A dockside stroll I took,
Whence upon some sings I did glance
No to immigrants!
Send Them Home!
Were the texts upon those very signs
And these were but a few,
Of the many signs and many more people
With whom the police were engaged in conflict

Of a newsman I enquired what was the cause,
It transpired that a ship had shortly before docked,
And upon this ship were many people,
And these same were for asylum on these shores seeking.
For from where they had come persecuted they were
All because they were of some different race,
And to these shores they came in search of freedom

They had been told that in this western nation
Their rights, as proclaimed by a universal declaration
By countries such as my own, of but 50 years before today
In thirty articles and a pre-amble, would be held sacred
For every man, woman and child within this realm.
And before they even stepped ashore,
This their most heartfelt dream,
A dream of peace and of freedom from persecution,
Was shattered by an extremist mob,
Of right wing fascist motivations and beliefs.

In the press, subsequently I read
These people had since been persecuted more,
Persecuted in this land of supposed freedom for all.
Then after many months of uncertainty
All this while whole families living in bed-sit flats,
Four or five adults and children living in single rooms,
Single rooms designed for two or in cases only one,
They were told by a bureaucrat somewhere in Whitehall
That their application was rejected,
For reasons of protocol and of miscompleted applications,
All of these in a language of which not one spoke a word.

For this infringement of the procedure, Deportation was to result.
The government to send them back,
To the persecution and life-threatening abuse of their foreign home,
Send them back to die,
Not even to their home for of this they have none,
Invaded by armies many years ago, from countries of relative wealth,
This conveniently forgotten to allow matters of trade,
Trade in weapons and implements miscellaneous,
With which these very same people can be tortured once more.

And to top off this all, the government, their politicians and peers,
Claim to their country and to the world at large,
That this is a nation with morality.

Chris McKenna 24/03/98 19:20 - 20:05 Probably inspired by recent deportations of refugees and also by the Simon and Garfunkel song 'Sparrow'	Back to poetry index Back to main index
Copyright (C) Chris Mckenna 1998.