I have taken enormous liberties with this blog.
Liberties which I trust the original poet, a legend in his own lifetime and an enduring icon in my life, will forgive because I am unable to improve on his evocative, lyrical, astounding work. Along with Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Carole King and Carly Simon, Leonard Cohen is one of the most important and seminal poets of our time. Like these other great poets, Cohen put his timeless, compelling, poignant poetry to music, fusing two millennia-old art forms into one seamless eternal reflection of our world.
I’ve heard Cohen wrote the song as a protest hymn to what he saw as an inadequate and flawed version of democracy in the USA. Being a Canadian, that probably didn’t go down too well south of the border. Seems Canada has a penchant for pissing off countries south of its borders.
Be that as it may, so potent, portentous and perceptive is Cohen’s original psalm that I have merely audaciously tweaked it here and there to try to make it relevant to South Africa today — to the flawed, vulnerable and inadequate version of democracy I see and experience here. In its original form (and in my modest “cover version”), “Democracy” remains an aching lament to the absence of values, the dearth of morality, the duplicity of political and economic power and the dominion over us of selfish, bigoted, corrupt tyrants in their legion of disguises.
Yet it also summons forth vestigial images of promise and hope and faith and trust in a better future. Listen to it in its original version; listen and meditate on its words.
Mine goes like this:
It’s coming through a hole in the air
From those nights in John Vorster Square
It’s coming from the feel
That this ain’t exactly real
Or it’s real but it ain’t exactly there
From the guns against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
From the ashes of decay
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
And it’s coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don’t pretend to understand at all
It’s coming from the violence
Of the reconciler’s bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered broken
Heart of every day
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
It’s coming from the sorrow in the street
From the holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin’
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat
From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the clinics here
And the cure that’s far away
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state
Through the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
To the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
It’s coming to South Africa first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here we’ve got the range
And the urgency for change
And it’s here we’ve got the spiritual thirst
It’s here the family’s broken
And it’s here the racists say
That the others have to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
It’s coming from the women and the men
O baby we’ll be making love again
We’ll be going down so deep
That the desert’s going to weep
And the mountain’s going to shout “Amen”
It’s coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway
Imperious, mysterious
In hopeless disarray
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
Sail on, sail on
O mighty ship of state
Through the shores of need
Past the reefs of greed
To the squalls of hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on
I’m patriotic if you know what I mean
I love this country but I can’t stand the scene
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I’m stubborn as those plastic bags
That time cannot decay
I’m weak but I’m still holding up
This little flag’s display
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
Democracy is coming to the R.S.A.
I hope I’ll still be around to see it when it gets here. Hope you will be too.
This would have been excellent in the early 90′s, even some years after 1994.
Yes, I realise that your pithy “I hope I’ll still be around to see it when it gets here. Hope you will be too.” recognises my sentiments but in 2009 this song/poem is about the thoughts that should have been circulating back then and, looking back on it, how our “democratic” new government really stuffed up our one big chance.
In 2009, it’s way too late and out of time. Sort of like watching the film “2001 A Space Odyssey” in 2001. It’s just crazy, it doesn’t work!
Very powerfull and thank you.
As one of Cohen’s biggest fans, I must say that you did him no injustice here. Everything fits. Now go record it.
And add your own responsibility of being the driver of change. Add the responsibility wherever, you find wrong you will seek to change. Add the responsibility that there are no gurus but that we should be a collective motive force of change. Add the responsibility that our expectation must be reasonable. Add the responsibility that those who added to the sorrows of people, must come on board as they too need to heal. Add the responsibility that even in your immediate environment you will change the mindsets of those you interact with on a daily etc etc. In adding to our own responsibilites that we citizens must drive transformation , then TOGETHER WE CAN DO MORE!
Brought a lump to my throat as a SA living in Canada and missing all that makes SA what it is, or used to be. I truly hope to still be around when it gets there.
We need more “Yes We Can!” in South Africa!
Good one, Llewellyn!
Politicians are the employees of the voters. Voters decide who gets employed and voters pay the salaries. The sooner we get constituencies and direct democracy the sooner our coutry will heal
I try very hard to understand the fears of the white guy; but sometimes I cant help thinking he is a Don Quixote fighting windmills and ephemeral ghosts. For 342 years he crafted the most vicious racial discrimination system which he now denies he had anything to do with; which “fact” I accept in spite of the huge material and intellectual gains he received from the system; But sometimes you get the same feeling like when a forgiven lethal hijacker now cries FOUL and wants everyone up in arms because his pencil has been stolen.
There is no sense of context and understanding. Its a kind of criticism which is conveniently decontextualised. How bad are the ANC guys compared to Nats? It is this matter of comparison and relativity that makes me perplexed. I am not a criminal, I dont condone crime but this wanton generalisation is some kind or reverse racism. Yes Hlophe is a bad guy; but what about those who sat at inquests and blamed black and white deceased activists in police custody for their own deaths? They are still around and in the system. There are villains on both sides but some were irredeemably amoral making Hlophe shine like an angel. Neither do I want to censor someone but a true discourse of South Africa is the one that involves and talks to both sides. It is a genuine mea culpa that earns one God’s grace; the one that acknowledges the beam in one’s eye.
Good one! Record it, as John said above.
Mandla,
What will satisfy you , a wailing wall where all whites are compelled by law to spend at least 2 days every year crying ? The slaughtering by panga of all whites in SA – but then again who will pay the bulk of taxes ?
SP
Is that the only worth white people have in this country, taxes? I’d like to believe there’s a lot more to gain from individuals that form part of this country than just their taxes. I thought Mandla’s point went to the lack of contextualisaton in criticisms made nothing about requiring the gnashing of teeth from white people, I wonder how you got there.
Mandla i must say that i have not heard a sober comment such as yours in a while. I must say maybe what the ‘poet’ is saying sheds some light on reality for the average african in sa. Our country for one has never known democracy in its classical sense, and people shall keep on waiting so long as we have an oligachy of power one the one hand and a monopoly of wealth by an ethnic minority on the other, not that it matters who has it. Will our people realize the dream of a democracy in a society in which all its spheres were by its nature designed to marginalized access to various necessities? maybe we all need some introspection on were we are heading and see this poem as a starting point for a social project.