Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
‘He bought me like a chicken’: the struggle to end slavery in Niger
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
‘We were treated like
animals,’ says Al-Husseina Amadou said. ‘Now we are free.’ Some
estimates put the number of enslaved people in Niger at 130,000. Photograph: Fred Harter
The Guardian : Al-Husseina Amadou was just one of thousands of girls in west Africa who are still bought cheaply as a wahaya, or ‘fifth wife’. l-Husseina Amadou never
forgets the day she was sold.
Like her parents, she was born into
slavery in southern Niger. Forty-five years ago, when she was 15, a
wealthy businessman from across the border in Nigeria arrived and bought her from her family’s master as a “fifth wife” or wahaya.
“My
parents had no say,” she recalls. “I was just a girl and he bought me
like a chicken in the market. When I left with him, I was crying with my
mother.”
For
15 years Amadou lived with her “husband” in northern Nigeria, cooking
and cleaning for his four “official” wives, whom he had married in
accordance with Islamic law, and their children, while also working in
their fields and tending their livestock.
Barely
fed, she would eat the family’s leftovers or steal handfuls of grain.
She ran away dozens of times, returning to her family in Niger, but was
always caught and brought back.
For these transgressions she was beaten with a stick and still carries the scars on her back. “If
I fled or didn’t work, the wives and even the children would beat me,”
Amadou says. “It was a pitiful situation. I was skinny because I was
always hungry. If my husband bought food he would just give it to his
wives and children. I got nothing.”
