The Quest to Peace

This poem was inspired by a book called: Purification of the Heart translated by Hamza Yusuf.  The book is based on a poem called purification of the hearts translated from Arabic by Imam Mawlud from Mauritania in West Africa.  

'If you want to change the world, do not begin by rectifying the outward, instead, change the condition of the inward.'  Hamza Yusuf

The Quest to Peace

On a quest to peace,

Wearing a superficial fleece screaming: ‘free my people!’

But who are my people again?

I’m trying to change the world before I change myself

I’m trying to change the world before I change myself

How’s that gonna work?

I told science I’ve seen a black hole

Bigotry is contaminating the soul

Arrogance and ignorance going

Hand in hand forming something called an ego, ready to expand

Socially conditioned like moths hitting the same flame,

Rust on our minds like a broken bike chain.

The path to truth will get me that peace

Fire missiles with wordplay I’m acting in self-defence

No sense, your two cents is not appreciated Regev

Trying to maim verbally a political Rumi

Leaking like a WikiLeak or a spiritual Sufi

He Put a knife to my throat and said ‘gimme your inner gold.’    I said I just have a blackberry, and its not even the bold

Trying to steal my soul and hold my heart hostage

Trying to steal my soul and hold my heart hostage

Language spoken in the dialect of hate not love

crimes of war and humanity influenced by envy, anger and greed

as politicians plant the neo-colonialist seed

Tyrants say its for your own good

they say: War is peace and slavery is freedom

They say: there is truth behind the lies and lies behind the truth,

They say: Shallowness is in, Modesty is a sin
 and burqa bans are soooooooo 2010

Now days justice starts with a conjunction and its ‘in’

In ‘justice’ like a sickly cough tickling our throat, and the medicine is in our hearts.

Before I find my mirror I need to find myself

I’m trying to change myself before I change this world,

Im trying to change myself before I change this world.

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 By Mohamed-Zain Dada - Poet and Writer: www.times-series.co.uk/blogs/mohamed_zain_dada

Twitter: @Zainthepoet http://twitter.com/#!/Zainthepoet

THE POETIC EMPOWERMENT PROJECT

Our Manifesto...

The Poetic Empowerment Project aims to bring self confidence to the youth whilst allowing them to articulate their frustrations, emotions and creativity through the art of wordplay. Furthermore the P.E.P aims to empower the youth regardless of race, religion or creed. The young people involved in the project will also come out of it acknowledging and implementing the famous idiom that in fact 'the pen is mightier then the sword.' The P.E.P whilst also giving the youth a chance to express themselves will also target important youth issues at the same time. Issues such as 'knife crimes' will be addressed as well as 'extremism' and 'loneliness' etc.

All these issues will be listed and targeted in workshops separately and we hope to include at least one famous poet or spoken word artists or even rappers. Anyone who is respected by the youth thus creating a healthy, mutual environment. So rather then the local MP speaking we would prefer to choose the local MC! However we do want politicians to work closely with the project to help build a relationship of respect with the local youth.

I have articulated some of these points on the Barnet Times, the link is below:

http://www.times-series.co.uk/blogs/8223323.Poetic_Empowerment/

Copy and Paste the above link into the address bar to access it!

Activities and Workshops

The implementation of activities and workshops is solely dependent on whether the P.E.P receives funding or not. However the core of the P.E.P will be poetry circles which will be circulated and held on our website:
www.PoeticEmpowerment.blogspot.com and will also be advertised on social networking sites to encourage young people to get involved!

The P.E.P will have an annual Charity Poetry Slam at the end of the year using the young poets in our project to express their poems on stage in front of an audience. We also plan to book one poet to perform as the headline act. All the money raised from this Poetry Slam will go to charity. However the young poets will not be forced into performing and can create their own type of performance using video’s or pre-recorded spoken word segments.










Aims and outcomes

By the end of the year we hope to:

Have at least one group of young poets to start off the project headed and chaired by mentors and Poetic Leaders

Have at least one workshop with the youth trying to tackle issues which concern them

Organise our first Charity Poetry Slam with the local MP speaking, a local poet or rapper perform and of course have our young poets express their art to the audience if they want to.

The aims outlined above are both attainable and realistic

The outcomes of the project are as follows:

To create a better more rational population of young people who are empowered with the knowledge that the 'pen is mightier then the sword.'

The above outcome will hopeful eradicate problems like knife crime to radical extremism

To give the youth self-confidence and treat one another with respect. Also crucially to give the youth the oral skills to deal with parents in a respectful manner thus leading to a more healthy family life.

Most importantly let the youth enjoy their work and give them full artistic control in terms of how they want to present their poetry. Each young person will have their own creative means to an ends.
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The Poetic Empowerment Project requires volunteer's to help in anyway possible, if you are interested please contact:

mohamedzaind@googlemail.com

Thank you for reading our manifesto.