Africa addio Page #7

Then it was the turn of the refugees

from Congo, Sudan, Angola.

Today there are 11 million

and still growing.

They come in waves

to the entrance of the mines

They flood through the labyrinth

of tunnels that run under the big city.

The great vein of gold, half a mile thick,

winds under the city ofJohannesburg,

the ceiling that separates

peppered with holes

like a huge Swiss cheese.

Crowds of miners dig like termites,

crawling from one shaft to another

like Christians in the catacombs,

following the path of gold with

a secret, methodical, muffled grinding.

Over here, the roof creaks menacingly.

The miners run for cover.

Over there,

the big city vibrates and trembles

from the dull explosions of dynamite,

but no one moves.

No one has paid attention for years.

The stock market goes up continuously.

Share prices are steadily high.

Buy orders for mining shares arrive

from the markets of London,

New York, Geneva and Paris.

On March 10 of this year, Moscow bought

On May 12,

Peking requested 50 tons of gold.

Down below, the great vein of gold

climbs from low to high

just like the stock chart.

Millions of picks and shovels follow it

in a relentless, solid march

toward the surface.

The great floor separating the two worlds

is growing thinner and crumbling.

The growing clamor of the Stock Exchange

mixes with the ever closer

and louder boom of the explosions.

Almighty Lord, now that another day

dies in your glory,

bless and protect our lives.

Bless and protect our forces

as it is written that

the hyena shall prevail over the lion

when the lion has no more claws

with which to rule.

Grant that this sea whence we came

shall always lie before us

and never at our backs.

Bless and protect this,

our last refuge

which you led us to find unspoiled

on the day we came

and in which we have resisted

hatred and violence.

Lastly, bless and protect

the waves and the winds,

that the fury of two oceans united

shall not wrest us away forever

from these final shores.

Amen.

At the end of the Ice Age,

a warm current

broke this little colony of penguins

off of the glaciers of the south

and carried them here on huge rafts

of ice that then melted in the sun.

Isolated and without the possibility

of returning to their original homeland,

they have for centuries been

strangers in a strange land

that is becoming more and more

heated and hostile toward them

surrounded by a sea that grows higher

and more and more filled with rage.

Perhaps a little peace will descend

upon these waters sooner or later,

before a wave stronger than the others

tears them away forever

from this last rock that forms

the geographic end of the Dark Continent.

To close, we would like to apologize

to our families

for having been

away from home for three years.

This film, born without prejudices,

does not attempt and has

never attempted to create new ones.

It has only tried to document the reality

of how blood spilled anywhere

represents a loss of wealth

for the entire world.

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