Baxter at Easter*

I saw the pricks pricking balloons
I saw them seizing kites
they were protecting ignorance
for the sake of all uptights.
They all wore coppers' uniforms
they all had coppers' minds,
barely a brain cell between them,
these are John Howard's times.
When refugees are criminals
when we cannot see their face
fascism is ever present
racism Howard's disgrace.

* The Australian government has built the Baxter Immigration Detention Centre in such a way that the detainees cannot see outside the concentration camp. The government has imposed an air exclusion zone above Baxter in order to increase the sensory deprivation of the internees. At the annual Easter protest demonstrators attempted to fly kites and balloons over the centre to show solidarity with the inmates.

From Green Left Weekly, April 13, 2005.

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From GLW issue 622