Flick The Switch Flick the switch An engine starts An angry roar Against those charged With nothing more than The desire to live in a world of peace Crammed into the back of a truck Frozen and suffocated But who gives a fuck if they don't make it
Flick the switch And turn off compassion. Turn off empathy and concern, As long as you're safe, Let them burn. On tv screens and nightly news, Bulletins and views that scar and wound As rockets and mortars and bullets, Invade and maim and kill Flick the switch. Illuminate and shine the torch of unwelcome And the hatred that divides and demeans. Light up their faces creased in sadness, numbed. But the headlines scream, Don't let them in, these people are nothing, worthless, dumb. These doctors and laywers and teachers and.... No. Stay where you are, Amongst the vermin and scum. A life condemned, Unless you run. Flick the switch. The buzz of static from The electric fence of hope and despair Which crashes as waves upon An unreachable distant English beach. Where freedom, safety and peace, Is written in the pebbles and sand. A beach of cold winds, Blowing them home, Away from a land Of rejection and suspicion. But their home disappeared At the flick of a switch.
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I was angered and upset at comments posted to an online story how desperate refugees were shouting for a truck driver to stop after they had stowed away in it....and they realised the truck was not headed to the UK.
One comment read 'electrify the truck and when they are all in, flick the switch.'
Such heartless, uncaring, vile opinion is not uncommon on social media. As if every refugee and immigrant is intent on making the lives of the privileged a misery....rather than escaping persecution, war, fear, hatred, religious and societal division, extremism, poverty, supression of freedom and the freedom to say or think differently without reprisals, the denial to free speech and democratic choice.
People may be trying to get into Britain. But no one voluntarily makes the journey across continents, through uncertainty, risk and hardship to become a refugee. It is not a lifestyle choice. But for many, it is the only choice available.
