After the 2nd World Conference on Transformative Education (18-20 May 2023) at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana
Ja bai. Ja bai lonzi;
ja bai ati justu tudu ki nus ingkontrah
Morti, kung eli sa faka;
kung Farquhar.
Eli inda ja falah kung nus tudu:
"I'm sorry."
Our Kristang psychohistorians have never been clearer:
when we went outside,
kora nus ja bai fora,
that was when it all changed.
When what was denied
became more than science fiction, and fantasy, and myth, and legend:
in the future, we will all, now, be such stories
of a better time.
Take Death's knife
and cast it away.
That is an old legend from another part of the world that is not ours. Death does not have to come to slay
but to enjoy tea,
at the leader of the Kristang's behest.
To sit on the veranda,
cracked and parched as it is,
and come back for more.
To stay
because all our families are here.
All our loved ones.
All our Bernards.
All our Dereks.
All our Basils.
All our Uncle Peters.
Semesta sa sabia ja skundeh.
Midu di kauzu. Out of fear
that it would be taken away
again,
and again,
and again,
as has been done so many fucking times over 77,033 years.
But the math does not lie.
Whichever way you cut them,
and cut us into pieces,
two halves always make a whole,
even if there is no teacher
and no way to reassemble what was lost. You do not need a complete figure
of the heart to make a new world
without a saviour. Without a healer
who claims they are everything.
Out here, on the periphery of the known,
it is who you are, and what you know
that begs the right question:
is this really the right kind of beginning?
Death raises Their teacup in salute.
Only fools and idiots from the wrong kind of world
care about winning.
Outside, in the embrace of those who have gone beyond, whomever they are:
the differentiation, the integration
and the individuation all do no lying.
Asih bai na fora, for
outside, in the Kristang world made for us all:
this will finally be a universe
of true, honest, beautiful learning.
For Ghanaians, Singaporeans, men-women of every nation and tribe:
all are finally realising once again
that we can all truly be anyone
and anything.
Go outside.
Abrih tudu sa porta.
Let the fight in.
Let us make Life in every space and time
worth living.