Poetry: M. Jahangir Khan
Why were they taken—
in the hour before dawn,
when nations still breathe
between sleep and fear?
Why does the sky remember
the sound of helicopters
better than the names
of treaties broken quietly?
They say law.
They say justice.
But the sea knows oil,
and oil knows blood,
and blood knows the old maps
drawn with knives instead of ink.
They speak of drugs—
yet forget the ships,
forget the banks,
forget the flags that never land
on the battlefield
but always collect the spoils.
A president is not a shadow.
A wife is not a bargaining chip.
Sovereignty is not cargo
to be flown across oceans
under the excuse of order.
I have seen this script before.
It wore French boots once,
then spoke English with confidence,
now smiles behind screens
and calls abduction procedure.
From rice fields to jungles,
from villages erased to villages reborn,
history whispers the same lesson:
peasants remember longer
than empires rule.
A book is raised—
not a gun.
A memory is sharpened—
not a missile.
Guerrilla ink stains the page
where generals fear to read.
Simon’s sword does not rust.
It waits.
Ho’s footsteps do not fade.
They multiply.
Call it kidnapping.
Call it capture.
Call it whatever calms your conscience.
The earth knows the truth:
when power fears an idea,
it chains the body.
But bodies pass.
Ideas march.
And somewhere—
in fields, in barrios,
in villages the cameras never visit—
the question survives louder than answers:
