It is time to set the poor free

BY UDE EMMANUEL ENYINNAYA

Those capitalists, politicians and others who claim to represent the poor but get salaries and allowances that are more than what hundreds of poor people can earn in a month should heed the words of St Ambrose (340-397).

The archbishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church said: “Why do you reject one who has the same rights over nature as you? It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The earth belongs to all.”

They refuse to give the poor proper houses but live in well secured mansions; they refuse to give the poor security but go everywhere with state-funded security personnel; they refuse to give the poor water but drink only water certified fit for the elitists to drink; they refuse to give the poor food but eat food made by the best chefs money can pay; they refuse to approve proper wages for the poor but take unhindered their own obscene wages from the sweats the harsh labour of the poor have provided; they refuse to employ the children of the poor but make serial job provisions for their generations yet unborn; they refuse the poor their right to demand their natural and proper status in the society but encourage a perpetual structure that will ensure that their descendants will occupy elitist positions; they refuse to build proper roads for the poor but roads are nylon tarred.

They refuse to recognise the poor but want the poor to always recognise them; they refuse the poor welfare but create a system where only they can afford to buy well-made commodities at high rates; they refuse to respect the poor but want the poor to always worship them; they refuse the poor proper and affordable means of transportation but fly in the air, business class, while the poor walk on the land; they don’t educate the poor but have their children and generations yet unborn receive the highest levels of education; they refuse to listen to the plights of the poor but want the poor to gather and listen to their lies and empty promises.

They make the poor dig out gold, diamonds and precious metals but put the price so high that the same poor people cannot buy them; they take God’s gift of fertile land from the poor and relocate them to infertile places.

The poor man does odd jobs for a pittance while the capitalist sits in his office and takes a big salary. The poor man is constantly mentally, psychologically, physiologically drained but the capitalist is constantly mentally, psychologically, physiologically elevated; the poor man’s children are taken into virtually slavery to perennially serve the needs of the rich while the children of the leading class are being trained to replace their parents and perpetuate status quo.

But I am happy because I know for sure that a day of judgment will come for everybody. They owe the poor and they will not have true rest until they set the poor free.

But why, my capitalist and politician brothers? But why?

Lenten observances calls for a change of heart and attitudes towards others, including and especially the poor.

Ude Emmanuel Enyinnaya is a former president of Society of St Vincent de Paul Conference, cathedral of Christ the King, Johannesburg.