Don’t ask

Don’t ask how many were killed, don’t ask how many were injured. “Hundreds, they say. A hundred up, a hundred down, who cares?

Don’t ask how they died. Don’t ask if those deaths were avoidable. Don’t ask about responsibility for this crime against young Africans without rights and without bread.

Don’t ask.

The dead are to blame. The violent ones are the dead. Those responsible are the dead. The authorities in the villages can only congratulate themselves for having ensured that the violent are dead, that those without rights are dead, that those without bread are dead.

And they congratulate themselves, and applaud themselves, and encourage themselves to continue killing young Africans without rights and without bread.

And journalism is silent: it does not denounce; it does not even inform.

And conscience is silent: as if Allah blesses those who kill the poor; as if God does not care about the poor we kill; as if the owners of the power that oppresses us are also the owners of our rights, of our bread, of our lives.

I cannot say that the Spanish and Moroccan Governments are responsible for these deaths; I cannot say that the Spanish and Moroccan Governments have blood on their hands; I cannot say that the Spanish and Moroccan Governments fill a cold, cruel, prolonged and iniquitous death row with victims. I cannot say it, but I can think it, and that is what I think.

Money worshippers on both sides of the border. Worshippers of power on both sides of the border. Worshippers of lies on both sides of the border. Rapists of the poor on both sides of the border. Herod and Pilate have agreed to kill Jesus. On both sides of the border Herod and Pilate have agreed to kill that “God for God” who are the poor.

(Santiago Agrelo, Franciscan, Archbishop emeritus of Tangiers, 27 June 2022)