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.

Rock stone a’ river bottam

If the Americans had left the Haitians to their own devices they would probably be just as poor but a lot less miserable

When Jean Bertrand Aristide took office in Haiti in 1990 it was with the enthusiastic approval of the Haitian people, who saw in him the man of their dreams of emancipation, the little black priest who knew them and what they wanted to do. The Duvaliers and their successor military rulers allowed the parasitic elite, Haitian/American businessmen and other foreigners with ‘dual citizenship’ to rape and pillage Haiti. Aristide meant to build paradise on the dungheap their oppressors had created. That was not the American/elite plan

They threw him out after a few months but relented under pressure to accept him back in 1994 to serve out the few months left of his term. When he campaigned again for reelection after the Preval interregnum (Haitian presidents are limited to one term) the Americans directed by the International Republic Institute and US AID poured millions into Haiti to set up anti Aristide movements. It didn’t work but they continued with campaigns of lies, slander and political doublespeak designed to discredit him internationally, if not in Haiti.

Since they couldn’t move his people they hit on a brilliant idea. They would make it impossible for him to govern.

“The prevalence of disease and malnutrition is staggering in Haiti. The country is plagued by the highest HIV rates in the hemisphere, representing nearly 60 percent of the known HIV infections in the Caribbean. Tuberculosis remains endemic and is a significant cause of mortality. Malaria—nearly non-existent in many other Caribbean countries—remains a deadly problem in Haiti. Even simple prevention measures, such as childhood vaccination for tuberculosis, are woefully lacking.

“Water-related diseases are also rampant throughout Haiti. For example, in 1999, infectious diarrhea was found to be the second leading cause of death in Haiti. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 88 percent of diarrhea cases in the world result from the combination of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and improper hygiene.xlii In the same 1999 study, gastro-intestinal infection was the leading cause of under-five mortality in Haiti.”

‘Water is Life’

If Haiti could manage to bring clean water to the people, that alone would revolutionise the country. It would be a powerful means of raising health standards generally and preventing epidemic infant deaths. It would, by itself, be a new dawn of freedom.

The InterAmerican Development Bank agreed and in 1998 said it would lend Haiti some money to set up modern water supplies in two cities for a start. To get these loans Haiti cleaned up its debs to the international financial institutions and got ready for some progress.

They are still waiting. The water supplies, intended to reduce disease and infant mortality were repeatedly blocked by the United States and its accomplices. The George Bush administration intervened illegally to stop the IDB distributing the pittance and the other members of the Bank including France and Canada went along with the fraud. And countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and the rest of the hemisphere, caved in like terrified pimps and said not a word.

Meanwhile Aristide was getting help from Cuba to build a medical school; Dr Paul Farmer’s Boston based Partners in Health was revolutionising the management and treatment of HIV/AIDS, which had been decimating Haiti and Aristide built more schools in three years than had been but in Haiti for the past 200.

He had to go.

Worthies such as the Jamaican descended Colin Powell swallowed the propaganda of the elite and their fascist North American friends. Luigi Einaudi, the American deputy secretary General of the Organization of American states was heard to say that all that was wrong with Haiti was that Haitians were running the place.

They would soon fix that.

Some of the most fantastic lies began to be spread about Aristide He was a devil worshipper, a dictator, a hater of democracy, a tyrant, a terrorist, a murderer. and one fine morning in 2004, almost exactly 200 years after the worlds first declaration of human rights on the soil of Haiti, the American ambassador came to President Aristide with a message. You’d better leave old chap, or there are people here with some coffins for you and your wife.

So, the dream was over. Aristide was gone. And, best of all, the poor, disease ridden Haitians would not get their water supplies, would have to forget that they were human beings deserving of rights and respect and would still be dipping water from gutters and puddles.

There is a report out this last week which chronicles this bestial farce in excruciatingly painful detail. It is published by a coalition of NGOs: the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice and its affiliate the International Human Rights Clinic at Mew York University’s School of Law, and Partners in Health, now the largest health care providers in Haiti with its sister organisation in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, treating almost 2 million patients last year, building houses and treating malnutrition as well as AIDS and TB and The report is in English but is called in Haitian creole Wòch nan Soley : The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti. Woch nan soley may be loosely translated into jamaican creole as “Rock stone a ribba bottam neva know sun hot.”

It is an irresistible true story of some of the most depraved mischief ever visited upon any people, anywhere by another people. It may be downloaded from the web at the websites of any of the authors. Partners in Health may be found at www.pih.org. The RFK center at www.rfkmemorial.org and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at chrgj.org

Read it and weep with rage.

Copyright© 2008 John Maxwell

jankunnu@gmail.com

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 christian 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

clarity of inclination

i know the way but dare not show you now
to go this way does not require much pain
speech of this kind imposes a fresh vow

a modern word i might in truth allow
but not enough to cleanse the older stain
i know the way bud dare not show you now

louder than this and you would have to bow
to all the heroes who hold back the rain
speech of this kind imposes a fresh vow

upon the heads of those who could endow
our minds with wisdom open not arcane
i know the way but dare not show you now

we must address the ones who pull the plough
assuring them we understand the strain
speech of this kind imposes a fresh vow

to serve as long as sweat shall bead the brow
since there can be no option to abstain
i know the way but dare not show you now
speech of this kind imposes a fresh vow

no true solitude

you hear no echoes of your vagrant thought
it never seems to matter but you fear
that all will wither in the humid air

no one remembers what they had been taught
there are too many subjects for our care
you hear no echoes of your vagrant thought

you always think of what you should have bought
and all the limits beyond which you won't dare
to wander and the margins of your care
you hear no echoes of your vagrant thought

no bangs no whimpers

you want to catch the sun on its swift course
no matter what the meaning of the art
this is no grating horror or remorse

a moment more and we will have recourse
to means and methods that will seem more smart
you want to catch the sun on its swift course

news comes to us of shock and evil force
no one it seems has dared to play his part
there is no grating horror or remorse

we watch the numbers plunge upon the bourse
and nothing happens in the failing heart
you want to catch the sun on its swift course

the proper language and serene discourse
which you were promised vanished from the mart
there is no grating horror or remorse

you think to laugh at the departing horse
while loading all your goods upon this cart
you want to catch the sun on its swift course
this is no grating horror or remorse

restoring the outcome

you want to name the moment of the fall
but cannot wait to see when we must rise
that's not enough to halt the needed call

so when you see us break up the last brawl
there's nothing left here for you to despise
you want to name the moment of the fall

out of the darkness no more insects crawl
there's silence coming from your vaunted spies
that's not enough to halt the needed call

you needled us to act and hoped we'd stall
confused by all the horrors and the lies
you want to name the moment of the fall

the monster's hidden by a coloured shawl
and does not seem a terror to our eyes
that's not enough to halt the needed call

this is the time when we must leave the hall
and ask the victim to reclaim the prize
you want to name the moment of the fall
that's not enough to halt the needed call

let the cycle change

the magic bird awakens from its sleep
we do not name the moment but we see
in sudden recognition by degree

that things are moving in the furthest deep
we understand it is too late to flee
the magic bird awakens from its sleep

so much we learn has come to us too cheap
has fallen to our hands from every tree
but now upon the shore of the last sea
the magic bird awakens from its sleep

the daily run

all must depend upon the will of time
there are some kindnesses that we would grant
to let the world be more than we would vaunt
a smooth similitude proclaimed in rhyme
and though the words have music when they chime
there's something that we know must still enchant
a better vision clearer than the gaunt
heroic self that we set on the climb
above us there are buzzards that still wait
on failing step and watch for the last fall
we know their meaning and on we must press
in hope that we will reach the summer gate
and find our welcome in the happy hall
where each receives the prize of their success

a princely declaration

those are the margins of the hated land
we do not go there and we fear the name
the people's speech we will not understand

so many words have been declined or banned
and honour is a term of evil fame
those are the margins of the hated land

the theme of anger is the one we've fanned
our hearts are warmed beside that darker flame
the people's speech we will not understand

we claim that petty feelings are most grand
and honest sympathy must lead to shame
those are the margins of the hated land

the spokesman is most eager and most bland
those who are visible must take the blame
the people's speech we will not understand

you have to listen to the sacred band
and watch the playing of the standard game
those are the margins of the hated land
the people's speech we will not understand

a release of air

there can be reason for the world to sigh

but none for us to speak out of our turn

what seems so fair is not so in your eye

we bring the product but you will not buy

you work so hard for what we did not earn

there can be reason for the world to sigh

into those actions we are not to pry

those are the meanings we could not discern

what seems so fair is not so in your eye

allow the messenger to hear your reply

while the deep waters slowly steam and churn

there can be reason for the world to sigh

those furthest have most reason not to cry

for no good reason but for great concern

what seems most fair is not so in your eye

we do not answer when the insects fly

deeds are the means by which we have to learn

there can be reason for the world to sigh

what seems so fair is not so in our eye