Edith Piaf interview (La vie en rose)

You are not bad people. You are blind to the present and we are blind to the future. In the immigration detention centre I used to smile when the detention officers explained to me, The reason you have come over here, you Africans, is that you just aren't capable of good government over there. I used to tell them that near my village there was a wide, deep river with dark caves under the banks where the fish were pale and blind. There was no light in their caves, so after a thousand generations the trick of seeing had been distilled out of their species. Do you see what I mean? I said to the detention officers. Without light, how can you preserve the vision of government? We could try as hard as we liked in my world. We could have a most diligent home secretary of lunchtime. We could have an excellent prime minister of the quietest part of the late afternoon. But when twilight comes- do you see? our world disappears. It cannot see beyond the day, because you have taken tomorrow. And because you have tomorrow in front of your eyes, you cannot see what is being done today

The detention officers used to laugh at me, and shake their heads, and go back to reading their newspapers. Sometimes they would let me read after them. I liked to read your newspapers because it was vital for me to learn to speak your language in this way that you do. When your newspapers write about where I come from, they call it the developing world. You would not say developing unless you believed you had left us a future to be doing that in. This is how I know you are not bad people.