Genre: Meeting a Famous Person
I Met a Man
by Mohammed Islam Butt
I Met A Man One Day.
He Was Quite The Intellectual And Quite A Busy Man.
Having Been To Several Universities
And Acquired Numerous Accolades In Law and A Career In Politics.
A Writer Who Described His Life
“As A Long Walk To Freedom”
A Life Of Strife and Hardship
Including Time In Prison.
A Youth Misspent Fighting For What He Believed In.
He Balanced The Use Of The Gun And The Use Of Philosophy.
A Man Who Wanted Nothing More Than The End Of Discrimination.
27 Years Of Imprisonment Would Have Made Any Man Bitter And Aggrieved.
But, No,
Not This Man.
This Man Wanted Nothing More Than To Stop
The Oppression Done To His People And End Apartheid.
He Accomplished His Task Through Peaceful Means
And Became Leader Of His Much Loved Country.
For His Open Minded Attitude And Peaceful Thinking
He Was Awarded The Noble Peace Prize In 93.
When I Met Him Many Years Later
You Wouldn’t Have Known Anything About His Troubled Past.
We Locked Eyes And Shook Hands.
I Greeted Him In A Informal British Manner,
“Alright”
He Just Shook My Hand And Beamed A Smile Back At Me.
I Thought To Myself What A Nice Man.
Oh Did I Forget To Mention His Name?
Let’s Just Say Actions Speak Louder Than Words…
“I Was Made, By The Law, A Criminal,
Not Because Of What I Had Done,
But What I Stood For,
Because Of What I Thought,
Because Of My Conscience.”
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