Monday 14 July 2008

Out of Africa Poverty and into Slavery

Little girl trafficked from Africa out of poverty and to slavery of her body for Mr pillar of the community. He rocks the pain into her and empties her heart, this is happening only four houses down from your street, not far from the newsagents, off-license and bar. Her mama at home wandering what happened to her, she'll be fine better than here where there's no food and only fear of the wrath from her emaciated father, the one who sold his daughter. Now she's lamb to the slaughter. And who do they have to thank for the severity of each day, not our fault it's the climate you say. But if you look in the past the colonial powers did their damage and now it lasts. The corrupt government starves its people out if they don't vote their way, and the profiteers who gain from the poor peoples' pain grasp and laugh, the corporate muscle got away with it again, exploitation more rife than ever before, the scope of fair-trade in anything is so small let alone a human life.
A woman haemorrhages to death as she lies screaming, a child is born in the desert heat, he is an orphan as soon as he's born but the fighters and opium lighters lose no sleep. It's Afghanistan and the government plan was to get Osama the phantom and flush out the Taliban, the global policeman patrols control over a strategic strip of land. The hospitals and homes are collateral damage, corruption is in the air and extremists are born out of a harsh, loveless life. Babies need blankets and school children need books, they are the forgotten crossfire victims to the news watchers' dinner time looks. Don't spoil our appetite you say, we have hair to straighten and bills to pay. The black-eyed teenage wife has no hair because she nearly burnt herself to death, the horrific scars preferable to being under fire from an emotional terrorist all her life. And the only decent career for that excuse for a husband angry boy will be for the drug traders to employ.
A girl lays dead from a crushed spine and head by a bulldozer, this is in the so-called Holy land where Mohammad, Moses and Jesus they say did stand. Apartheid wall, check points and gun in a child's face as he walks to school. Teach the suicide bombers a lesson is that what all of them are, who cares block the food, medicine and fuel to deepen the humiliating scars. And the grieving family cries from the waste of a life of a daughter, sister, and friend who tried to hold peace between extremists on both sides. No university for their daughter, no cap and gown, prestigious job and training to be a doctor, she is long forgotten dead, not her life sacred but a bit of land called Gaza instead. And a brother scrambles around in the slum, it's too late his heart and mind are completely gone and now revenge is his only spiritual song and so it goes on and on.
Do you remember that little girl from Africa? She ended up on the streets in England for her sins, she is hopelessly addicted to heroin. Her regular client was a wealthy man whose business is the manufacture of equipment for building and demolition. Now at 18 she is too old and too much of a filthy state, she sits on the rich country's pavement as a common place eyesore on the city landscape. For us it's rush hour after work and the cat is at home waiting to be fed, then it's dinner, TV and bed. We're too worried about rising fuel and food prices to make a change for her, for it was her own fault, for her it really is too late.

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