Sending infos about my song "Bakun - Pool Of Blood" to a friend I wondered what the current situation in Bakun was now. Doing the research
I found this interesting documentation on Al Jazeera (click on the link):
The Last Frontier - Alleged corruption, rights violations and environmental degradation plague Malaysia's controversial Bakun project.
Rahmat Harons poem, to which the song above is the soundtrack, seems more true than ever. Read the transcript and the translation below please. You can find Rahmat Harons Blog here: http://sampahseni.blogspot.ch/ (you will need translation, if you're not malaysian).
The sequel may be appropriate too: "Bakun - Postapocalypse". My friends from BrutalGod gave me the screams of the dead and tormented which lead to this follower:
Transcription:
Bakun, kukenang engkau dari jauh. Dari sebuah ingatan terkoyak, rusuh dan rabak.
Aku yang terkedu di kamar kaku BangsaT Utama dan hujan lebat menyikat cemar kota - lambat-lambat menyerap kotor kimia dan asap ke dalam tanah masam tajam berasid ini.
Bakun, kutahu banyak yang telah terkorban. Rimba seluas Singapura hanya tinggal gambar rajah sehelai peta lama.
Kehidupan hutan tebal dicukur botak kemajuan. Ditogel tarah pesta bogel pengkhianatan gila harta tamak kuasa haloba dunia kota.
Konon empangan itu bekal tenaga menggerak nyawa tugu-tugu batu pembangunan.
Bakun, bangkai kehidupan tenggelam tak berkafan. Darah bertakung, air bergenang.Tak ada yang tenang. Ia mimpi yang patah, musnah.
Bakun, segala berkecai tercampak ke mana, kehidupan ke mana, empangan ke mana, balak ke mana.Akhirnya yang tinggal tak bersembelih, yang tanggal tak berdalih hanyallah penderitaan,
Bakun, kini rusuh tubuhmu kemarau kering, kontang dan terbongkang.hujan basah, berkeruh becak lopak berdarah.
Bakun, engkau yang mati terlentang, ruh merayap ke serata negeri. semangat hinggap di tingkap kaku bangsat utama mengagau seriau.
Bakun, engkau belum aman lagi nanti aku akan terbang ke sana dengan kepak Kenya Lang, ku suberang laut China Selatan. dengan pedang keadilan kita akan keluar memburu puaka-puaka alam itu.
Translation:
Bakun, I remember you from afar. From a torn mind, hardly and badly.
Speechless I am in a static room of Bangsat Utama, and the rains still combing the polluted city - sour acid soils slowly absorbing dirty chemicals and smoke.
Bakun, I know many who have died. Jungles as vast as Singapore, now only exist as a piece of diagram on an old map. Junglelife shaved away by progress, humiliated and betrayed by the greed and arrogance of the city.
They say the dam supplies the breath of life for the buildings, stone monuments of development.
Bakun, corpses drowned without coffin. The water a calm sump. It is the dream of a broken, destroyed mind.
Bakun, everything is doomed to nowhere, the existence, the dam, the timber. The remains not slaughtered, the leftovers without excuses....there’s nothing but misery, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooarghhhhhhhhhhhhooo
Bakun, now your body is in pain, dying in sickness, dried out, puddles, pools of blood.
Oh no, Bakun you are dead, your dead soul crawling all over the country, I watch it perching in the window.
Bakun you will have peace again. I will be there with the wings of Hornbill.
We will fly across the South China Sea, with the sword of justice we will go headhunting, against those demons who betrayed the nature.
(I hope my translation respects Rahmats poetry; though I'm aware my version is just an inept attempt of a translation and not at all poetry)
(I hope my translation respects Rahmats poetry; though I'm aware my version is just an inept attempt of a translation and not at all poetry)
