Post 13 spring, serfs and slaves

 

The first signs of Spring are appearing. Snowdrops and primroses are peeping above the chilly earth. Sparrows, robins, chaffinches and thrushes are lustfully chasing potential breeding partners through trees and hedge cover. The collared dove wakes us each morning with it’s mournful monotonous call. And the days are lengthening; a welcome distraction from the the depressing events taking place all over the globe.

Recently I read that serfs, in the thirteenth century, had more rights to free justice than we appear to enjoy in today’s times. From the village courts, often held in the open air, to the King’s court, the highest in the land, an applicant could, theoretically, take his (and it was only men) complaint to the highest level; and for free. Now, with the near disappearance of Legal Aid, the common man and woman has very limited recourse to rightful complaint. What price progress?

 Another comparison with the past is the plight of slaves; whose conditions have not improved over centuries of misuse and exploitation. Some years back, when Pete and I were travelling in Southern Spain, we could not help but notice the plight of ‘workers’, employed in the huge plastic covered plantations of tomatoes, peppers and other veg, destined for European markets (which Britain was, then!). Squeezed in between the never ending tunnels were hovels where workers lived; who were treated no better than slaves.

 

SLAVISH HYPOCRISY      January 2022

There’s a lot being talked about historic slaving
Of how we should shout loud it’s crime
But of today’s slaves there is hardly a word
Their pleas for deliverance rarely are heard
Or their plight shown on TV Daytime

Humans have always been useful for trading
Bartered, enslaved and abused
Captured in battle or ambush of village
Human detritus as mercenaries pillage
The helpless were shamefully used

But what do we know of the slaves of today
Of the millions all over this earth
Caught fast in the web of work with no pay
With never a chance to be given a say
In what their lives really are worth

And many are not even thought of as slaves
Just people who work till they fall
To pay off a debt that’s been craftily billed
By a debtor who knows it can’t be fulfilled
In a lifetime of working, at all

The slaves of today are often hidden from view
Behind doors of the privileged rich
Slaving as cleaners, or nannies or cooks
Their owners don’t blench from cooking the books
As they steal their slave’s lifetime away

So, after we’ve pulled down the infamous statues
And defaced a slave owner’s plaque
Perhaps we should spare a thought for those caught
In infamous scams where their freedoms been bought
With no hope of getting life back.