Maxwell Itoya, R.I.P.

Reading this article (http://www.counterpunch.org/brottman01112010.html) about Facebook recently made my wonder why I haven't managed to write a blog since April last.

At the peak of my blog production friends used to comment, "Wow, you seem to be so busy and active all the time". The truth was in fact the complete opposite. For the past few months I have been so busy that I completely forgot, apart from some brief moments, that I even had a blog. Finishing a work contract, getting married, getting ready to have a baby and trillions of other things meant serious blog neglect.

Anyhow, I have been meaning to post these photos to commemorate Maxwell Itoya, a Nigerian father of three kids and husband to a Polish woman, who was brutally murdered by a Polish cop in Warsaw on May 23rd this year. Max was trying to provide for his family by peddling small goods, one of the few trades African immigrants can earn a living from here due to the difficuties they have in receiving mainstream employment.

It beggars belief, but despite the fact that he was completely unarmed his life was brutally taken from him and his family through a split second of a Polish police officer. I have no doubt this cop had no intention of using his gun when he went as a part of a wider operation to crack down on and arrest peddlars of illegal goods.

However, he had a choice. His decision to abuse his power in a lethal fashion caused an outcry amongst the immigrant community and stirred fears amongst many that it was an indication of the Polish state's intention to either imprison, injure, kill or force them more and more out of sight.

Maxwell's murder, which has not led to any charges been pressed against the perpetrator acting on behalf of the State, was a grave reminder of how vulnerable immigrants really are in Poland.

The small shrine of candles and flowers laid at the site of his murder in the Praga district of Warsaw is in stark contrast to the overwhelming abundance of commemorative items left for the controversial former president Lech Kaczynski. Yes, Maxwell was not a politician, nor the head of any State apparatus. Yet, he was a human being who meant the world to his wife and kids and friends.

So while religious fundamentalists, politicians and the media continue to make a mountain out of a molehill and blabber shite about the controversial cross in front of the presidential palace (laid there to commemorate the victims of the Smolensk tragedy where 96 people died earlier this year), the murder of Maxwell Itoya has by and large being forgotten.

Let's just hop the next time cops raid the marketplace they will keep their trigger-happy fingers in their pockets and away from their guns.