Us and Them

First come the men in suits and ties.

They make promises of better lives,

Of development, of education, of security.

They speak with eloquence and smile as you sign their papers.

Then come the men in khakis.

With condescension in their eyes and money in their pockets,

They brandish their guns, and uproot you from your ancestral homes

They push you somewhere unlike anywhere you have been before.

They fence you in and take from you your livelihood,

Your food, your water, your hopes and your dreams, your past and your future.

They demand you leave your world of production and enter our world of consumption.

This is their sustainable future.

Then come the people with blue shirts.

They shake your hands, listen to your problems, and ask you questions.

They say they want to help.

Then as quickly as they appeared, they are gone.

But you remain.

As trucks roll by, spraying water on the dusty roads

Where once your crops grew and your animals grazed.

They will never understand your reality.

They will meet with you in air conditioned rooms, 

And then get back on their air conditioned bus,

Which will take them back to their air conditioned hotel.

Is this what solidarity means? Is this what solidarity has become?

And these are the people who are doing more than anyone else to help you.

By getting on their air conditioned planes and explaining to all their well off friends

About the exploitation that keeps those air conditioners running 

And those planes flying.

"Isn't there something more?", you ask.

We ask it too, but nobody seems to have an answer.