Slave's dream

When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this poem in 1842, he belonged to a society which had invaded a country, killed off the native population and the animals, destroyed the natural vegetation and begun to build a new country, which they believed would be the master of the world. They also believed that they were the most civilized, most technically advanced, most intelligent people on earth.

With a few changes, Longfellow could have been describing the South Indian men and women who had been brought to Sri Lanka from 1827, for they too were treated like slaves, though the word was never used. They may not have been in chains, but they would not have come willingly, and if they had the opportunity most of them would have returned to their country again. In both countries, it is the women and children who suffered the most.

The South Indians too would have dreamt of their native land, and even if they were not kings, their dreams could have been about happy times in their homeland.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And this is how a South Indian too would have died in his native land.

He did not feel the driver's whip,

Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

Had broken and thrown away!

All the slaves from Africa would not have been kings. And for the slave it would not have mattered if he was in his native country or America, his fate would have been the same. He would have been worked to death. His women would have been used and abused by his own king. He had only been moved from one hell to another, without his consent.

Had he been given a choice of slaving for his own king, or slaving for an unknown master across the seas, what would have been his choice? Some of the Africans would have considered it an escape from oppression and suffering. He would have known there was no escape for him or his family under his own rulers. He would have dreamed that life would be easier on the other side, and may even give him an opportunity of escape.

If the slave mentioned by Longfellow had really been a king, he would have got the opportunity to realize how his own people had suffered under him. He would have felt pain of body and mind, if he felt any guilt.

This poem could be interpreted according to the concept of Karma as well. This would be how he had to pay for his evil deeds. Right through the poem what we see is the inequality that has haunted mankind from the beginning of what we consider as civilization. Longfellow had seen only just a fraction of this inequality. Today we are in a better position to understand the situation in Africa and the rest of the world, then and now. Even in ancient India the kings and the rich Brahmins enslaved their people, as described in the Kutadantha Sutta in the Digha Nikaya thus, "...And the slaves and messengers and workmen there employed were driven neither by rods nor fear, nor carried on their work weeping with tears upon their faces".

Today we could use this same poem to describe the plight of our poor women who are going into slavery in the Middle East. These women would be dreaming too, as they sleep in a strange house, slaving day and night. Their dreams would be about their children or about their aged parents, as they die not once but a thousand times. The women are not called slaves, but by a more dignified term.

They are not carried away by force, in iron chains. They are lured into slavery by greedy businessmen, in their thirst for filthy lucre.

The women are driven to these slave traders out of desperation, and the sadder side of the situation is that the women have to pay their way into slavery today. Their dreams would not be about their past, but about their future. How they would build a little cottage, see to their children's education, find treatment for their ailing parents, with the money they earned from slaving themselves to death.

There will always be slaves and masters in the world, as long as there is inequality, as long as man is driven by greed for power and wealth, and there will always be poems and novels and plays and films made of the suffering of the slaves, or how they fight back, but such artistic creations will only remain a form of entertainment for the "more equal", and a catharsis for the "less equal". Such artistic creations will never open our eyes to the sad plight of the poor and the helpless. [email protected]
 

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