First published by The voice online forum in 2007
To the Spanish (European) society:
Appeal from from a deportee!
Ladies and gentlemen of the Spanish society!
Words cannot say what I feel at the moment – being violently forced back to where I came. I was not even able to tell you what made me begin this long and difficult journey during which many of my comrades in misery died.
I thought I could tell you personally - as someone who shows traces of ill-treatment, traces of the suffering of a people that is being oppressed and exploited. But a wall has been put up between you and me that hinders every human encounter between us and forces us to look at each other from a distance like dog and cat – although we are all citizens of the same world. Since we cannot talk to each other, allow me to look you in the eye through these fences that separate Africa from Europe and symbolize the falseness of the relations between North and South created by our governments. This wall of separation, this fence symbolizes a situation in which the South’s commodities as well as the North’s products (weapons among others) can move, but people cannot. It is completely impossible for us to meet as true brothers and sisters.
Ladies an gentlemen, in my eyes you can read the suffering and the pain of our countries in which
multinational companies bring death and uprooting - trying to create an expanse of ruins leaving only
commodities, forests and wild animals for the tourists’ pleasure.
It is the only way I know to make you learn what we Africans have to suffer and which are the consequences of this suffering. I know I will not find an echo in the media, I know politicians will not discuss human rights on their meetings because my life like the lives of all poor people on this planet does not count for them. They sacrifice us – unashamed and ruthlessly. Actually, ladies and gentlemen of the Spanish society, I am an African. My country is very poor. It is a country that has been exploited for centuries by Western multinational companies, that has suffered cruel wars. Often these wars are civil wars, but basically they are economic wars provoked for only one reason: to exploit our countries and become rich – like many African leaders have also done on the expense of millions of my brothers’ and sisters’ lives. Is it really impossible to create a different world in which everyone can live in peace?
Please understand that we are the victims of a continuing impoverishment that is being organized by
the West and often executed by our own leaders in the service of multinational companies. These are the wars I fled, this is the misery they brought upon my land. I want to survive and I want to help my family who have stayed in Africa. I do not want to die like a rat in fire. This is why I – as a survivor – talk to you to point at this inhuman situation and to ask you to help create a just and human world. The things we should eat, the things we should use to develop our countries are being taken to the West to pay debts we never ran up, to buy weapons that kill and mutilate us so that we are no longer able to keep up by ourselves. For these reasons we cannot till our fields, we cannot sleep peacefully, we cannot imagine our children’s and brothers’ future. Everything that is being produced in our countries serves multinational companies which are being supported by European and US governments as well
as by our own while we starve to death. Death has become a banal fact in our countries. Everyday we see children starve. Ordinary illnesses that could easily be cured leave many victims. This is our everyday experience.
You can imagine it is very painful to see a child suffering in your arms; to see my father dieing of
Malaria – which could have been easily be cured in any health centre. Actually, you see this kind of things in TV, but we have to face these cruelties every day, our family members are among the victims. Do you think anyone can stand a life like this?
At night, waiting for a chance to get over the wall of separation, we say goodbye to each other because no one knows what kind of ammunition will be used by the soldiers guarding the fences, no one knows who will be hit by a shot, which part of his body will be hit. We do not know if we will fall from the fence which is six metres high. I wonder: Will this be my last day? And at the same time I remember all the comrades who have died trying to escape and I feel my heart becoming cramped. I think of my family, of my friends who have stayed in Africa – and of my future. Which future?
I do not have a future … I feel lost, useless, not even existing, as if I am worthless in the eyes of this world. As though we only existed, worse than animals, for holocaust and sacrifice. But this is unjust! I have to cross the fence! I understand that I do not have a choice. I think of my country, of all the natural riches we possess. Which riches I wonder? Nothing in our countries belongs to us. Everyday we helplessly see how we are being exploited. Who dares to say a word gets a bullet in the next. The West gives us weapons so that the murder continues. Why does no one help us to get out of the abyss we are in. Everyday our misery grows instead of becoming less. Our children are sentenced to die with the traumata of misery being permanently threatened by war. Those who manage to survive war starve to death! We are sentenced to misery in countries rich of gold, diamonds, coltan and copper, countries with lots of oil. But only for the wealth of others. It is a dirty world, isn’t it?
Do not be surprised that I have tears in my eyes while I speak. The things we live through are terrible. This is why in my bitterness I will try to climb the wall if I can. To live or die – I do not mind. No one cares about my fate… Tell me, ladies and gentlemen of the Spanish society: What have we done to deserve this? As time passes I feel a different emotion rising. We are not damned! This world can be changed, I tell myself. Despite misery and war, we too are God’s children. This is why I tried my luck and came here into your country to see if I can find work to survive and to support the orphans my father left. Do you think it was easy to leave my sick mother behind, not knowing if I will ever see her again? Not knowing what will happen to my brothers and sisters? But what can I do? I have no choice. I have to earn the money to buy medicaments for my mother so that she does not die like my father did. I have to earn money so that my brothers and sisters can go to school and maybe one day will be something different than just victims. I want to work so that I can buy medicaments for my brother who has AIDS. That is all I ask for. Do you know how painful it is to see your family dieing – not being able to do anything? Do you think it is easy to live like I do?
I am here because I took the risk to go through all kinds of difficulties on a long and hard way. Luckily, I survived. But now I am facing this wall of separation that hinders me telling you about my pain from face to face. But there is still the possibility that you look into my eyes and read what I a suffering. I ask you not to think that it is an ordinary life we live. It is the result of an injustice being established and kept up by inhuman systems who kill and impoverish people. This is why I ask you not to support this system by being silent. My suffering should make you understand that it is impossible for a human being to be silent at the face of such cruelties. God knows I am not a thief or a criminal; it is just the cry of a victim who wants to live on this planet like everyone else. I am sure that if you would know my story and those of my comrades you would not force me to return where I come from, you would not leave me in a desert with no chance to survive. I repeat: The only thing I want is to survive and to help my brothers and sisters. This is all I ask for!
Behind the walls of separation in Melilla.
Bashige, Michel
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https://thevoiceforum.org/node/520
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-A Case Against Fortress Europe - Estrella del Pais
https://thevoiceforum.org/node/390