Stephen Gill’s Flame
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Stephen Gill holds up high with burning passion the Flame of Peace. This commitment is rooted in his life-long encounters with humankind’s incorrigible tendency to succumb time and again to the evil charms of religious fanaticism, ultra-nationalism and racism. The Flame is an epic poem in the composition of which the author has invested all his skills as a poet, a thinker and a philosopher of the weak and oppressed. The end result is a creative work of such overwhelming beauty – notwithstanding the fact that most of the space is devoted to depicting the ugly faces of self-righteousness, cultural arrogance, violence and terrorism. The beauty is naturally not in the shocking and depressing data that he presents, but the argument for peace that he advances as each facet of human wickedness is reviewed in light of his own message and philosophy of peace and love. I have been profoundly touched and moved by the author’s goodness of heart and idealism.
Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed
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