Asian Dub Foundation - Colour Line Feat. Ambalavaner Sivanandan lyrics

today, the colour line/is the power line/is the poverty line Racism and imperialism work in tandem And poverty is their handmaiden Those who are poor and powerless to break out of their poverty Are also those who by and large are non-white, non-western, third world Poverty and powerlessness are interwined in colour, in race Discrimination and exploitation feed into each other today Under global capitalism... We are back to primitive accumulation - plunder on a world scale Only this time, the pillage is accompanied by aid, sustained by expert Advice and underpinned by programmes and policies that perpetuate dependency The imf, the world bank, structural adjustment programmes General agreement on tariffs and trade - gatt, Are just a few of the organisations, schemes, projects Which under the guise of developing the third world, plunder it. Trade agreements and commodity price-fixing, patents and Intellectual property rights They lock them into paralytic dependency There's no such thing as illegal immigrants, only illegal Governments... Black is not just the colour of our skins It's the colour of our politics... There's no such thing as illegal immigrants, only illegal Governments... Today, the colour line/is the power line/is the poverty line