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I profess accurately to describe native Africa - Africa in those places where it has not received the slightest impulse, whether for good or evil, from European civilisation.

quote by John H. Speke
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The Pride To Be An African

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of which everybody imitates
My Africa of which culture exceed the Greek
My Africa of which everyone is jealous of

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of enormous natural endowment
My Africa of Non-Violence
My Africa of Amorous populates

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of patriot men and women
My Africa of shelter and vintage hospitality
My Africa of great ancestral mythology

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa that bore fruits of black diamonds
My Africa which is a gift to the whole world
My Africa of great leadership

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of learned youths
My Africa of a bright generation
My Africa true tradition

My Africa My Africa My Africa
My Africa of black pageant women
My Africa of strong men
My Africa from who we all hail from
For every African deserves a Nobel Prize in
Existence.

poem by Fasan paul
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Don’t Cry For Me Africa

Don’t cry for me Africa
Because I will never let you out of my mind
I hear your voices people of Africa
I hear your cries people of Africa
I see pain in your eyes people of Africa
It is hard to describe what you people of Africa are going through
Poverty strikes you all people of Africa
Don’t cry for me Africa
Because I will keep you in my prayers people of Africa
Power to the people of Africa
People of Africa lift your spirit higher
Lord is the light and truth people of Africa
The Lord sends you a message from his heart to you people of Africa
He said because I love you
I will answer your prayers
I hear your prayers
Don’t cry for me Africa
Because you have a friend that is the Lord
People of Africa continue doing the Lords work
Make a wish people of Africa
The people of Africa are looking at the Lord face to face
Lord here is no paradise
We dream a little dream said the people of Africa to the Lord
The People of Africa Pray that the Lord will give each other strength every day
Don’t cry for me Africa
Save the people of Africa
Strengthened the people of Africa each day
Because I’ll be there in your dreams people of Africa
The people of Africa tells The Lord how much they love him
Don’t cry for me Africa
Lord comes when you are ready people of Africa
Feelings you have for your Lord People of Africa
And I know you will never let it die
Nothing but flowers the people of Africa will plant in the sea shore for the Lord
Don’t cry for me Africa
The people of Africa needs hope to heal there land
The Lord rose up on you people of Africa
Don’t cry for me Africa
My heart will go on
Once I close this door of the ship I will sail across the Atlantic Sea

poem by Aldo Kraas
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With every beat of my heart

Not even the most voluptuously sensuous of clouds; surreally wandering till eternity in fathomless cosmotic space; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most tantalizingly nubile of dewdrops; profoundly shimmering in nocturnal moonlight like the ultimate queen’s garland of exotic pearls; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most invincibly Herculean mountaintops; unflinchingly towering towards the heavens in the face of the mightiest of attack; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most royally undulating seas; timelessly blessing the pristine shores with gloriously unassailable froth; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most perennially overflowing of treasuries; from which rained solely a torrentially unstoppable cascade of mystically resplendent silver and gold; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most mellifluously rejuvenating of nightingales; perpetuating the unlimitedly dreary atmosphere with miraculously ameliorating sounds; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most boundlessly burgeoning of skies; celestially reflecting an ocean of bounteously virile crystalline blue; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most vivaciously cascading droplets of rain; metamorphosing every tawdrily sinister patch of aridness on earth into a paradise of mesmerizing beauty; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most ubiquitously silken strands of the inscrutable spider’s web; aristocratically glimmering in opulently milky moonlight; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most amazingly vivid of rainbows; filtering fresh rays of optimism and hope in the forlornly dreary sky; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most redolently proliferating of soil; the magical virility which unfathomably multiplied in lightening seconds of time; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most beautifully poignant of roses; synergistically radiating their handsomely scarlet personality to every conceivable cranny of this boundless Universe; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most triumphantly blazing of Sunshine; blistering a path of irrefutably fearless righteousness in the most bashful face of blemishing defeat; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most victoriously iridescent of moonlight; unceasingly enlightening the sordidly hedonistic fabric of the wretchedly incarcerating night; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most effulgently undefeated of blood; indefatigably diffusing the spirit of intrepidly exhilarating camaraderie; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most boundlessly unfettered of deserts; the flamingly impregnable expanse of poignant golden granules; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most tranquilly bewitching of shadows; the uncannily titillating tinge of timeless mystery that they incessantly emanated; had the slightest of inspiration,

Not even the most fierily magnetic of breath; the endlessly insuperable cavern of seduction that it ignited in every tangible and intangible open space which it wholesomely enshrouded; had the slightest of inspiration,

Whilst with every beat of my heart; there unlimitedly triggered unconquerably sparkling fantasy in even the most obsolete dormitory of my brain; and I inevitably and inspiringly wrote an infinite lines of “Immortal Love Poetry”; till even beyond the definitions of veritably ultimate and hopelessly silencing death….

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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02-04-2012 Brother I give you my answer for Black People African Sahara it mesmerizes the wise largest desert it is asked of we What is Africa is to me 3.3 million miles of grea

Brother I give you my answer
for Black People

African Sahara
it mesmerizes the wise
largest desert
it is asked of we
What is Africa is to me
3.3 million miles
of great desert
once a forest
once a great sea
once an empty hole
in space just waiting
to be that it can
birth the blackness
of who my mothers be
3.3 millions
you can not see it all
Trans Saharan trade
is but a child
weather selling slaves
or selling salt
and always
brought and sold
the black man's art, gold
the paintings
was still for the walls
to surround us
a representation of the thing
that be, the God that
rose Africa from the sea
man got his
walking feet
on Africa's soil
Africa Moors
salt caravans
Africa the salt
of the land
what more did Africa
give to man
gold first mimed
found its glow
in the hands of
a black child
oldest gold jewelry
in Queen Zer's tomb
being as old as this
there is nothing
that we can not do

[...] Read more

poem by David E. Patton
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Paradise Lost: Book 09

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring

[...] Read more

poem by John Milton
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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A Cry For My Mama Land

It is 1.50 a.m.
And sleep evades me….because I weep for my motherland!

Sons of Africa,
Daughters of Africa,
Awaken: you have slumbered so long.

Look at the cloudless skies that cover your motherland,
Look at the leafless trees….the barrenness that fills the atmosphere
Look at the evolving deserts, that swallow up your birthright
Listen to the cry of your sons and daughters,
Empty stomachs, jiggered feet, tatters for clothes…..barely enough education if any

Feel the desperation of this land,
Feel the emptiness that engulfs our cradle
See the vanishing green,
See the greed that exists,
oh daughters and sons of Africa!

For how long shall we sit and watch?
While Africa destroys herself?
For how long shall we be divided on the basis of our ethnicity?
Instead of using out diversity as our strength?
For how long shall we be misguided: by our very own kinsmen?
Instead of standing for our own convictions?
For how long shall micro-nationalism take the place of nationhood?
For how long shall we be brainwashed? manipulated? Brainwashed?
For how long will our collective hard-worn freedom and independence be a luxury of only few?
Tell me daughters and sons of Africa, for how long, shall we wallow in the miasma of poverty?

Not anymore, sons and daughters of Africa, nay not anymore!
Because all I need is several more hearts sold to the cause of this continent.
A few souls who will dare dream, of a land that mama Africa could be!
A few who will raise their voices in the streets and condemn: evil, greed, selfishness,
At the expense of their comfort, and even their lives!

Just dream with me,
Mmmh…aaaah….Economic stability, oneness, food security,
Sound leadership, quality and affordable education, employment opportunities,
Good affordable healthcare, good governance policies, …….clean air!

Look at our land, beautiful, divine!
The proud white peaked mountains,
The meandering bold rivers,
The ever peaceful lakes,
The diverse wild life,
The rich culture and heritage,
The diversity of her people,
The dynamism and creativity,
The artstic value that equals none other

[...] Read more

poem by Mukami Mbaabu
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Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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Paradise Lost: Book X

Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above
Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd
The stonie from thir hearts, and made new flesh
Regenerat grow instead, that sighs now breath'd
Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer
Inspir'd, and wing'd for Heav'n with speedier flight
Then loudest Oratorie: yet thir port
Not of mean suiters, nor important less
Seem'd thir Petition, then when th' ancient Pair
In Fables old, less ancient yet then these,
Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha to restore
The Race of Mankind drownd, before the Shrine
Of Themis stood devout. To Heav'n thir prayers
Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious windes
Blow'n vagabond or frustrate: in they passd
Dimentionless through Heav'nly dores; then clad
With incense, where the Golden Altar fum'd,
By thir great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Fathers Throne: Them the glad Son
Presenting, thus to intercede began.
See Father, what first fruits on Earth are sprung
From thy implanted Grace in Man, these Sighs
And Prayers, which in this Golden Censer, mixt
With Incense, I thy Priest before thee bring,
Fruits of more pleasing savour from thy seed
Sow'n with contrition in his heart, then those
Which his own hand manuring all the Trees
Of Paradise could have produc't, ere fall'n
From innocence. Now therefore bend thine eare
To supplication, heare his sighs though mute;
Unskilful with what words to pray, let mee
Interpret for him, mee his Advocate
And propitiation, all his works on mee
Good or not good ingraft, my Merit those
Shall perfet, and for these my Death shall pay.
Accept me, and in mee from these receave
The smell of peace toward Mankinde, let him live
Before thee reconcil'd, at least his days
Numberd, though sad, till Death, his doom (which I
To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse)
To better life shall yeeld him, where with mee
All my redeemd may dwell in joy and bliss,
Made one with me as I with thee am one.
To whom the Father, without Cloud, serene.
All thy request for Man, accepted Son,
Obtain, all thy request was my Decree:
But longer in that Paradise to dwell,
The Law I gave to Nature him forbids:
Those pure immortal Elements that know

[...] Read more

poem by John Milton
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Mama Africa's Identity

Mama Africa's identity,
And of the Fulanis and the Fulbes;
But the Savannah and the Sahara are here to stay in Africa.
Mama Africa's identity,
And of the Dogons and the Shilluks;
And of the cowries usedas money in those days,
But the identities of the African are in many faces.
It is like a durbar in Africa and,
At the market plac to meet others;
But a visit to the tomatoes market in Ghana will tell you much.
Mama African's identity,
And like 'the Golden Stool' of the Ashanti Kingsdom!
But wait for the dried-fish on the coasts of Africa.
Visit St. Louis in the delta of Senegal and learn about the ways of the African,
For my home i in El Molo;
And like Mama Africa's identity praising my muse.
Mama African's identity,
And of the pygmies in Central Africa!
But i have my mind on the Rift Valley,
And like the mirror of the rivers, lakes and the seas of Africa! !
The Massai and the Dinka do play their roles,
And like the Nubaians in South Sudan;
But with the temperature above 40 degrees in most parts of Africa.
Mama Africa's identity,
And like a message to my lover in Lalibala;
For early in the morning came the leopards to drink some water,
But a visit to Mount Meru will entice you.
Mama Africa's identity,
And of the Zulus and the Rendilles;
But the Afars are here to blend with the dry land.
Mama Africa's identity,
With the rhythms and rituals of the Africans!
And like the tribes of Ovambo, Herero, Xhosa, Shona and Matabele.
And like the Bemba, the Tonga and the Ovaimbundu!
But the red land of Africa care for you all.
Mama Africa's identity,
And of River Limpopo in the mist of love;
But try to visit the Victoria Falls to satisfy your curiosity.
Mama Africa's identity,
And of the Himbas with their traditional dance;
But the Kikuyu, the Hutu, the Tutsi and the Hambukushu are also there,
For Africa is a very big continent for all of us.

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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The South African Rain

The South African Bank

Mushroom which bare as if it has never bare from the soil
They were stupid giggling because you have take over Drankensberg Mountains
They called you a rebel for you silent footstep
You flew Higher above the sky like a hawk flying towards chicken babies
Your truly sound cause us to tremble but with no way to hide
You cause us to tremble when you darkening the South Africa up and down
The thunder rumbling
It shakes all directions
It shakes Durban and causes us to mumble as it is a new thing
Grow up Bank of the Banks
Grow up until you touch the sky
Grow up even if they cast obstacles on you
Turn the obstacles into you catalyst to accelerate your activities.
The Africa that is hungry will be saved by the by African Bank.
You are like a cow that produces an everlasting cream of milk
We trust you in our Africa Unity
All nations will Bow down to African Rain.
All nations will be judge by you
You are the queen of South African Rain
When it is dry the woman top up the mountains and they ask you for rain
You give the rain as it is instructed
They talk about globalization and global warming
But we shall never experience weather draught in South Africa
That is because we have our King NOMKHUBULWANE who will always listen to our rain songs and brings us rain for food
South African King of Rain: we don’t see you but witness your presence
Hear and there they challenge the Zulu Kingdom
But there is no one who will ever challenge the kingdom of the Queen of Rain
I feel the tears of sorrow
These are the tears of sorrow over African Child who has come to accept all forms of western religions
Africa you have forget that you have supernatural power of the spirits that was inherited from your past heroes
The power is always there if you need them.
I believe in Africa
I believe in Shaka and Dindane
I believe in Nomkhubulwane
I believe in Africa Venomas
Africa HA HA HA Earthquakes and Tornadoes no more in South Africa
Demons no more in South Africa
We are the chiefs of security spirits
Even human evaluated hear and spread elsewhere
So we are more than human but fore ancestors
Do you think the spirit of human origin must have disappeared within a period of few million years
NO if so no anyone could have continue to live
For if the cornerstone or foundations of the house fall the whole building fall down.
Thank you Africa thank
I am thanking you that I was born in your Island
For I have already inherited the spirits of human making characters
I was not there when you made the man character
But I believe you had your own supernatural undiscovered characteristics

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poem by Mthokozisi Ntokozo Maphumulo
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Death Of The Middle Class

Oligarchs and Banksters tighten financial screws
In a bold attempt to kill the global Middle Class
Heads of State unable/unwilling to halt this ruse
The “Great Depression of 1929” we soon surpass

ROTMS

By Andrew Gavin Marshall - Global Research

We now stand at the edge of the global financial abyss of a ‘Great Global Debt Depression, ’ where nations, mired in extreme debt, are beginning to implement ‘fiscal austerity’ measures to reduce their deficits, which will ultimately result in systematic global social genocide, as the middle classes vanish and the social foundations upon which our nations rest are swept away. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where is this road leading? These are questions I will briefly attempt to answer.

At the heart of the global political economy is the central banking system. Central banks are responsible for printing a nation’s currency and setting interest rates, thus determining the value of the currency. This should no doubt be the prerogative of a national government, however, central banks are of a particularly deceptive nature, in which while being imbued with governmental authority, they are in fact privately owned by the world’s major global banks, and are thus profit-seeking institutions. How do central banks make a profit? The answer is simple: how do all banks make a profit? Interest on debt. Loans are made, interest rates are set, and profits are made. It is a system of debt, imperial economics at its finest.

In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System, with the Board located in Washington, appointed by the President, but where true power rested in the 12 regional banks, most notably among them, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The regional Fed banks were private banks, owned in shares by the major banks in each region, which elected the board members to represent them, and who would then share power with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

In the early 1920s, the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in the United States as the premier foreign policy think tank, dominated by powerful banking interests. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created to manage German reparations payments, but it also had another role, which was much less known, but much more significant. It was to act as a “coordinator of the operations of central banks around the world.” Essentially, it is the central bank for the world’s central banks, whose operations are kept ‘strictly confidential.’ As historian Carroll Quigley wrote:

'The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.'

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed as a secretive global think tank, comprising intellectual, financial, corporate, political, military and media elites from Western Europe and North America, with prominent bankers such as David Rockefeller, as well as European royalty, such as the Dutch royal family, who are the largest shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, whose CEO attends every meeting. This group of roughly 130 elites meets every year in secret to discuss and debate global affairs, and to set general goals and undertake broad agendas at various meetings. The group was initially formed to promote European integration. The 1956 meeting discussed European integration and a common currency. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bilderberg Group told European media last year that the euro was debated at the Bilderberg Group.

In 1973, David Rockefeller, Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Steering Committee of the Blderberg Group, formed the Trilateral Commission with CFR academic Zbigniew Brzezinski. That same year, the oil price shocks created a wealth of oil money, which was discussed at that years Bilderberg meeting 5 months prior to the oil shocks, and the money was funneled through western banks, which loaned it to ‘third world’ nations desperately in need of loans to finance industrialization.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two dozen members of the Trilateral Commission into his cabinet, including himself, and of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was his National Security Adviser. In 1979, Carter appointed David Rockefeller’s former aide and friend, Paul Volcker, who had held various positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Treasury Department, and who also happened to be a member of the Trilateral Commission, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. When another oil shock took place in 1979, Volcker decided to raise interest rates from 2% in the late 70s, to 18% in the early 80s. The effect this had was that the countries of the developing world suddenly had to pay enormous interest on their loans, and in 1982, Mexico announced it could no longer afford to pay its interest, and it defaulted on its debt, which set off the 1980s debt crisis – collapsing nations in debt across Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia.

It was the IMF and the World Bank came to the ‘assistance’ of the Third World with their ‘structural adjustment programs’, which forced countries seeking assistance to privatize all state owned industries and resources, devalue their currencies, liberalize their economies, dismantle health, education and social services; ultimately resulting in the re-colonization of the ‘Third World’ as Western corporations and banks bought all their assets and resources, and ultimately created the conditions of social genocide, with the spread of mass poverty, and the emergence of corrupt national elites who were subservient to the interests of Western elites. The people in these nations would protest, riot and rebel, and the states would clamp down with the police and military.

In the West, corporations and banks saw rapid, record-breaking profits. This was the era in which the term ‘globalization’ emerged. While profits soared, wages for people in the West did not. Thus, to consume in an economy in which prices were rising, people had to go into debt. This is why this era marked the rise of credit cards fueling consumption, and the middle class became a class based entirely on debt.

In the 1990s, the ‘new world order’ was born, with America ruling the global economy, free trade agreements began integrating regional and global markets for the benefit of global banks and corporations, and speculation dominated the economy.

The global economic crisis arose as a result of decades of global imperialism – known recently as ‘globalization’ – and the reckless growth of– speculation, derivatives and an explosion of debt. As the economic crisis spread, nations of the world, particularly the United States, bailed out the major banks (which should have been made to fail and crumble under their own corruption and greed) , and now the West has essentially privatized profits for the banks, and socialized the risk. In other words, the nations bought the debt from the banks, and now the people have to pay for it. The people, however, are immersed in their own personal debt to such degrees that today, the average Canadian is $39,000 in debt, and students are graduating into a jobless market with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that they will never repay. Hence, we are now faced with a global debt crisis.

To manage the economic crisis, the G20 was established as the major international forum for cooperation among the 20 major economies of the world, including the major developing – or emerging – economies, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China. At the onset of the financial crisis, China and Russia’s central banks began calling for the establishment of a global currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This proposal was backed by the UN and the IMF. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese and Russian central banks cooperate with the Western central banks through the Bank for International Settlements – which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently said was the principle forum for “governance of central bank cooperation” and that the G20 is “the prime group for global economic governance.” In 2009, the IMF stated that the BIS “is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” The President of the European Union, appointed to the position after attending a Bilderberg meeting, declared 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” The 2009 Bilderberg meeting reported on the desire to create a global treasury, or global central bank, to manage the world economy. In 2009, prior to the Bilderberg meeting in fact, the G20 set in motion plans to make the IMF a global central bank of sorts, issuing and even printing its own currency – called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – which is valued against a basket of currencies. In May of 2010, the IMF Managing Director stated that “crisis is an opportunity, ” and while Special Drawing Rights are a step in the right direction, ultimately what is needed is “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features.” Thus, we see the emergence of a process towards the formation of a global central bank and a global currency, totally unaccountable to any nation or people, and totally controlled by global banking interests.

In 2010, Greece was plunged into a debt crisis, a crisis which is now spreading across Europe, to the U.K. and eventually to Japan and the United States. If we look at Greece, we see the nature of the global debt crisis. The debt is owed to major European and American banks. To pay the interest on the debt, Greece had to get a loan from the European Central Bank and the IMF, which forced the country to impose ‘fiscal austerity’ measures as a condition for the loans, pressuring Greece to commit social genocide. Meanwhile, the major banks of America and Europe speculate against the Greek debt, further plunging the country into economic and social crisis. The loan is granted, to pay the interest, yet simply has the effect of adding to the overall debt, as a new loan is new debt. Thus, Greece is caught in the same debt trap that re-colonized the Third World.

At the recent G20 meeting in Toronto, the major nations of the world agreed to impose fiscal austerity – or in other words, commit social genocide – within their nations, in a veritable global structural adjustment program. So now we will see the beginnings of the Great Global Debt Depression, in which major western and global nations cut social spending, create mass unemployment by dismantling health, education, and social services. Further, state infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, railways, prisons, hospitals, electric transmission lines and water – will be privatized, so that global corporations and banks will own the entirely of national assets. Simultaneously, of course, taxes will be raised dramatically to levels never before seen. The BIS said that interest rates should rise at the same time, meaning that interest payments on debt will dramatically increase at both the national and individual level, forcing governments to turn to the IMF for loans – likely in the form of its new global reserve currency – to simply pay the interest, and will thus be absorbing more debt. Simultaneously, of course, the middle class will in effect have its debts called in, and since the middle class exists only as an illusion, the illusion will vanish.

Already, towns, cities, and states across America are resorting to drastic actions to reduce their debts, such as closing fire stations, scaling back trash collection, turning off street lights, ending bus services and public transportation, cutting back on library hours or closing them altogether, school districts cutting down the school day, week or year. Simultaneously, this is occurring with a dramatic increase in the rate of privatizations or “public-private partnerships” in which even libraries are being privatized.

No wonder then, that this month, the Managing Director of the IMF warned that America and Europe, in the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, face an “explosion of social unrest.” Just yesterday, Europe experienced a wave of mass protests and social unrest in opposition to ‘austerity measures’, with a general strike in Spain involving millions of people, and a march on the EU headquarters in Brussels of nearly 100,000 people. As social unrest spreads, governments will likely react – as we saw in the case of the G20 in Toronto – with oppressive police state measures. Here, we see the true relevance of the emergence of ‘Homeland Security States’, designed not to protect people from terrorists, but to protect the powerful from the people.

So while things have never seemed quite so bleak, there is a dim and growing beacon of hope, in what Zbigniew Brzezinski has termed as the greatest threat to elite interests everywhere – the ‘global political awakening’. The global political awakening is representative of the fact that for the first time in all of human history, mankind is politically awakened and stirring, activated and aware, and that generally – as Zbigniew Brzezinski explains – generally is aware of global inequalities, exploitation, and disrespect. This awakening is largely the result of the information revolution – thus revealing the contradictory nature of the globalization project – as while it globalizes power and oppression, so too does it globalize awareness and opposition. This awakening is the greatest threat to entrenched elite interests everywhere. The awakening, while having taken root in the global south – already long subjected to exploitation and devastation – is now stirring in the west, and will grow as the economy crumbles. As the middle classes realize their consumption was an illusion of wealth, they will seek answers and demand true change, not the Wall Street packaged ‘brand-name’ change of Obama Inc., but true, inspired, and empowering change.

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech in which he spoke out against the Vietnam War and the American empire, and he stated that, “It seems as if we are on the wrong side of a world revolution.” So now it seems to me that the time has come for that to change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) .

poem by Ray Lucero
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Orlando Furioso Canto 15

ARGUMENT
Round about Paris every where are spread
The assailing hosts of Africa and Spain.
Astolpho home by Logistilla sped,
Binds first Caligorantes with his chain;
Next from Orrilo's trunk divides the head;
With whom Sir Aquilant had warred in vain,
And Gryphon bold: next Sansonet discerns,
Ill tidings of his lady Gryphon learns.

I
Though Conquest fruit of skill or fortune be,
To conquer always is a glorious thing.
'Tis true, indeed, a bloody victory
Is to a chief less honour wont to bring;
And that fair field is famed eternally,
And he who wins it merits worshipping,
Who, saving from all harm his own, without
Loss to his followers, puts the foe to rout.

II
You, sir, earned worthy praise, when you o'erbore
The lion of such might by sea, and so
Did by him, where he guarded either shore
From Francolino to the mouth of Po,
That I, though yet again I heard him roar,
If you were present, should my fear forego.
How fields are fitly won was then made plain;
For we were rescued, and your foemen slain.

III
This was the Paynim little skilled to do,
Who was but daring to his proper loss;
And to the moat impelled his meiny, who
One and all perished in the burning fosse.
The mighty gulf had not contained the crew,
But that, devouring those who sought to cross,
Them into dust the flame reduced, that room
Might be for all within the crowded tomb.

IV
Of twenty thousand warriors thither sent,
Died nineteen thousand in the fiery pit;
Who to the fosse descended, ill content;
But so their leader willed, of little wit:
Extinguished amid such a blaze, and spent
By the devouring flame the Christians lit.
And Rodomont, occasion of their woes,
Exempted from the mighty mischief goes:

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poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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Sinful identity

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so handsomely procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
infantile cry; overflowed with unfathomable oceans of
glittering gold,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
baselessly rejoiced and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; miserably dithered in my
impoverished life to carve a philanthropically
blissful identity of my very own….

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so majestically procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my
first baby cry; had an endless inundation of sparkling
currency coin,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
parasitically feasted and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; pathetically staggered in my
diminutive life to carve a synergistically blazing
identity of my very own….

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so wonderfully procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
incoherent cry; remained perpetually embellished with
resplendently enamoring diamonds,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
derogatorily marauded and took all their hard-earned
wealth for granted; dismally stuttered in my truncated
life to carve a celestially vibrant identity of my
very own…
It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so marvelously procreated me; nor was
it my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
nimble cry; contained every speck of prosperity on
this timeless planet,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
indiscriminately terrorized and took all their
hard-earned wealth for granted; meaninglessly quavered
in my destined life to carve a beautifully magnanimous
identity of my very own…..

It wasn’t the slightest in my hands to choose the
parents who had so amazingly procreated me; nor was it
my fault that the house in which I emitted my first
inaudible cry; had its foundations resting on an
insurmountable mountain of pearls,
But it would irrefutably be the greatest sin if I
savagely massacred and took all their hard-earned

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poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Out Of Africa Comes

Out of Africa comes...
The beautiful idea of ubuntu this
Forbidden philosophy of humaneness
That humanity so badly needs today
Out of Africa comes...
Malnutrition and hunger and disease
Children of Africa...
Why do you die
In your thousands everyday and you
Refuse to throw away the superstitions
That don't protect you?
Sure.Others have had their own dark ages
And their black death and they have done
Away with all those burning of witches and
Really cleaned up their acts
Africa you must open up to innovation you
Must be ready to accept the marvel of
Technology and invention it is absolutely
Wrong to live in fear and ignorance and
Let yourself be scarred away from experimenting
By the scare stories of the grandmothers
From others borrow what's good and progressive
Reject what's regressive and harmful and
Within yourself keep what's spiritually enlightening
In other words don't touch their drugs
And their guns and their bombs
In a nutshell you don't need your own bows and machetes
My brothers and sisters...
Africa is the bread basket of the world
Why is it then that you don't eat the food
That you produce and it is recycled from
The corners of the globe back to you and
It has lost it's nutritional value and
You have to buy it at inflated prices?
Out of Africa comes...
The music of the forest and the brooding
Silence of the Sahara and the Namib
Out of Africa comes...
The roar of the lion and the thunder
Of the of the smoke of the mountains
And the heartbeat of the drum
And the laughter of the jackal and the
Lure of the vast open spaces that fills
The heart with romantic notions and the
Spirit with the desire for adventure
Out of Africa comes...
The Amandebele and the Bahutu and the Fulani
And the Masai and the Mandingo...
They are the lords of the land and one day
They shall unite because the artificial

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poem by Ngaka Motaung
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Drop Kick That Evil

We've got to get together and defeat the beast that eats...
Any remnants of peace!
That beast wants to cease a potential feasting of peace,
Released.
And this keeps a people teased by evil.

We've got to get together on collective feet.
And march together in a harmonized beat.
To sweep away the preaching of what's evil.

Drop kick that evil.
Like a football kicked right over a goal.
Drop kick that evil.
Don't leave it in your hands to hold.
To get tackled and crushed up.
Laying flat on a knocked out butt.

We've got to get together and defeat the beast that eats...
Any remnants of peace!
We've got to get together on collective feet.
And march together in a harmonized beat.
To sweep away the preaching of what's evil.

Drop kick that evil.
Like a football kicked right over a goal.
Drop kick that evil.
Don't leave it in your hands to hold...
To get your butt dumped on!

That beast wants to cease a potential feasting of peace,
Released.
And this keeps a people teased by evil.
Drop kick that evil.

There is nothing that appeals.
Drop kick that evil.
No matter how you feel...
'Eveal' is real.

Drop kick that evil.
There is nothing that appeals.
Drop kick that evil.
No matter how you feel...
'Eveal' is real.

Drop kick that evil.
There is nothing that appeals.
Drop kick that evil.
No matter how you feel...
'Eveal' is real.

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poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Pleasure. Book II.

The Argument

Solomon, again seeking happiness, inquires if wealth and greatness can produce it: begins with the magnificence of gardens and buildings; the luxury of music and feasting; and proceeds to the hopes and desires of love. In two episodes are shown the follies and troubles of that passion. Solomon, still disappointed, falls under the temptations of libertinism and idolatry; recovers his thought; reasons aright; and concludes that, as to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual delight, All Is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit.

Try then, O man, the moments to deceive
That from the womb attend thee to the grave:
For wearied Nature find some apter scheme;
Health be thy hope, and pleasure be thy theme;
From the perplexing and unequal ways
Where Study brings thee from the endless maze
Which Doubt persuades o run, forewarn'd, recede
To the gay field, and flowery path, that lead
To jocund mirth, soft joy, and careless ease:
Forsake what my instruct for what may please:
Essay amusing art and proud expense,
And make thy reason subject to thy sense.

I communed thus: the power of wealth I tried,
And all the various luxe of costly pride;
Artists and plans relieved my solemn hours:
I founded palaces and planted bowers,
Birds, fishes, beasts, of exotic kind
I to the limits of my court confined,
To trees transferr'd I gave a second birth,
And bade a foreign shade grace Judah's earth.
Fish-ponds were made where former forests grew
And hills were levell'd to extend the view.
Rivers, diverted from their native course,
And bound with chains of artificial force,
From large cascades in pleasing tumult roll'd,
Or rose through figured stone or breathing gold.
From furthest Africa's tormented womb
The marble brought, erects the spacious dome,
Or forms the pillars' long-extended rows,
On which the planted grove and pensile garden grows.

The workmen here obey the master's call,
To gild the turret and to paint the wall;
To mark the pavement there with various stone,
And on the jasper steps to rear the throne:
The spreading cedar, that an age had stood,
Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood,
Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns,
And Lebanon his ruin'd honour mourns.

A thousand artists show their cunning powers
To raise the wonders of the ivory towers:
A thousand maidens ply the purple loom

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poem by Matthew Prior
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You did It, Africa

Celebrate Africa.
Africa rejoice.
RSA celebrate
You made a fantastic reality,
Out of their fantasy.
Out of their impossibility
You conjured actuality.
The maiden mega match of soccer
Occurred with surprising success.
You did it, Africa.
You excelled RSA
Congratulation.

Celebration unparalleled,
Jubilation unprecedented.
Africa has delivered
RSA has excelled
Matching the momentous moment,
With feats that fitted the fiesta.
Excellent in events management,
Honours in hospitality managership.
You did it, Africa,
You made it RSA
Congratulations.

You entranced all, Africa.
You enthralled all, RSA
Critics and cynics confounded,
Doubting Thomases dazed.
Scepticism soon gave way to confidence,
Pessimism gave in to optimism,
Distrust gave way to believe,
Totality of detractors silenced.
Deep and deafening silence.
Vote of no confidence retracted.
You did it, Africa
You made it, RSA
Congratulations

Soon, only one tune thundered.
Chorus of compliment with conviction,
Symphony of salute and salaam,
Harmony of homage and honour,
Melody of unison and concord.
Africa has confounded its critics.
You did it, Africa
RSA, you made it
Congratulations

Special salute to RSA.

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poem by Emmanuel Oduro
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