Willow Walk

the teaching of language

this is no word it is a bloody trigger
so much remains of what we know was hell
you have to kill the one who calls you nigger

you know so well the laughter and the snigger
the way they set up the pavlovian bell
this is no word it is a bloody trigger

they look so grave but make you now the digger
of the deep hole and they will claim you fell
you have to kill the one who calls you nigger

they tell you that you have to be far bigger
than those who run about and snarl and yell
this is no word it is a bloody trigger

it does not seem that they will have the vigour
to listen to the story you must tell
you have to kill the one who calls you nigger

the world belongs to those who with due rigour
will manage both to succour and excel
this is no word it is a bloody trigger
you have to kill the one who calls you nigger

arriving at noon

this is the border and you have to pass
across the line there's nothing you can test
on this dry side you have lost your behest
the wind has told you secrets of the grass
and you are bored with them they have no class
no great significance and you detest
all you've been taught here it is one more jest
out of the thousands all of them most crass
so now you look across and hope to view
some sign of change that might match your desire
to see those things that you know they would hide
from your eye's sight you crave the urgent new
and want to leave behind the raving fire
as memory and marker of your pride

raising the ashlar

we jump the waterfall and find no hell
at mountain's foot is merely a rich plain
in the dim distance a blue ocean's swell

we listen but we cannot hear the bell
to summon us once more to duty's pain
we jump the waterfall and find no hell

what we have done we do not have to tell
our only hope is not in any gain
in the dim distance a blue ocean's swell

we saw the cities rise and heard they fell
and in the interim we drank champagne
we jump the waterfall and find no hell

you see us here and think us but the shell
of what we were our efforts simply vain
in the dim distance a blue ocean's swell

what we have done must in its time compel
the hearts of those who choose not to complain
we jump the waterfall and find no hell
in the dim distance a blue ocean's swell

no great limitations

the statute runs and gives us no relief

no matter what our choice it must be wrong

too short each day for much more than a song

 

all human life begins and ends in grief

so father said and he was very strong

the statute runs and gives us no relief

 

each victory turns out to be too brief

we do not think the good times will be long

but ask that we part of one great throng

the statute runs and gives us no relief

not the same race

 this is a message no one wants to hear
you feed the fools and laugh at their mistakes
but all the time you cry into your beer

for all our lives we find nothing so dear
as giving all we have for our own sakes
this is a message no one wants to hear

to our own cause we do not now adhere
and all our tokens are exposed as fakes
but all the time you cry into your beer

you might have shown us a quite nasty sneer
but had no inkling we had raised the stakes
this is a message no one wants to hear

the day began bright but has turned quite drear
we do not wonder at our many aches
but all the time you cry into your beer

we know that we have got the proper gear
and none of us expects to get the shakes
this is a message no one wants to hear
but all the time you cry into your beer

calculated puzzle

so in the night we watch as hatred breeds
no one says what they want the most to say
or counts the number of the evil seeds

that will produce a flower in coming day
not much is thought of but the urgent shout
that calls on each to get out of the way

requires that we put aside every doubt
and leave behind all hope of swift return
since this is power we cannot dare to flout

and we do not have any chance to earn
the thanks of those we guard or those we keep
from seeing how the world must rage and burn

in all its ecstacy of empty sleep
there's no place now for any to escape
we are sunk now and gone in far too deep

our minds and bodies too far out of shape
for any effort to redeem the past
we started human and are below ape

began the first and now are very last
driven by what we thought was divine fire
we could not be sustained against the blast

of just an ordinary mundane desire
to leave behind the painful human plight
where it belongs down in the muck and mire

and for a little while live in the light

honour and respect

this is the warning of a coming fire
we do not know direction or effect
our best efforts cannot as yet detect
the best approach or how best to aspire
to fullest glory before we retire
and so we wait for others to reject
our vague attempts at honour and respect
while urgent signals hum along the wire
 a message sent before might have meant much
 had we but heard it when we were awake
 but now we rush to learn too late the word
 of those who have put our hearts out of touch
and left not one safe choice for us to take
 so that we mourn the last departed bird

None dare call it Genocide

John Maxwell

It may come as a surprise to many more Europeans than to American white people that a great many intelligent and sophisticated people of African ancestry are convinced that there are important classes of whites who are conspiring to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

This may be the most pervasive conspiracy theory of all because it is made more credible by an impressive history of genocidal attacks on black people and other non-whites. Advocates for ‘Indians’ of the Amazon say the natives believe they are threatened not simply by greedy ranchers and gold miners but by missionaries from the United states, hoping to clear oii-rich areas of the indigenous populations as in Darfur. In Bolivia, for example, the recent attempt by some provinces to disaffiliate themselves from the rest of the state is seen as a kind of proto-genocide aimed at separating the richest land from control by the majority Indian populations.

The slave trade was itself a genocidal operation as well as a plutocratic enterprise, and there are those who say that the damage done by the Slave trade has been grievously underestimated, in order to deprecate the importance of Africans and their civilisatyions and therefore their worth in the world.

King Leopold’s ‘civilising’  assault on the Congolese, described by him as a charitable endeavour  comparable in intent to the Red Cross, was able to kill 10 million Congolese in 20 years, suggesting that the toll of the slave trade may have been grossly underestimated.   In South Africa, the 50 year Apartheid regime was not only explicitly anti-African, but in its terminal stages was frantically developing biocidal agents to eliminate and exterminate black people all over the world. Dr Wouter Basson, a cardiologist was the lead scientist in the attempt to sanitise the world for white people. He still practices medicine in South Africa.

The United States has always had a bad reputation in race matters. Although a black Barbadian, Crispus Attucks was the first American military casualty of the Revolutionary war, and blacks from Haiti, including the later Emperor of Haiti Henri Cristophe, fought for American Independence, blacks were infamously defined as only three fifths human when the new state proclaimed its freedom and independence.

It was probably no surprise that twenty years later the new state of Haiti proclaimed its own  independence, that the Haitians, having fought for freedom over 3 centuries, thought it so precious that they implemented  the first universal declaration  of human rights, valuing every human being, male and female, adult and  child, as essentially entitled to the same rights.

Ever since then the Americans and the Haitians have been at odds over freedom and human rights and the United States has felt able, whenever it chose, to ‘intervene’ to put the Haitians in their proper place.

There is not enough time to detail the various methods used to pacify the restless natives of Haiti, including dive-bombing peasants in the 1920s, installing a cruel and corrupt army in the thirties and watching paternally as the army and the elite, empowered by the US, wreaked their sadistic and oppressive will on the Haitian people.

Having tolerated and fostered the .wicked Duvalier dictatorships for 30 years, the US  and its elite clients were not about to let democracy loose on the Haitian people. And when the Haitians decided to reclaim their freedom under the leadership of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the Americans first sabotaged and then aborted the Haitians’ dreams of democracy, first by blackmail and then at gunpoint.

the fire sermon

 

you wait too long and fall before the storm
a world of anger cannot long stay dry
but we are weak and could not tell you why

the way we act has been the proper form
or how we made things happen by and by
you wait too long and fall before the storm

in formal language we achieve the norm
and do not worry about full supply
only the foolish look up at the sky
you wait too long and fall before the storm

of a xtian commonwealth

you have the freedom now to be a fool

torment the weary and oppress the old

announce that only lies be taught in school

this is the age of a most leaden rule

when shoddy's silk and plastic goes for gold

you have the freedom now to be a fool

you might mistake the product for the tool

but must in any case do what you're told

announce that only lies be taught in school

we listen while the preachers curse and drool

death is the punishment for being bold

you have the freedom now to be a fool

the victory goes always to the ghoul

and justice is thrust out into the cold

announce that only lies be taught in school

it is the dumb who manage to seem cool

while idiotic values are extolled

you have the freedom now to be a fool

announce that only lies be taught in school