Academic Essay on my poem: Alienation from the Roots
Alienation from Roots: A Poetic Manifesto of Cultural Memory, Inner Divinity, and Civilizational Crisis
Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s Visionary Synthesis of Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, and Metaphysics
“You are sabotaging your own originality,
Deviating from your path,
But your ancestors are calling you—”
These lines from Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s “Alienation from Roots” capture a haunting paradox: in an era of unprecedented global connectivity and technological advancement, we are estranged not just from our cultures, but from our very selves. This poem is not merely a lament—it is a philosophical diagnosis, a spiritual prophecy, and a psychological map for healing a fractured civilization.
I. Inheritance and Betrayal: The Selfish DNA and the Lost Originality
The poem opens with a provocative biological metaphor:
“Yes, your DNA is selfish—
Selfish in preserving its traits—the trends traced back to your origin,”
Here, Richard Dawkins’ concept of the selfish gene is poetically repurposed. Yet while Dawkins emphasizes genetic preservation through evolutionary competition (Dawkins, 1976), the poet turns this lens inward: the DNA becomes not only biological code, but a vessel of cultural memory and ancestral oath. But modernity, she argues, betrays this inheritance. The DNA, once sacred, is now looted—not just by bioweapons, but by a globalized mindset that blends and erases indigenous worldviews.
This line of thought echoes Jean Baudrillard’s warning against hyperreality—the replacement of authentic cultural identities by simulations and projections (Baudrillard, 1981). Alienation from one’s roots, then, is not accidental but manufactured.
II. Globalized Amnesia: The Erasure of the Self
“Alienation from self and your roots,
You are sabotaging your own originality…”
This self-sabotage is not individual but collective. The poem evokes Frantz Fanon’s idea of the “epidermalization of inferiority,” where the colonized internalize alien cultural values (Fanon, 1952). Nancy takes this further: we are now voluntarily colonizing ourselves through technological trends, sociocultural drift, and aesthetic nihilism.
“We were stripped of our divinity,
Divine feminine and masculine!”
This stripping away of divinity is both metaphysical and psychoanalytic. Where Freud described the conflict between id, ego, and superego, Nancy’s poem exposes how a failure to integrate these forces results in civilizational madness: narcissism, bipolarity, and megalomania.
III. Mythic Memory: Marriam and Nizam, Hawa and Adam
“Oh, the divine feminine—Marriam,
Where are you?
Oh, the divine masculine—Nizam,
Where are you?”
The invocation of Marriam (Mary) and Nizam (Order) reveals a Gnostic-Sufi worldview, where masculine and feminine are not mere genders but cosmic polarities. Echoing Carl Jung’s anima and animus, the poem suggests that the spiritual disintegration of civilization stems from this split. The sacred womb is either suppressed or desecrated, and divine masculinity becomes authoritarian or absent.
“In the sperm war, where the best of best seeds are lost?”
This line—a bold biological metaphor—suggests that the civilizational collapse is written into the psychosexual and reproductive crisis of humanity. The poem demands that Adam and Hawa must reunite, not as mythic progenitors, but as psychic archetypes within each individual.
IV. Hyder and the Seer: A Dialogic Encounter
“And Hyder asks me: how do we survive the peril, the perish,
And who will be our pariah in the dystopian order?”
The poetic dialogue with Hyder introduces the didactic voice of the Seer, who warns of dystopia, identity crisis, and technocratic decay. The prophetic tone resembles Gibran’s “The Prophet”, yet unlike Gibran’s serene moralism, Nancy’s voice is urgent, shaken, and apocalyptic.
She redefines fitness:
“The fittest will survive,
The culturally fittest one,
The socially fittest one,
The mentally strongest one,
And, the spiritually fitted ones will survive.”
This echoes Nietzsche’s will to power, but with ethical and spiritual dimensions. It also subverts Darwinian materialism with Sufi metaphysics: those attuned to the divine within will endure. The real battlefield, the poem insists, is within the psyche.
V. Culture as Weapon, Culture as Salvation
“Your culture is your weapon—
That you can use as resistance against all oppressions,
And again you can use it to provoke—
To establish the throne—now shall be overthrown.”
Culture, here, is both resistance and temptation. The poem warns against becoming what one opposes, echoing Edward Said’s critique of mimicry (Said, 1978) and Foucault’s concern with power’s reproduction through discourse. Yet Nancy reclaims culture as a sacred seed—if properly cultivated through balanced inner consciousness, it can become the source of ethical restoration.
VI. Rebirth Through Inner Union: The Call of the Lightworkers
“The lightworkers who have defeated their shadows…”
This line invokes Jung’s concept of shadow integration—that only by confronting the repressed parts of the self can one achieve individuation (Jung, 1953). Nancy’s “lightworkers” are not saints but wounded healers—those who have passed through the fire of self-alienation and emerged whole.
“You are the matrix—the DNA is within you!
It’s calling for purification—
For a holy amalgamation.”
In this climax, we are offered a poetic theodicy: not resignation, but responsibility. The divine masculine and feminine must reunite not in myth, but in you. The crisis is cosmic, but the transformation is individual.
VII. Conclusion: A New Civilization, or a New Self?
“Carry the light for which you were designed,
Carry the light—
It’s inside of you!”
The poem ends where mystical traditions begin: with inner light, ethical renewal, and spiritual sovereignty. Nancy’s poem is not simply a mirror held up to modernity—it is a blueprint for rebirth. In a world where civilizations are crashing under their own hubris, Alienation from Roots offers both an apocalyptic warning and a metaphysical invitation:
To become whole,
To remember your origin,
And to resurrect the future encoded in your soul.
📚 References
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Baudrillard, J. (1981). Simulacra and Simulation.
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Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press.
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Fanon, F. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks.
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Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish.
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Gibran, K. (1923). The Prophet.
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Jung, C. G. (1953). Psychology and Alchemy.
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Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
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Irigaray, L. (1985). This Sex Which Is Not One.
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Nietzsche, F. (1883–85). Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
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