I posted this piece back on the 7th July, but thought it worth while to remind people of this exhibition by Eaun Sutherland, a long time active comrade.
We live in a world of chaos, pillage and plunder, all managed and
manipulated by powerful and rich individuals and corporations, aided and
abetted by the various states. All to their advantage at the expense of
the lives of ordinary people, the ones who actually produce all that
wealth. Wars, ecological disasters, mass poverty, gross injustice and
inequality is the norm produced by this economic system of insanity and
greed.
However, below the surface there is always a rumbling of anger and an army of people working hard at trying to change this mayhem to a fairer and sustainable system, a system freed from the profit motive, that sees to the needs of all our people built on mutual aid and co-operation.
That underground army must use every means at its disposal from literature on the streets, autonomous spaces, community based mutual aid groups, workplace organisations that build solidarity, mass protests, direct action, strikes and reminding everybody of the history of this economic system of greed and exploitation.
We also should never forget the part art and poetry can make to this struggle for justice. Both these mediums can inspire, point a direction, awaken those feelings of desire for freedom and explain the basic injustices of the present economic system.
However, below the surface there is always a rumbling of anger and an army of people working hard at trying to change this mayhem to a fairer and sustainable system, a system freed from the profit motive, that sees to the needs of all our people built on mutual aid and co-operation.
That underground army must use every means at its disposal from literature on the streets, autonomous spaces, community based mutual aid groups, workplace organisations that build solidarity, mass protests, direct action, strikes and reminding everybody of the history of this economic system of greed and exploitation.
We also should never forget the part art and poetry can make to this struggle for justice. Both these mediums can inspire, point a direction, awaken those feelings of desire for freedom and explain the basic injustices of the present economic system.
Between Dignity and Poverty
In this metropolis of wealth with its fountains of opulence
We are the excluded army that walks that tightrope
Between dignity and poverty.
The excluded, the marginalised, the forgotten,
Regulated by mercenaries, some with guns, others with pens.
They know not, we are their brothers and sisters.
Nor do they know,
Our strength is forged in the humiliation of the bread line
Our daily question, will there be food,
Or will the pangs of hunger stay.
We exist in a system of numbers and balance sheets,
Our lives, dehumanised statistics,
Catalogued and filed by a blind accountant.
When asked to count our dead, do we count the living dead?
Will this tightrope be the inheritance to our children
Or shall our tortured journey lead us from anxiety to revolt
Will the anguish of our children feed our righteous anger
Causing us to tear asunder this fabricated web of injustice
