by Tila Neguse<\/p>\n
What does a Peace Economy<\/strong> mean to me?<\/p>\n I feel like for the first time in years, people are talking about lowering defense spending in this country and this is big! conservatives and progressives, democrats and republicans alike are realizing that this issue is intrinsic <\/strong>in the progression of us as a human race. When I interviewed for the position of Director of the Peace Economy Project, one of the first questions I was asked is what made me want to work with PEP; what made me want to work on the issue of defense and military spending in this country? And my response is and still remains, the human interest in this project. It is so easy to become entrenched in numbers, statistics, and agendas. But we have to look at this inorganic information in correlation with its human component, to understand it fully.<\/p>\n I chose to share my poem, Castle by the Sea<\/em>, because I believe that the poem, at its core, reflects the elements that are essential to my vision of a peace economy and the human interest in such an environment. I remember distinctly when I was living and studying in Cape Coast, Ghana, touring the slave castle in Elmina and hearing the story of how the gun, brought by the Europeans, was the most alluring thing to the African traders, inciting them to turn over human chattel in exchange for this strange foreign weapon. Little did they know the magnanimous dynamics of such an exchange. The arms trade is a powerful thing and comes wrought with suffering, as it did over 500 years ago and as it does today. Will we ever learn? \u00a0This narrative poem functions as my imagined historical perspective of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, and by extension of the dangers of foreign arms dealing. I hope to create both a literal and figurative image that represents the fundamental ideas of the human aspect of the arms trade, both past and present. Again, will we ever learn?<\/p>\n My vision of a peace economy is one where we learn from the mistakes of our past and don\u2019t barter with violence as our currency.<\/p>\n “Castle By Sea” 1482. The Portuguese landed in Elmina The wind is in the cane.<\/em><\/p>\n Blown from the shores of Elmina and<\/em><\/p>\n Caroling rusty vespers across the Atlantic<\/em><\/p>\n To America. <\/em><\/p>\n The governor and his crew The beaches of the African West Coast<\/em><\/p>\n Are lined with haunted castles.<\/em><\/p>\n And the pillaging ghosts of Samori and Babatu<\/em><\/p>\n Stalk along the phantom walls,<\/em><\/p>\n searching for human chattel.<\/em><\/p>\n The governor placed the captured men I wonder what they must have felt<\/em><\/p>\n When they saw those monsters on the horizon,<\/em><\/p>\n Those strange ships bobbing up and down<\/em><\/p>\n Bearing men carrying the might of God in barrels.<\/em><\/p>\n Later, the governor went to his wife by Tila Neguse What does a Peace Economy mean to me? I feel like for the first time in years, people are talking about lowering defense spending in this country and this is big! conservatives and progressives, democrats and republicans alike are realizing that this issue is intrinsic in the progression of us as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[156],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-visions-of-a-peace-economy"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTila Neguse<\/p>\n
\nAnd built a Castle by the Sea.
\nAmankwa<\/em> to the natives.
\nBut the Portuguese tongue
\nCould not form the sound,
\nAccustomed to rolling over
\nR<\/em> and gliding over S.
\nSo they called it S\u00e3o Jorge da Mina,
\nThis Castle by the Sea
\nWith white mortar walls
\nAnd limestone paneling,
\nBuilt upon fresh soil
\nStill burning from the fires
\nThat cleared the land.
\nAnd in the Castle by the Sea
\nThere lived not a prince and
\nHis princess, but a governor
\nAnd his wife. White.
\nLike the Castle by the Sea.
\nThey came for gold
\nBut soon remembered
\nThe candied taste of sugar
\nOn the tongue, and the way
\nThe mouth thirsted for these
\nLucid crystals extracted from cane,
\nSwaying on the plantations in Brazil.<\/p>\n
\nSent men into the Bush
\nTo barter for them.
\nThe mosquitoes kept them
\nInside the Castle walls,
\nBurnt holes into their skin,
\nTiny fires printed in copper
\nLeaking into the blood,
\nHot and feverish, Let them
\nPour forth their alabaster
\nInsides onto this black soil.
\nLet the skin sweat
\nAnd the brain turn to liquid.
\nAnd they cursed the African flies
\nThat draped sleep over their eyes.
\nThey should have died
\nIn the Castle by the Sea.
\nIn the Bush, the men fought
\nFor gold and slaves.
\nThe Ashanti captured the Fanti
\nAnd brought them linked in chains,
\nA forged iron brotherhood,
\nTo the Castle by the Sea.
\nAnd the governor smiled and
\nGave the Ashanti guns and sent them
\nBack into the Bush for more.
\nAnd the Ashanti kings marveled over the
\nVirgin feel of cold metal against hot skin.<\/p>\n
\nIn vaults meant to hold gold
\nUnderneath the Castle by the Sea,
\nStripped them naked and
\nBeat them bloody till the
\nWhite mortar walls ran red
\nWith black blood.<\/p>\n
\nOn the veranda, and delicately
\nDraped an iridescent bracelet of African gold
\nAround her fragile white wrist
\nAnd whispered that they had found
\nA home in this Castle by the Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"