Modern Times

Below is a poem wirtten by Bobby Sands. Bobby Sands, an Irish, was arrested by the British in the year '76. He died in jail on 5th May 1981.

When i read this poem the first time, i didnt know about Bobby Sands, and what he had done, or what his motive was. All i knew was about the IRA. And i felt emotionally connected to the IRA, because they were fighting the same opressors, who we, Indians, overthrew in 1947. I supported and still support their cause, emotionally and morally.

More than what Bobby had done, i was more impressed by this poem he had witten. Today, more than two decades, after his death, the underlying truth reverberates even more strongly. It shows how much progress humankind has made in all these years.


"Modern Times" - by Bobby Sands

It is said we live in modern times
In the civilized year of seventy-nine
But when I look around, all I see
Is modern torture, pain and hypocrisy.

In modern times little children die
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire
Run screaming, napalmed through the night air.

And while fat dictators sit upon their thrones
Young children bury their parents' bones
And secret police in the dead of night
Electrocute the naked woman out of sight.

In the gutter lies black man, dead
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red.
And there was he who was born and came to be
But lived and died without liberty.

As the bureaucrats, speculators and presidents alike
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within his tomb
And tomorrow's wretch will leave its mother's womb.