What of your steel and your oil
Your railroads, canals, automobiles and bridges,
Are they not everywhere on display?
Did they not need, in each instance, a man,
A great man!
One unafraid to cut away the thorns, the weeds, the bushes?
And are these achievements not yours to enjoy?
Is not this your solid wealth, your everlasting glory?
Where now is that mass of suffering millions
But dead and forgotten?
You have surpassed man.
You are and must remain wax statues, unmoved.
Retain your Objectivity.
Their problems are not yours, nor can you share their concerns.
Their goals cannot be yours, nor even their ideals
--though once, perhaps, you shared them.
The barrier is now impassable.
To think this may have moved you!
Oh! I cannot bear the thought of such a spectacle!
To have set a gallery of wax statues on fire
--a familiar vision, perhaps?
To see the wax melt and see beneath
The shrivelled faces of dead men!
Oh do not soften, Masters, remember who you are!
SCENE: JAVA
(Jakarta, Indonesia, 1946--or, as it was known then in the West, Batavia, Dutch East Indies. A slum facing the banks of the Kali Canal. Moksa, a beggar; Indio, an unemployed plantation laborer; two three-year old children, one dead. Moksa stares; Indio reads newspaper.)
Remember, this old beggar is not one of you.
And if his son now seems to pose a threat
Remember this is natural, happens frequently
