Make Them understand
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Make Them understand
A friend of mine once told me, I’m a young man with wisdom of an old man.
Ever since then it has been imprinted on my mind that an old soul once resided in this body and when he passed on he left parts of his soul and brain, and sometimes he reveals himself.
Recently when I was rummaging for another poem I found a letter written by this old hand, titled “Make them understand”.
It reads: when my forefathers lost their land, they fought hard to retain it, but time and death became their enemy, so when their bodies could no longer take it and their projected voices of protest lost volume, they became old man muttering words into wombs of our mothers so that we could cry revolution at birth.
At first sight we were burden with the responsibility of saving this land.
My teenage years were riots and rebellion, petrol bombs and teargas.
1960 I was a young man still burning with revolution, 69 died in Sharpeville, gloom almost blinded our sight for liberation but our hands ignited a torch of new dawn, freedom.
Some of our younger comrades raised their fists at 19, 76 uprising.
The struggle continues but those flames inside me are slowly burning out, the torch in my hand is dim and my demise is catching up with me.
When die tell my grandchildren about our past, make them understand it is not their fault they were born poor, that they dwell in former dumpsites with fly infested playgrounds.
Tell them with these hands I tried, they have bled while kissing Gold and Platinum for a foreign pale man, they have worked Suburbia gardens under the name of ìgarden boyî, they have cultivated lands and worked the fields for 70 Rands a day.
Tell them I have sweated my brow but I still couldnít make enough rand to buy back the land or even a piece of land.
Tell them we will rejoice for our first black president not knowing that he negotiated a contract with cryptic errors that will be decrypted in a form of strikes and violence in the future.
Tell them the TRC will fail to reconcile us, in fact it will provoke wounds and leave them to ooze memories of lost loved ones.
Tell them the Liberation movement will be broken into pieces of small parties, it will elect a corrupt and scandalous president twice as punch line to the whole government joke.
Tell them service delivery and unemployment will frustrate people, we will attack our own and call it Xenophobia, we will burn our own and the man in blue will watch and laugh.
Tell them our police will become bullies, they will open live fire on civilians, 34 miners will die for a salary increase, and a man will be tied to a police van, dragged around until he dies and his video will continuously play on our screens to remind us that they no longer serve and protect.
Tell them this land will forever be a place of blood spill, even internationals will come here to orchestrate deaths of their wives; sports starts will forever be surrounded by scandals and bad publicity. Make my grandchildren understand that it is not their fault that this soil is cursed.
We stopped singing the revolution songs too early.
Tell them to hum new songs when they have become one, burst out in song, sing so much that their grandchildren will not be prone to singing the same songs.
And in the end if they still live in a shack, tell them it because they are still shackled under the same system disguised in Black.
A friend of mine once told me, I’m a young man with wisdom of an old man.
Ever since then it has been imprinted on my mind that an old soul once resided in this body and when he passed on he left parts of his soul and brain, and sometimes he reveals himself.
Recently when I was rummaging for another poem I found a letter written by this old hand, titled “Make them understand”.
It reads: when my forefathers lost their land, they fought hard to retain it, but time and death became their enemy, so when their bodies could no longer take it and their projected voices of protest lost volume, they became old man muttering words into wombs of our mothers so that we could cry revolution at birth.
At first sight we were burden with the responsibility of saving this land.
My teenage years were riots and rebellion, petrol bombs and teargas.
1960 I was a young man still burning with revolution, 69 died in Sharpeville, gloom almost blinded our sight for liberation but our hands ignited a torch of new dawn, freedom.
Some of our younger comrades raised their fists at 19, 76 uprising.
The struggle continues but those flames inside me are slowly burning out, the torch in my hand is dim and my demise is catching up with me.
When die tell my grandchildren about our past, make them understand it is not their fault they were born poor, that they dwell in former dumpsites with fly infested playgrounds.
Tell them with these hands I tried, they have bled while kissing Gold and Platinum for a foreign pale man, they have worked Suburbia gardens under the name of ìgarden boyî, they have cultivated lands and worked the fields for 70 Rands a day.
Tell them I have sweated my brow but I still couldnít make enough rand to buy back the land or even a piece of land.
Tell them we will rejoice for our first black president not knowing that he negotiated a contract with cryptic errors that will be decrypted in a form of strikes and violence in the future.
Tell them the TRC will fail to reconcile us, in fact it will provoke wounds and leave them to ooze memories of lost loved ones.
Tell them the Liberation movement will be broken into pieces of small parties, it will elect a corrupt and scandalous president twice as punch line to the whole government joke.
Tell them service delivery and unemployment will frustrate people, we will attack our own and call it Xenophobia, we will burn our own and the man in blue will watch and laugh.
Tell them our police will become bullies, they will open live fire on civilians, 34 miners will die for a salary increase, and a man will be tied to a police van, dragged around until he dies and his video will continuously play on our screens to remind us that they no longer serve and protect.
Tell them this land will forever be a place of blood spill, even internationals will come here to orchestrate deaths of their wives; sports starts will forever be surrounded by scandals and bad publicity. Make my grandchildren understand that it is not their fault that this soil is cursed.
We stopped singing the revolution songs too early.
Tell them to hum new songs when they have become one, burst out in song, sing so much that their grandchildren will not be prone to singing the same songs.
And in the end if they still live in a shack, tell them it because they are still shackled under the same system disguised in Black.
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