Abduction

Well I finally got myself Arular, M.I.A.'a latest album.
I actually cried when I heard this song.
It is haunting and lush and bang on.

In fact just thinking about it now, makes me feel a little weepy.

In it, she breaks down the aspects of abduction: of being taken right off the street, of having her photo on a milk carton, of being held for her captors monetary gain, of being drugged, of coming undone. Of begging to call home, to go home.

"Please this is M.I.A. Can you come get me?"

Of torture, of being left behind, of no one coming to find her.

"This is M.I.A. Its okay, you forgot me."

Singing along with my MP3 to M.I.A's Amazon, allowed me to recall my own childhood abduction, albeit I wasn't snatched by Jihadists, just sadists assisted by my own gdmn family members.

Singing, I was able to comfort myself, knowing I am not alone. Something crises coucelors well meaning friends, advisors etc have often told me, You are not alone.
In the past, to think that thought, that any single one person could or would ever be forced to experience the horrors that I had to, never made me feel good, or understood. It infuriated me.
But here is a woman, around my age, of my complexion grown up in somewhat of a similar cultural mileaux as myself; a predominately white commonwealth, was writing, singing composing her experiences, and guess what? Her feelings and words mirror my own.

Its one thing having a councellor look at you with big empathetic eyes patronizing you with the you are not alone speech, and quite another when a fellow survivor picks up a mic and begins to kick up a storm of protest and education. She is not singing to you, she is singing to ME, and to all of the other me's out there.

The exploited, the used, the forgotten and abused. The murdered, the maimed, the voiceless, the faceless, the dispensible. The masses, the dregs that people running the banks, heads of states running the countries, organizations such as WHO, IMF, regulating Global economies don't recognise as being worthy of such basics as clean water for drinking or washing, staples of life such as rice, wheat, fresh fruit and vegetables, HIV meds or justice.