14/07/2025
(ကဗျာ)
Pacifist Farooq
ရိုဟင်ဂျာကဗျာဆရာ Pacifist Farooq က PEN Maylaysia က ဦးစီးဦးဆောင်ကျင်းပခဲ့တဲ့ ကမ္ဘာ့ဒုက္ခသည်များနေ့၌ Festival on Wheel ခေါင်းစဉ်နဲ့ My Land Is My Hell ကဗျာကို ရွတ်ဆိုပြခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရပြီး၊ တက်ရောက်ခဲ့တဲ့ ဧည်သည့်များက အံ့သြမဆုံ ဖြစ်ခဲ့ရတယ်လို့ ဆိုပါတယ်။
I will never forgive my parents.
Not for the love they gave me,
Not for the lullabies they sang.
I will never ever forgive them
for bringing me into a world like this,
a country where hate grows like wild fig trees,
roots twisting deep into the bones of the earth,
branches strangling the sky.
They birthed me
into a place where racism is not just spoken—
It’s drunk,
it’s inhaled,
like the dust on the streets,
like smoke rising from temples
where peace is preached but never practiced.
They birthed me
into a land rusted with prejudice,
where hate is tradition ,
racism is the the culture,
Where Rohingya means subhuman,
And Muslims mean terrorists.
In Myanmar where I grew up,
Racism—it’s not just a shadow.
It’s a goddamn season.
It touches everything—
the trees, the leaves, the river, the clouds, and the sky.
The hand of racism has touched
the school where I learned I was different,
the markets that discriminate me,
the hospital where my name
was a disease they didn’t want to treat.
It has touched
everything between the hell and the heaven.
And even God—
Even God has failed to protect me.
For me,
my land is not home.
My land is not mother.
My land is not memory.
My land…
is my hell.
My land is my hell
Where god has punished me
with different skin
with a different prayer
And with a different tongue
In a Buddhist society.
In a land where Buddha smiles from golden statues
while his followers spit on children like me—
Tell me, where is peace?
Nothing,
nothing is heavier
than carrying racism on your back
like a bag of stones you never packed.
Nothing is heavier than the weight
of the discrimination I had carried on my shoulder;
the discrimination faced for my face,
the discrimination faced for my faith,
the discrimination faced for my skin,
the discrimination faced for my name,
And the discrimination faced for
Being
who I am.
I confess
Being born as a muslim in a Buddhist country
is my unborn sin.
I confess
Being born as a muslim in a Buddhist country
Is crime against humanity.
I confess
my biggest crime was
being born in a muslim family,
without a chance to choose my faith
Before my birth.
I confess my worst crime was
being different in the color of skin
and talking in a different language.
Born to parents who loved me,
but couldn’t protect me.
Born to a family that prayed,
but whose prayers dissolved in the smoke
of burning villages.
Born with this skin,
this voice,
this soul
that doesn’t match the blueprint
of what this country calls “pure.”
I swear to you—
I swear to God
if there is a next life,
if reincarnation is real,
I will not return like this.
I will not come back
as a Rohingya.
No.
I will wear the skin of the Burmese.
I will speak your tongue
with your cadence,
worship your gods,
walk your streets
without fear.
I will be just like you.
I swear it.
I promise it.
Oh dear Burmese Buddhists,
Please—
Trust me.
Please—
Let me live.
Please—
Let me be.
Because you have turned
my birthplace,
my memory,
my identity—
into ashes.
You turned
my land
into
my hell.
Pacifist Farooq, a Rohingya poet, represented PEN Malaysia at the inaugural Festival on Wheels, which will be travelling across the Klang Valley throughout the year, engaging and connecting with Malaysians from all walks of life. Conversations are key to forging friendship and unity. Through his heartbreaking poem, Farooq shared how Myanmar, his home, has become a hellhole. We hope that such raw and honest narratives can move hearts and minds, helping to dismantle prejudice and build empathy across communities. A team of rapporteurs will accompany the festival, and a compiled report will be submitted to the Home Ministry to demonstrate how poetry, storytelling, theatre, and music can bridge people together in powerful and lasting ways.
