TỰ THÁN LYRIC
1. Gió hiu-hắt bên rừng quạnh-quẽ,
Nhìn non sông đượm vẻ tang-thương.
Mối tình chủng-loại vấn-vương,
Thấy quân xâm-lược hùng-cường căm gan.
Vừa toan rút gươm vàng ngăn giặc,
Bỗng họa đâu gieo-rắc bất kỳ.
Cường-quyền một lũ ngu-si,
Oan nầy hận ấy sử ghi muôn đời.
Truyền khắp nước muôn lời vu-cáo,
10. Dùng trăm ngàn thói bạo hiếp dân.
Làm cho trong nước rẽ phân,
Làm cho giặc Pháp một lần sướng-rang.
Vậy cũng gọi an bang định quốc,
Rồi rút lui bỏ mất thành-trì.
Giống nòi nỡ giết nhau chi?
Bạng duật tương trì lợi lũ ngư-ông.
Đoàn hậu-tấn có lòng yêu nước,
Khá nhìn xem gương trước răn mình.
Riêng Ta hai chữ nhục vinh,
20. Thoảng cười thế-sự nhân tình quá đen.
Lòng dân chớ khá xem khinh,
Bạo-tàn giết mất, nhân tình thì thua.
Miền-Đông, Cuối năm Ất-Dậu (1945).
(Đức Thầy Hoà Hảo)
A breeze flickers by a quiet wood,
My country is in a dismal mood.
Bogged in my love of fellow race,
Seeing fierce gangsters I boil with rage.
No sooner have I unsheated my sword,
Than a disaster had stopped Me short.
The junta is a horde of morons,
This rancor will forever in history stay on.
They run limitless countrywide slanders,
Brutalize the mass in myriad manners.
Split the country into factions,
Render French gangsters’ gratification.
As such the bogus called it ‘statesmanship’!
Then they retreat and jump ship.
Why do we kill each other without regret?
Like fishers profit from clam versus egret.
If posterity has a patriotic sentiment,
Be prudent by watching the precedent.
In my own view of fame and shame,
I chuckle at the society full of stratagems.
Don’t take people’s feelings lightly,
Kill off tyrany, give way to civility.
Eastern Region, Wood Rooster (1945)
(By Lord Master Hoa Hao)
This main idea of the lyric is Master’s expression of his disappointment with the efforts of the Third International Communist movement to gather all non-communist nationalists in French Indochina under its leadership, if not dictatorship, which would place Vietnam in predictably ominous confrontation with the Western Allies in the aftermath of the Second World War. Otherwise, it would liquidate the leaders of these pro-independence non-communist movements. After the communist-led Viet Minh executed a few Hoa Hao leaders, including His brother and lawyer, its next target was Lord Master Huynh Phu So. During his escape to the Eastern region, He moved from Can Tho to Saigon and expressed His sorrow in his lyric “Tự Thán”, while hiding at a place near a wood, hosted by one of the local Hoa Hao Buddhist congregations.
On the verge of the French re-occupation of Vietnam, Lord Master held that,
-Prepare the mass to resist French colonists,
-Call for eradication of corrupt members of the Cochinchina Administrative Commission
However, the action of the local administration only aims to serve the interest of the Soviet Union rather than the Vietnamese people who do not want to build their future country on communism and to make her prey to the exploỉtation as a proxy by one of the two opposite global camps. He believed that the struggle of the Vietnamese people for independence and freedom would not need depend on a foreign power or a groups of powers. On the other hand, the country should be able to stand on her feet if all the forces of hers work together without the risk of a string attached.
As predicted, after the Third International Communist rose to power since September 1945, Vietnam had gone through more than three decades of devastation as she was locked in a global conflict, and worse still, its repercussions remain up to the present with many in the two regions suffering the trauma of the war. Those who are deemed winners and those who suffered as losers in terms of prolonged discrimation by the former are the victims of this conflict.
Cuộc Biểu Tình ở Cần Thơ (Phật Giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng Lịch Sử Dân Tộc)