The Devil is Poor

Today’s cities are immense jails holding prisoners of fear, where fortresses masquerade as homes and armor as clothing.

A state of siege. Do not get distracted, do not let down your guard, do not ever trust, say the lords of the world, masters of impunity who rape the environment, kidnap countries, extort wages, and murder by the throng.

Watch out, they warn, the bad guys are right there, huddled in miserable slums, chewing on their envy, resentfully licking their wounds.

The poor: the ragamuffins for all bondage, the dead for all wars, the flesh for all prisons, the bargain-basement hands for all jobs.

Hunger, which kills silently, kills the silent. Experts speak for them, poorologists who tell us what the poor do not work at, what they do not eat, what they do not weigh, what height they do not reach, what they do not have, what they do not think, what parties they do not vote for, what they do not believe in.

The only question unanswered is why poor people are poor. Could it be we are fed by their hunger and clothed by their nakedness?

Eduardo Galeano Mirrors, 2009