Look on my works and despair

Image from literaturemini

‘Ozymandias’ is one of Shelley’s popular poems though it is not a typical poem of his. It presents a mighty ruler of some “antique land.” Ozymandias is his name and his statue, which is now in ruins, can still be seen in the desert sands. “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” stand erect on a pedestal while the head lies in the sand wearing a sneering frown on the wrinkled lips. On the pedestal is the inscription: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works… and despair.” But all his might now lies in utter decay. He is nothing but a “colossal wreck.”

All conquerors, however mighty and contemptuous of others, will fall to dust one day. Even their conquests won’t be remembered. What the world wants are not conquerors but redeemers. That is why Ozymandias and his type are destined to lie broken in some distant sands of forsaken history.

What Russia is doing to Ukraine is yet another inhuman deed through which Putin seems to cock a snook at the world with the same attitude of Ozymandias, “Look on my works and despair.” Every war is a subhuman assault on human civilisation. Every war takes humankind back to the ages of savagery. If we can’t find peaceful solutions to problems, if we can’t find solutions without killing innocent people and destroying their houses and other buildings, we need to “despair” indeed – but not by looking on the might of the warmongers. We despair about our own savagery.

I’m not forgetting history, however. Today the US of America is pretending to be a great moralist admonishing Russia for its savagery. Let us not forget what America did in that region earlier. In 2004, American Intelligence toppled the Ukrainian government just because it was pro-Russia and set up a pro-US regime. Russia was powerless against the might of the US in those days. USA had played many political games in that region earlier too. There are many Russians living in Ukraine. Ukraine has an umbilical cord connection with Russia. America was using Ukrainian president Zelensky to cut that cord for its own selfish purposes. What America did in Ukraine is similar to what China is doing and planning to do in Nepal against Indian interests.

Politics is irredeemable, I understand. Wars are integral parts of that lack of redeemability. And so we the ordinary mortals who dream of a better world are condemned to get more and more Ozymandiases.