Lament for Alderaan
written 3 Apr 2004, the day before my Physiology final exam
"That's when I went Rebel."
- Tycho Celchu (Jan Strnad, Battleground: Tatooine)
When I find out the disaster, I am stunned beyond all breath.
I lie in bed all evening with my face as white as death.
The red blood is all I can see, the tears trapped in my heart:
I called myself Imperial once; I have been cut apart.
The gall is in my vomit, the acid at my throat:
I must purge all of my masters' meat that ever me did bloat.
I must tear the skin off my palms which have touched an eyeball's yoke.
I would cut my heart out which had ever beat for them a stroke.
Oh Alderaan, my Alderaan - how can this thing be true?
Could your existence have been cut off while I talked to you?
Oh Alderaan, oh Alderaan! how can a world be gone?
How can you have just vanished, the place where I was born?
I am betrayed by masters I had thought loyal to be;
If true I am, I must betray: for this massacre means
This Empire that had clothed me, this Empire that had fed me -
They have blown up all I knew and loved to dust and smithereens.
I pack my bag, my black flight-suit, the items to my name,
Now take my Navy ID-card and hold it to the flame,
And as the plastiflim grows black and runs before the heat
The letters of my name are ash and the burnt smell is sweet.
Oh Alderaan, my Alderaan, haven from strife and scorn -
You are a space of death now, the place where I was born.
Oh Alderaan, which would be spared all fire and deluge -
Oh Alderaan, my Alderaan, the poets' safe refuge.
I have no home, no family, no title, house nor deed;
I bear only my fighting blood, my helmet and my creed.
My only home shall be the place where people still live free;
My only kin the Rebel-folk who bleed and burn like me -
Who bleed and burn as my lost relatives they burned and bled;
Yet only, I am still alive, while love and friends are dead;
And the fire that consumes me is the heat for justice clean;
And the blood which flows from my wounds the thought of what could have been.
Oh Alderaan, my Alderaan, where life and peace were one -
The white-domed university, all sparkling in the sun;
Oh Alderaan, where, once I dreamt, Beauty would always rule:
My Alderaan, forgive me: I have been a kriffing fool.
I am an Imp deserter, and the Rebels are not kind;
Too often have Imperials used desertion as a blind.
With fire in my stomach and the tears behind my eyes
I tell my name and number and the number of their lies.
The stern Cracken grows softer as my voice breaks with your name;
The grave, watchful Antilles views me now with lessened blame.
They do not take a long time after this word to decide.
My heart has long been with them: now my place is at their side.
Oh Alderaan, my Alderaan, none will forget your name;
For years to come your blood will be a banner of our shame.
You live on in my veins, who swear your enemies shall mourn
For Alderaan, oh Alderaan, the place where I was born!
***
This poem can be read on two levels. I wrote this during a period when I was extremely upset with the decision of the Singapore government to build a casino in Singapore for the purpose of attracting more tourist revenue, in the manner of Genting and Vegas. This, despite the strong protests of many of its citizens, like me, who do not wish to see the youth of this country grow up under the shadow of greed and materialism (literally - Singapore is so small that no one can be more than 40 km or so, max, away from any given point on the same island, and one large Genting-style casino will change the moral climate of the entire country) under a government which sends the message that "it's okay to sacrifice moral standards for the sake of increased revenue - it's okay to enjoy yourself at the expense of your responsibility to the family and to society". Despite a nationwide petition and numerous appeals to the press and to ministers, the moral implications seem hardly to have been taken into consideration in the making of this radical decision, and the conclusion was a foregone one long before it had been officially announced.
The government's rationale for this is that it will create 35,000 jobs - this, when a preliminary study showed that 50,000 citizens (out of a population of 3 million) are at risk for developing a gambling problem. Oh, but there is no need to worry, because a percentage of the takings from the casino will be used to provide counseling and rehabilitation services for these people! Impeccable logic, I say. This, in a country which counts among it's "Core Values" the point "Family as a basic unit of society". The argument flies in the face of cold logic alone, let alone of well-balanced moral judgement.
In the period leading up to my final exams for the first year of university, I realised that no amount of reasoning would change the plans of a leadership inexorably bent on offering up a good moral climate on the altar of Mammon. This, bear in mind, is a government which also counts among its wishes for the country, a) the reversal of the currently falling birth rate, and b) the flourishing of academia and the arts. So tell me, a) are we thus inspired to bring children into a world where their moral development will be increasingly plagued with wrong values and a casino next door? and b) does the government really believe that a country which constructs a monstrosity to provide the lure of easy money, the distracting glare of bright lights, and shows which entertain by catering unabashedly to lust and improper sexual desire, can also pretend to be creating an environment to stimulate higher feeling and thought and artistic creativity? The government does not see the basic truth that "Art" does not equal to "Bad Morals": could it be that, its artistic responses dulled by self-confessed 'pragmatism' for so long, it can no longer distinguish between positive and negative deviation from the norm? It certainly appears to imply, through its actions, that it is convinced that anything that is not CONSERVATIVE (bad!) MUST be CREATIVE (good!), like bar-top dancing; that GOOD=BORING; and that for something to be FUN it must topple tried-and-tested moral standards, and the values of a plethora of religions which go back thousands of years.
This was enough to explode the childhood trust in authority which had prevented me from previously criticising government policies. I was quite devastated at the idea that where there had previously been no casino,
there was now going to be one, by deliberate invitation of a short-sighted leadership. There is an expression for this in Chinese -
ying lang ru shi - which is equivalent to the English phrase "leading the wolf to the door". Though I was already well aware of the depths to which humanity can stoop, I have never been hard-hearted enough to be cynical, and each new affont to good sense and good values - especially in a matter of such magnitude - strikes me afresh like a personal betrayal. It was during this time that I finally learnt the truth that a country is not equivalent to its government, and to separate my feelings for one from the other.
No surprise where the emotions in this poem come from, then; I wrote it in one hour after days of crying and insomnia. Perhaps to some (
Mr Hobbie Klivian, perhaps) the construction of a casino may not seem like a big deal: but to me it was the destruction of a myth I had clung to since childhood, and the loss of confidence in the leadership of the country and the people I love. It is because of decisions like this that at times the black fit still descends - thoughts like:
it is not worth having children and struggling to raise them in the face of a dark tide - thoughts like:
one cannot do anything to change the world; I am so small; and no one will listen.
At times like this, one has to draw courage from the Bible, and from the heartening examples of people who faced similar circumstances, of which Biggles and Rogue Squadron are perhaps not the worst examples :) And also, to cling on to the love of one's country and keep it alive, in the hope that by doing so one may preserve a bit of what it is which one loves about it. 'Alderaan, oh Alderaan,
the place where I was born!'
To add insult to injury, in the first weekend of April an article on the casino appeared in
Today newspaper, in which the writer mockingly concluded something along the lines of, "No doubt initially there will be an outcry by religious groups. But after a few months everything will go back to normal and the issue will be forgotten." The bitter memory of this, which will rankle as long as I live, influences the very last stanza of the poem.
The biggest insult, however, was reserved for the day of release of the government's official decision, 15 days after I'd written this poem, in which it was blithely announced that in Singapore would be constructed not just one, but TWO casinos.
Determined to copy the Empire down even to this detail, eh?
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The two pictures of Tycho are fromThe Phantom Affair (art: Edvin Biukovic)
