Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees! Poem by Ali Rahimi

Seven-year-old Burmese girl is kidnapped,
Kept in a dog cage, forced to be the family servant,
Hot water poured all over her body, scalded,
She cannot lift or move her arms.
21th century cruelty, slavery,
A wife could be slave to his husband,
Or shackled with aging parents,
Captive to a deformed or retarded child and suffer,
Or modern day slavery of debt bondage,
Debts, pledges to banks, slaves to banks,
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!
Slave trade has been around from millennium,
Livestock and women, even kids,
Greek educated slaves,
In Ancient Rome, teachers, and physicians were often slaves,
Had no legal personhood, were patron’s properties,
Academicians are trapped in a scientific rat race,
Romans forced the negroes in cotton fields,
Of Virginia, Georgia, Southern states of America,
They are fed and watered,
They are valuable commodities,
A better predicament, more salubrious existence?
A double-edged sword?
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!
Gospel and blues music, Ben Harper voiced the plight they were in,
Jonny Cash, Alabama hardships,
Mental slavery, emotional slavery, political slavery,
Ideological slavery, technological slavery,
Submissive to powerful foolish politicians,
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!
How long you can go without looking at your mobiles?
Distract you from conversation, interaction, socialization,
Breaking down family structures, camaraderie,
Are we slaves to technology?
That has developed our lives? That has bettered our existence?
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!
Emancipation! Emancipation! Emancipation!
Breaking out of slavery, yokes, blinkers, blinders,
Remove the blinkers, the blinders, the bridles!
The equestrian servitude, let the horse of liberty gallop free, unbridled, unyoked,
Like Spartacus bravely rebelling against masters,
In Servile Wars,
Better dead than red! Better dead than slave!
Better dead than prisoner! Better dead than servant! Better dead than controlled!
Some love to be abused, love to be destroyed!
Some love to be manipulated, harassed, hassled!
Some love to be tortured, love to be defecated on! Love to be urinated on!
Masochism, self-abnegation, self destruction,
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!
Political slavery,
Americans fought wars to stop slavery,
Young black man in ghetto asks:
What are my options?
Have only access to guns, not education!
Segregation, elitism and nepotism breed slavery,
Exclusion, yes, you are excluded, you don’t belong to us!
US vs. THEM, US vs. OTHERS,
US vs. ENEMIES! GOODIES vs. BADDIES!
We are the masters, you are the slaves! ! !
We have the key to virtue, happiness, righteousness! Chastity!
Better to die on your feet than live on your in knees!
Dogma bigots dependency,
Slaves to the machinery of globalization, localization,
Slaves to weaponry of war,
Slaves to the apparatus of ideology,
Slaves to anthems of patriotism,
Slaves to dazzling glamour of fashion,
Slaves to hormones, slave to lust,
Better to die on your feet than live on your knees!