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Monthly Archives: February 2016

#73 Warehousing

February 26, 2016

(1) Permanent Warehouse of Souls

On 25 February Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras spoke out against ‘the transformation of our country into a permanent warehouse of souls’. In the wider context of vastly increased migration into Greece from the East, Tsipras’ comment was directed specifically at European heads of state continuing to ‘act at summits as if there is nothing wrong’ while tightening border controls along routes into northern Europe – effectively demobilising migrants and turning Greece into the European Union’s storage bin for refugees.

Upend the marathon road north from Athens to Macedonia.
Raise it and plane it to the perpendicular.
Now it’s one long tall shelving unit of previously scattered souls,
Scanned and ready for despatch; if only we knew where to send them.

Heads in a noose because really what’s the use; or perhaps half-grown men, migrants from Pakistan, half-hanging themselves in order to gain our full attention.
Near-suicide – noted.

Note the consistently quiet desperation of migrants crowded into Athens’ Victoria Square. Whispers and murmurs building occasionally to bouts of ululation, before subsiding again.

Looking down at those uninvited beach boys,
Who paid good money to have themselves washed up on Mediterranean sand,
Some hard-pressed Greeks can only hear this sound wave as bar-bar-barbarism.
And who can blame them?

(2) Life and Soul of the Warehouse

‘Wandering around for 10 hours scanning and stowing items really does eat away at your soul.’  This former warehouse worker at Amazon’s Dunfermline depot reports ‘long hours with depression guaranteed.’

Surely preferable to the threat of deportation, as above; although another Amazon ex-employee declares she would ‘prefer to starve rather than go back there again’. read more

#72 Man’s Incredulity To Man

February 15, 2016

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than Man. Look at him crossing the cruel sea, riding the very waves that used to engulf him. Six hundred metres down, behold countless acres of natural gas beneath the sea floor, now measured and piped ashore thanks to his wind-swift thinking and unmatched dexterity. Man’s boundless energy…creates more energy.

So burn, baby, burn. And light up the whole town.

#71 Anthem For A Boy Soldier

February 7, 2016

Did he die like a lamb? Six months ago, having fought ‘like a miracle’ when his home town in Afghanistan was besieged by the Taliban – so says his uncle the pro-government militiaman, boy soldier Wasil Ahmad was feted, garlanded, photographed carrying a taped-up, hand-me-down AK47, and widely shared.

Does this mean Wasil was also fated, set up, all but sacrificed to the Taliban? Who came like priests only completing the ritual when they duly shot and slaughtered the wee boy walking unwillingly to primary school in Tirin Kot, capital of the southern province of Oruzgan.

But reports of Wasil Ahmad’s death may have grossly exaggerated the distance between his chronological age – 10 – and the paramilitary shoe-size he’d already stepped into.

Despite comments to the contrary in Western media, the police uniform which the boy soldier appears in, was not too big for him. In those photographs, widely shared, his head is not too small for the matching helmet. Eyes, nose and the set of his mouth are in proportion – well-balanced – with the rifle sitting comfortably on his arm.

In August’s local hero pictures and again in what appears to be a photo of his body shortly before burial last week, this boy’s countenance seems equally untroubled.

Strange to say but perhaps there’s less to be frightened of at 10 years old and under – before Consequences kick in and we are drummed with uncertainty and impermanence.

What simple innocence (we think) we hear in ‘Once In Royal David’s City’ – twilight on Christmas Eve and all things safe and sound in the voice of a King’s College chorister. But what if boyishly unadulterated is also supremely implacable; not only guileless but remorseless, too?

As death itself; meanwhile so pleasing to behold you cannot help but liken the boy to your own son to have and to hold. read more

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