The great poet of unhappiness was the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who wrote books of poems that critiqued violence, you know, critiqued militarism, furious about even dictatorship. But he never lost his capacity to be sentimental. And one of my favorite poems from him starts with fire but ends with the fire inside your heart. And it runs, you know [ recites in Urdu ] So what he’s saying is... [ recites in Urdu ] Any time the flesh of the worker is sold in the bazaar, in the market place, when the blood of people flows down the avenues, a fire starts to kindle inside my being, my very being, and I lose control of it. In other words, this is not a poem saying “I don’t want to act in the world.” this is a poem that says “what you see around you leaves you with no obligation but to feel something. And if that feeling cannot be controlled, well you have to do something about it.” You can’t refuse this world.

Vijay Prashad Journalist Author The Poorer Nations