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Video: Spoken Word: Kiran Singh Sirah. Videography: Mike Synder. Music by Zero-Project- Into the Darkness. Video made in 2012.
The inspiration for this poem, which I titled “There’s No Such Thing as Fair-Trade Cocaine,” came from my experience of working and visiting Colombia in 2009. At the time, I was living in Scotland and was invited to take part in a social impact exchange program. I had never been to Colombia before. I had only heard about it. All I really knew was Shakira, great coffee, and something about the cocaine industry. But while I was there, I spent a month visiting communities in Bogotá, Ibagué, and Cartagena. I connected with people doing truly beautiful social change work, including artists, organizers, community leaders, and many others. I learned that, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there were around 3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) as a result of historical internal conflicts. The reality is far more layered and complex than any single statistic or story, can convey. What I also experienced, though, was being invited into people’s homes. I felt genuinely welcomed. I felt at home in Colombia. I witnessed a country that deeply cares about its people. There was so much more to Colombia than I could ever have understood from a distance, or by simply accepting the narratives told through mainstream news. When I returned to Scotland, I attended a music festival. I noticed people around me sipping fair trade tea, speaking passionately about justice and how progressive Great Britain is, while at the same time taking lines of cocaine, seemingly unaware that every line was fueling violence and conflict thousands of miles away. It made me think deeply about responsibility. How can we sip fair trade tea and talk about justice while supporting an industry that is clearly not fair trade? It pushed me to reflect on trade justice more broadly, and on the systems that ignite conflict, often far away, yet never truly separate from us. We are all intrinsically linked. So one day, I sat down and wrote the poem, “There’s No Such Thing as Fair-Trade Cocaine.” Fifteen years ago, after I moved to the United States and was living in Washington, D.C., one of my housemates, a brilliant film director named Mike Snyder, suggested we make a video. He chose a location near our home, and we filmed it in just a couple of hours. He uploaded it, and so I now had something I could share more widely. Since then, the poem has been used in different spaces by nonprofit leaders in Mexico, Colombia, and beyond. At times, I use it simply as an entry point into conversations about narrative change work as a whole, about storytelling, poetry, and the power of language and the spoken word, to disrupt, question, and connect. I also love the opening line, “There’s No Such Thing…” I often use it as a prompt with young people and others who want to explore what matters to them, from what issues feel urgent, what stories need telling, what they feel called to write about and share. If you were to think about the causes that feel important to you, and begin a poem with the first line, There’s no such thing… I’d invite you to give it a go. I share the poem in written form below. Although spoken word poetry lives most fully in performance, in the breath, the cadence, the pauses, the sound carried in a room. I share it on the page anyway. There’s No Such Thing as Fair-Trade Cocaine According to the UN Refugee Agency, In Colombia, 3 million people have been internally displaced Due to a corrupt industry. In the UK, The nation has been hooked on Wimbledon, or have internally displaced themselves to Glastonbury… White lines, choices goin’ through ma brain, the hypocrisy of it though drives me insane. Harmless fun -- or bullets from a gun? In Colombia, 3 million children live in a slum. White lines. Choices. 40 quid a gram. Contradictions, contrasts -- here these choices, I slam. Pablo Escobar -- was he the man? More convincing than that yank, Uncle Sam. They both need you -- it’s a bloody joke. Sam points his finger whilst Pablo deals coke. Paradoxes exposed, parallels unfold. But the truth of the matter is that the truth’s untold. Living in a bubble of champagne and trouble. Coca blood. Bodies found in the mud. An exclusive club -- USA, Britain, the cocaine hub. Putting trade justice, people, rich nations to the test. It’s been a European hippy crack fest. The poor get vexed. Yuppies indulge in cocaine sex. Across the UK it’s a middle-class spree -- cocaine and chamomile fair trade tea, going on about being British, oh, how great are we… Rich folk party, ’aving a joke. Charlie sniffs a line of coke. Crystal rock get put to the crush. London bankers get high off the rush. Gunboy pleasure, middle-class leisure, splitting a line, feeling fine -- it’s time. Make up your mind. You wanna get high? Why? A million students try. Like fish in a chowder, there’s blood in this powder. Third world voices get louder. You want some more? In Colombia, 10,000 child soldiers are still at war. But who exactly, though, is violating humanitarian law? Oxford professors do lines in the loo, while Indigenous peoples stage a coup. Ignorant bliss -- look, there it goes. Narcotics dreams right up yer nose. Human rights dampen. Violations rampant. Kidnappin’ and killing -- cities are filling. Organized crime, or just a sign of the time? The Coca spice. Pimpers Paradise. Crockett and Tubbs -- Miami Vice. We’re meddling in Medellín. The FARC are profiting. The powder killer, the cocaine guerrilla. She rolls up a twenty, lying in bed. A thousand magic crystals whizz past the Queen’s head. In Colombia, 8,000 dead. White lines, choices goin’ through ma brain -- there’s no such thing as fair trade cocaine. By Kiran Singh Sirah Storytelling: Gift of Hope Newsletters & Blogs & Sign up |