We are not slaves

They are old things, from another century. Poverty, which progress seemed to have banished from
the West, comes back to make us feel its bite. Bankers aren’t jumping from windows yet, but the poor
are filling the streets. Factories and shops close their doors. Millions of people find themselves with
no means for facing the future. They were promised that a life passed on their knees, between a job
that profited a boss and obedience to the will of the government would at least ensure a quiet survival
for them. Now it’s clear to all that this was a lie.
They are old things, from another century. The lines are swelling in front of soup kitchens. The
number of thefts in supermarkets is constantly growing. Foreclosure proceedings pile up. And while
those on the bottom try not to die of hunger, those on top prepare for the worst, for the feared social
explosion. “Zero tolerance” is guaranteed for anyone who breaks the law; new structures of detention
are being prepared for natives and immigrants; soldiers and “volunteers” patrol neighborhoods that
are under video surveillance. The old and new poor have to know: dying of privation or suicide, these
are the only choices permitted to them.
They are old things, from another century. Today, more and more people are reaching out to grab
wealth from the places where it exists in abundance. Prison is the fate promised
to anyone who isn’t resigned to dying in misery, the fate promised to the enemies of all exploitation
and authority.
They are old things, from another century. A shattered economy, skyrocketing unemployment, the
deterioration of living conditions, a war among the poor fomented by the powerful henchmen, racism
speeding up from a mere creep to a gallop, a planet threatened by technological development, States
alternating the carrot of democracy with the stick of totalitarianism… In this sudden return to the
past, there is still something missing: the offended dignity that drives desperation away, transforming
it into action; the freedom that stops being the right to obey authority and goes back to being the
challenge to every form of power; the desire to live that isn’t satisfied with what exists and mounts
an assault to snatch what has never been.