{"id":34072,"date":"2022-03-11T13:13:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T09:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=34072"},"modified":"2022-03-11T13:13:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T09:13:45","slug":"freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poem<\/u><\/span><\/h4>\n

Land of the Dodo and Ebony<\/p>\n

Basking mid Indian Ocean, South of the Equator<\/p>\n

Deserted by Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch<\/p>\n

Where later others feasted buried bounty<\/p>\n

Left with the key to the mystery.<\/p>\n

Some away from the fierce mob in the Old Continent<\/p>\n

Stayed on for peace and tranquillity<\/p>\n

Brought from the Great Continent Africa<\/p>\n

Many working hands to shape the place<\/p>\n

Eyed by \u201cfr\u00e8res ennemis\u201d across the Channel<\/p>\n

Eager to grab by hook or by crook the Little Star<\/p>\n

A change of hands not without a battle<\/p>\n

A gentleman`s agreement for peaceful co-existence<\/p>\n

Saw new Lords at the helm<\/p>\n

On was the zeal for development<\/p>\n

Arrived indentured workers from the Indian Peninsula<\/p>\n

With endurance, perseverance toiled for sweet produce and others<\/p>\n

Bore hardship for years hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel<\/p>\n

Mutual respect adaptive cohabitation across time<\/p>\n

You have your way, I have my say; you have your say, I have my way<\/p>\n

Gathered several to confer with diplomacy, determination<\/p>\n

Round a table with The Leaders of the Great Albion<\/p>\n

For the birthright of our people our homeland – freedom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Broad sunlight at the strike of the twelfth hour<\/p>\n

Twelfth March 1968 a nation saw the day<\/p>\n

On equal footing with other free independent states<\/p>\n

Masters of our own fate at last ‘Independence, Libert\u00e9, Aazadi’.<\/em><\/p>\n

Proudly we bow to thee Mauritius \u201cThe Star and Key of the Indian Ocean\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Where before no soul could claim sole ownership.<\/p>\n

Today chips, chappatis, chowmien entwined like the roots of the Kewal<\/p>\n

Swing to the beat of the ‘dholok’ <\/em>the rhythm of the segas<\/p>\n

The sound of the guitar and the tune of the enchanted flute<\/p>\n

Strengthens the brotherhood bond among all of us.<\/p>\n

Long Live Independence, Long Live Mauritius.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Dr Mala Modun-Bissessur<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 11 March 2022<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poem<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":24434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7946],"tags":[17037,27223,685,119,11601],"class_list":["post-34072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem","tag-dr-mala-modun-bissessur","tag-freedom","tag-independence","tag-mauritius","tag-poem"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Poem.jpg?fit=600%2C296&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8QzSF-freedom","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}