for the clarity of the more innocent souls reading this, I was born terrorist. It is my duty to rid this world of the khafirs. It is my duty to reestablish the faith. These were not exactly the words I grew up listening to. But yes, I have chosen to believe it. And in the discharge of my duty, I have done well, I must add. And now mind you, by this tone of sarcasm or cynicism or whatever, I am not trying to draw out a case for myself. I am not trying to prove anything, the least of all my innocence. I am not trying to be suggestive of anything else like we were also humans who would turn away in pain at the site of blood. Neither am I trying to succinct the fact that at times poverty is more devilish than one might think. No, it is my resolution not to be a hypocrite.
My deed, I would not like to go in to details of it. But the media has used the most savage sounding of adjectives to describe it. So, you might very well guess. Give or take a couple from the guess, you would still want to slice away every ounce of flesh in me, only after having me skinned and fried. But again so that you know that I know what exactly it is that I have done, I shot down fifty two people in frenzy. I only hope that a better portion of them were khafirs.
The hope has kept its promise. You might think this as my victory. Here is a caution – do not conclude so fast. You might not have been completely wrong after all, but there is a picture that I can see, see well enough and relish that as my true victory. Still guessing what it is? Let me give you another clue, your loss is my victory. Well of course, I did reap more heads than you did, but I too lost my brethrens.
All this is just rhetoric, eh? Hold your horses, not in such a hurry. I wish I too were shot dead along with my men. That was not to be. I had to be the face of the whole story and now the victory we won will bear my name. I made you all cry blood. I intoxicated all of you with the spirit of revenge. I brought out the animal hidden beneath the human visage you all hold. You might say I just woke the fiend within you. Yes, exactly, the fiend within you, which you could only hide. I have made you shed that feather of civilization, of culture, of principles. I have adorned you with all that you wished you would not be. I have made your hands bloody too. The apostle of truth and non violence and forgiveness that you say jewel your crown, now I have made you all mere hypocrites. I will have all of you relish my death when I walk the gallows, hands tied, defying you, yet with not even a protest, as I twist and turn for a gasp of air, I will make you all cold blooded murderers, savages. I have forced you to decorate yourself with all that you painted me with. Yes, now I have shown you the line between your professions and your action. Yes, you double faced, spineless hypocrites. I am proud of what I did. I win because now you despise me for I am not a hypocrite unlike you.