Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 19. July 31, 1974
Right to Rebel
Right to Rebel
It is right to rebel
if the cause is right;
to rebel against
the decay of the old
and its tyranny.
This is good.
To rebel simply for the sake
of rebellion, which soon
turns to a self-consuming chaos
is of use to the enemy alone,
whose best paid agents work
to divide, disrupt, and rule.
Today, the old exploiters
get scared; for a whole world
of youth is in rebellion
though often still groping
for a way.
Revolutionary fire
is too precious a thing
to let flare, then burn out,
leaving cynicism in its wake.
Rather must youth keep it stoked,
burning away all that is evil,
keeping warm all that is good,
reducing to ashes tabus that cover
truth with gaudy trappings —
truth that is most beautiful
most real, when cleanly naked
with nothing to hide.
Youth, gallant, fearless,
impatient youth, can only
be truly effective when
it passes on its fire to those
who make and create when it
can forget self in
[
unclear: sacruice],
can analyse the forces that stand
against it; learns to know who are the friends,
who enemies, so that it can make
each and every blow for a new day
truly count
Peking, October 25th, 1969.