Papers

(In response to Vaine Rasmussen's 'A Book and a Pen')

Think about how many times you will use x, y and z

And all the formulas and equation

From algebra to geometry to probability

Don't forget important pieces of the history

Of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and ancient Egypt

Because that will come handy one day

Remember the dates, the places, because at one point

You’ll have to acknowledge them (For what?)

Keep worrying about your credits

And all the Merits and Excellences

Because intelligence is measured by letters

I tell you now, your grades define how society will treat you

Think about the university

That would lead you into the future of debt

Education is not what it used to be

It's now a mere propaganda

One university will claim that they're the best

And the other will claim that they're leading

And yet another will claim that they're the top

All because they want your money in their pocket

In exchange for a piece of paper holding a Bachelor's degree

In return, what does this paper prove?

That you were able to remember theories and extract information

How different is an A+ to a B+, or a B+ to a C+?

Did you really want to have a say when we define our future?

Or did you want us, so that you can define your future

So tell me, where’s my money gone now?

Because I tell you, it doesn’t matter how high my results are

At the end of it all, all I get is piece of paper holding a Bachelor’s degree

A Bachelor’s degree that very rarely gets me into the industry that I want to be in

Was I not prepared for the real world?

How different is university from high school, or high school from middle school

And ever since I was little, people that I call “teachers”

Taught me to prepare for the “real world”

So I ask, didn’t I enter the “real world” ever since I first opened my eyes?

So you tell me, that preparing for the “real world” means waiting

For every piece of paper that I get, every time I leave a school ?

Aaron: Poem to Kidnapped (Final)

Ruperake Petaia a Samoan outside the center

Was it careless that you were sent away?

Thrust into a white Fijian world unasked
English your new friend
the old comfort companion disappeared 
 

Only to see those becoming so familiar

after months of strange worldly stories
and room full of those unlike you.

Feelings small important in the least
or the largest in length and most wanted  
a Samoan outside the center

Corrupted by those philosophers minds
that slowly show you glimpses of pleasure  
this education was a weight or reliever?

To be taught in this westernized manner
Where were the lessons about home
Where were the lessons saying you belong
but the Dutch arrived with a banner.

Did your mind start to like what it learned
the war, the leaders, the revolution bullet
did it make its way to an interested mind?

Was there any pleasure to be provided

a life bigger by the gloss of science

thoughts so powerful you yearned for more.

I understand the crisis in finding identity                                             
a life your parents whose love decided
to place a child in a foreign classroom. 

A father seeking the paid praise
but his son was not what he expected

You're different from the traditional view
the white mans child a foreign thinker
Fa'a Samoa now so hard to find

A Samoan outside the center


Words learned that weren't native
taking hold like a hook to a fish
The words taught in academic language
first language spoken but second to you
Mother tongue coming from another

Fa'a Samoa felt the first fist of the Empire
and blessing turned to ash in the mouth
The Nagivator Islands were spewed out

A Flag hidden knife aimed at the center

They clapped and cheered all as one
under the thump of him or her
King, Queen they were all the same
One said this opportunity was open
another the answer lay with them
but all we want is our home

Did they lose a son to the white ways?

Did your Tama ever come to see you

as the son he understood.

For ignorance is the killer of families
when they search for a higher life

A Samoan outside the center