Posts Tagged ‘diamonds’

Raise Hope for the Congo (a poem)

January 13, 2010

The world’s richest country now the poorest

A chorus of women’s cries across a corrupted country in demise

International lies hide the truth of our turmoil

Raping our country of our women, tungsten, coltan, and gold

Young girls now a commodity is no longer an oddity

Child soldiers watching bullets and not birds fly over their sky

So we can sit pretty with our play stations, laptops and iPhones

iRoam alone in Africa’s first world war

Starving the country, feeding the globe

Little babies dying so we can have a cell phone and warm home

An x-box, a TV, a computer, a flat screen

Flat lining the dreams of millions of Congolese

Never quite able to control their destiny

Mineral gifts turned to curses

Body bags with no hearses

Babies bouncing from the womb to the tomb in a matter of minutes

But in a minute you can decide to help turn this tide

Raise your voice for the people

Raise hope for the Congo

Turn your cell phone to a microphone and speak knowledge to your college

Tell these computer companies we need conflict free products

Realize you’re a fool if you don’t check the trail of those jewels

Diamonds and gold be the fuels to this fire

How can gold become a cancer?

 I’m looking for an answer

In a land where diamonds are NOT a girl’s best friend

But together with the Congolese we can change this direction

If you decide to raise your conscience and each one teach one

Reach one in your grasp make an army of change

An army of conscious consumers and not soldiers for the same old

Sympathetic solutions for political and profitable prostitution

The true resolution is empowering our women

The center of our land must be made whole once again

The backbone of our nation must be realigned

When our women can stand proud our country we will once again have its spine

The heart of our future lies in our young girls

The pride of our lives lies in our young boys

Congo’s future lies in our hands if you’d just understand

That we’re all in this together

So let’s raise hope and take a stand for our land