Lorot Son of the Hills’ Apology

Based on Socrates’ Apology


Lorot Son of the Hills gives his defence on ‘corrupting’ the sons and daughters of the hills.


“I have been accused of many things. That I am corrupting the sons and daughters of the hills. That by being the intermediary between the people and the hills, I have feigned that message to suit myself. That I have deliberately distorted truth to make it whimsical, sentimental and only appealing to myself. That I am guilty.

“And here I stand condemned before men. My fate is sealed. In these three hours I have been given to give my defence, I am expected to explain to my accusers my folly, my guilt. In these short three hours I will compress my defence which is as long as my life and experience to extricate myself from the blames of man and society. And after those three hours, my fate will be determined.

“In the next three hours, I will speak without the aid of my notes or any attorney. I will not quote any law. I will not blame anyone. I will just lay facts as they are and speak as myself, Lorot Son of the Hills. And before I continue, I want those at the back of this audience to keep quiet and not chide me, bring me to disrepute or mock me. I want them to give me this final right of being heard. This time is mine. Secondly, when I speak, Judges, I want my accusers to keep quiet and not bandy words with me. I am aged now, my voice is frail and I love to speak quietly and slowly. If they would wish to say anything, I will give them time but they should not invite me to a verbal match.

“Having said that, I wish to ask my accusers what exactly they mean when they say that I am corrupting the sons and daughters of the hills. If I may hazard a guess, could they by any chance be meaning that I am corrupt? That I am spreading poison to them? And when they say that I have feigned the message to suit myself, did they have in mind a pretender, a clown, a pseudo-messenger? And lastly, when they accuse me of distorting the truth, I ask them which truth I have distorted in order to appeal to myself? What is truth? What is sentimentality? What is their distortion?

“I will revisit these questions in depth shortly. But, if you allow me, my Lords, I would want to explain the background of who I am and what I am. For to understand Lorot Son of the Hills is actually what this case is all about. What I stand for is the bulwark of what my accusers are demanding my neck for. What I can die for is what my defence is all about.

“My Lords, poets are a gift from God. They are the music of the world. They are the reason of the world. For poets dissect into the human soul to expose the malignant tumours which men don’t see and which ordinary eyes ignore. Poets are the paintbrushes that stroke the future in so vivid terms that they are close to us even when they are in the distant future. And you don’t see many poets. True poets speak to the society, they bear the message. And they are hated all around them. Many are killed. Many are hunted down and tortured and eventually die slowly.

“For being the bearers of chilling truth and unsettling messages, such poets are accused of many things. They are derided. They are mocked. They are called mad men. And when such derision doesn’t bear fruit, the accusations assume another shape, the shape of an unrepentant recipient. For the message is the truth. For the message is unapologetic. And in all this, the poet listens to his heart and the message irrespective of whether it would warrant the approval of man or his disapproval, his respect or disrespect.

“So forces will unite. Against the message. And accusations will be leveled. But why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they? Who would want youths to be corrupted by poison? Who will want sentimentality? Who will want pretenders? No one does.

“Amidst the cacophony of mixed sounds, truth is almost irrelevant. We hear bangs, booms, clatter, honks, sirens, and hullabaloo. But we also hear serenity, tranquility, small little voices which are barely recognizable. We hear the shouts, the shrieks, the screams. But we also hear the silence of our hearts, of our souls, of our beings.

“ A true poet will rise above the din and discern those voices, of the booms and tranquility, of clatter and serenity, of shrieks and silence. He will remain true to them because his ears have been trained to separate them and to see through the folly of man and expose the lies for what they are.

“And of course, he will be the intermediary, the vessel, the messenger. He will convey the message from his heart to fellow men. He will discern the voices and speak what he hears. He will be true to that voice. He will hold fidelity to the consequences of that voice. For it has to be heard, be it silent or tranquil, be it serene or small.

“Being the intermediary, he will be accused of many things. His accusers won’t be to blame. For such messages they have never heard, such voices their ears have never brooked and such boldness their lifetimes have never seen. And to protect society, they will swing into action and right the wrong and deliver justice.

“They will imagine themselves as some form of custodians to protect fellow men from the folly of such a pseudo-messenger. And a lovely job they will be doing. They will bring forth the charges, lay claims, fire fusillade of questions, all aimed against the bearer of such a ‘bad message’. For ultimately, the corrupt among us must be removed, the poison in our system must be neutralized. The corrupt will corrupt others, eventually.

“ So I am here today, my Lords, to defend myself against the accusations. To remove guilt from myself. To say to the world that I am innocent.

“Ironically, that is not why I am here. I am not here to declare anything or to extricate myself from anything. I am here to speak from my heart and mind and to live or die from the consequences of my speech. I will not defend myself.

“All my life, I have always defended myself. When I want to think in a particular way I have always defended myself and trained myself to think in a certain way, to suit society. I have defended my actions, my speech, my beliefs, my principles, my opinions, my affection, my approval, my disapproval. I have answered so many questions of man just to suit them, to appeal to their affections. I have said things which I hated but said them because that is what they wanted anyway. My entire life has been one long defence which has ended up here today, for which I always knew will end here.

“While I have been walking around teaching the sons and daughters of the hills the tales of the hills and their messages for them, I always countenanced opposition. I was called a mad man, a loaf, a dangerous man. For feeding the sons and daughters of the hills with worthy teachings on what they ought to hear and live by, I was mocked and almost lynched on several occasions. For discussing with them our lives and the messages that should open our eyes to the reality, I was condemned and stand here condemned. And I am called a distorter of truth.

“In the secret world of poetry, there is no worse an accusation, no hard-hitting an expletive, no searing an insult as to call a poet a distorter of the truth. When a man kills the other, he destroys. When an earthquake strikes, it destroys. When bad weather visits us in floods and other vagaries of nature, it comes to destroy, maim, plunder, ‘uncreate’. A distorter of truth is in the same caliber, or even worse. To manipulate truth is to destroy nature, to destroy nature of things, to cause turmoil in an ordered setting. To distort truth is to kill, to destroy, to maim, to plunder, to ‘uncreate’. And a distorter of truth is such a killer, destroyer.

“I have been accused as such. I cannot live with that. That is why I will explain myself and let the world hear it. I have thirty minutes left now and everyone is growing impatient with me. They want to have my neck. They will have to wait another thirty minutes and I will be over.

“To the first accusation of corrupting the sons and daughters of the hills, I want to ask my accusers which son and daughter of the hill I corrupted. When I walked around the length and breadth of this land, I met so many youths to whom I imparted knowledge. The youths are here in this audience. I want you to ask them which morals I corrupted and whether they are not upright. There is Kiech the son of Lomertapem. I can see him. He is 25 now. I want to ask him or his father how I, Lorot Son of the Hills, have corrupted him. Lotam Son of Lotulia is here also. I want to ask him how my teachings have spread poison to him. There is Chemariech the daughter of Lotim. Ask her how I have corrupted her as a daughter of the hills. Ask them. Ask them how I have ruined them or distorted their truths. And if you are not satisfied, ask their fathers how bad they have felt for their sons and daughters after hearing my teachings.

“You accuse me of distorting truth. I want to ask you what truth I have distorted with sentimentality. In all my poetry, I have given my messages in open yards. I have delivered them some terse and cocky, others open as the messages themselves. I challenge my accusers to show me what parts of those poems are sentimental, what are truthful and what are distorted. In al these I would want them to show me clearly and illustrate them to me for my old ears to hear.

“For my messages have always been the echoes in my mind relayed to fellow men. Some have been the echoes of the hills. Yet others have been fleeting, transient even. My accusers have to interrogate me and deliver justice. But in all these, I have explained myself and my time is up.

“If I be condemned to die, I request a small favour from you. Let my children be never taught poetry. Let them be never told about the tales of the hills. Let them be denied all the links they had with their father. Let them not be corrupted by my teachings, let them not be the consumers of distorted truth and sentimentality. Let my grave not be marked. Let me die in oblivion. No tears should be shed. No regrets should be borne. Let my children steer clear from the corrupt nature of their father lest they be accused of ‘corrupting’ other youths. Let my poetry die and the tales of the hills be forgotten and shunned. Let it not be remembered. Let me be ridiculed and mocked by you my accusers and never should you, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, 100 years from now ever change your minds about now for I am a bad person, a poison to the society. I stand accused and condemned before you men and I am ready to die. Grant my wish. See you in the Hereafter, sons and daughters of the hills. I am done. I am peaceful. Let justice be met."