Faces of deportation: Accuse the profiteers!
The article below is the text of a speech held during the demonstration to conclude the No Border Camp in Rotterdam August 2 -10. This demonstration was held on Saturday August 10 (Report with video's here.).
Faces of deportation: Accuse the profiteers!
Some people face deportation. Other people ARE the face of deportation. They are immigration officers, police officers, they are politicians, judges, prison guards. They are also: the company that built the prison, the commercial airline that deports women, children and men, the companies that deliver all the high tech solutions to effective border control.. We can hardly begin to name them all, that's how many there are. Profiteers of deportation and detention, making money out of other people's misery. It is a matter of investment in human rights violations. It is hidden in society, out of sight for the public. And those responsible pretend they are only doing their job as if they were bakers, taxi drivers, merely delivering the mail. It's an industry, it's thriving, flourishing, no matter how big the so called crisis. No austerity measures for them. Booming business, that's what it is! And the capitalist economy depends on it. It depends on it, like it depends on slave labor, on exploitation of the third world, on selling weapons to dictators. And we are supposed to accept that?!
Faces of deportation... have you ever seen their faces? I bet you haven't. I bet the practice of deportation has been hidden so well, that you can't tell who to hold accountable. We can never see it happening. We never get to witness the design of a cell on the drawing table, do we? Those that do the dirty job, they make sure not to appear in public. Because they KNOW what they are doing is wrong! They are hiding behind their walls. They are hidden inside their well protected office buildings, surrounded by camera surveillance, protected by the laws of this land. Laws that protect the flow of money, not the movement of human beings. So all the managers, all the stock brokers, all the builders, buyers, sellers, the money making anonymous bastards at the top, they can be sure they do not have to worry about anything. And this would be fair? Let's show their face. Let's break the security that is their face. A security that is much more important to them than the safety of a refugee. The life of a person that was hoping to find liberty, the right to be. It does not matter, not at all.
Faces of deportation. They cannot hide, no longer! Don't we want to recognize them for what they are? I sure as hell do! Have you seen the writings on the walls? Shame! They said. Shame! Shame to deportations! Shame to those that claim decency. Shame to those that pretend they are only doing their job, that they have no choice! Shame to those that feel they have the right to facilitate the destruction of lives! They DO have a choice, and they DO NOT have that right! And they certainly can no longer hide! Let's pull the masks off the faces of deportation! The only right choice is the choice to show the truth behind the walls. It's the least we can do.
To paint the concrete walls with accusations! Businessmen to find bloody words on their doorstep! Do not have pity on them! Their wallets are filled with credit cards, they feel no pain. They know what they are doing. Pity not those that are confronted with the reality of the consequences of their actions. How can it hurt more than the pain of persecution? How can it be more heartache than the separation of families? How can a writing on the wall be more shameful than beatings, torture, isolation, manhunt, imprisonment, deportations? It can not and it never will!
So let' s not be distracted by the complaints of the accused. Let's not be distracted by the outrage that has nothing to do with the loss of life, it is only the loss of image. The image of clean politics and proper investment. Shame on you, that deal in murder. It is the blood of suicide, starvation, of the silence surrounding it, that is on your hands.
Shame on the silence, so let's make a lot of noise, let's paint their faces red!
End deportations! Let freedom of movement be the words to be heard! Let the pockets of profiteers be empty like their minds! Profit, let's beat it! Bankers, beware! We don't have to take it, no more! Until all are free!
Joke Kaviaar, August 9 2013