By Prof Dennis Brutus
When conditions are so unseemly
even the blind are made aghast
and police are firing rubber bullets*
in defense of the indefensible
it is time Messers Makgoba
and Mandela and others of your ilk
to reassess your gains and efforts -
more importantly, reassess your
measuring rods, question your values
Respectfully I offer, you cannot construct
an edifice on dishonest roots
cannot hope it will stand:
structures built on shards
or crumbled fragments of tortured bone
must, of necessity, crumble
Structures built on deceit and lies,
such structures cannot survive:
in the harsh light of everyday
under scrutiny they will
not survive
Bring out from padded rags
those covered lies, deceptions
deceits, distortions, misrepresentations
all contrived to preserve the myths
heroic mythology of our unsullied cause
Dig out the shabby skeletons:
jaunty Sol Kerzner with his handy ‘copters
and that ready wad to shut inquiring eyes
the Koornhofs who could bend apartheid laws
licentiously, lubriciously:
Brett Kebble’s multiple ambidexterities
There is no way to build a truthful narrative
if you begin your tale with a tissue of lies:
fabrications, deceptions, contrivances
striving to preserve old inequities
striving only to secure your share
of those same inequities under a gloss
of iconic virtues and integrities
carefully nurtured to complaisant media
complaisant handmaidens of their
corporate lords
We may aspire in our dreams
for the Nile, the Mountains of the Moon,
storied wisdom from the Valley of the Kings**
but Southward headed we may slosh
through Antarctic iceflows – worse
gurgling in Kakpype of Kwazekele beach: ***
To Begin: let’s name the criminals:
DeKlerk and Koornhof, Kebble, Oppenheimer,
Let us begin a new, a clean beginning
one true, respecting the people’s hope
for a different better world:
or let us else make an end
and no more talk of human rights
Let us, at least, be truthful to ourselves
3/4/09
* an attack by Durban police on UKZN students protesting socio-economic injustices, in which a blind student — amongst a dozen others — was injured by rubber bullets, 23 March 2009
** currently in educational circles, the wisdom of Egypt, and of the Valley of the Kings, is being touted
*** Kakpype = shitpipes: Port Elizabeth sewage pipes emptied into the area where black people were allowed to swim in my youth
With regard to the wisdom of the valley of the Kings:
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Bit tortured, the Profs poem, but I loved the line
‘but Southward headed we may slosh’
Slosh! Great word, haven’t heard it for ages.
More pretentious rubbish from Brutus’ pen will be hard to find!
Exquisite prose; I regret that you recall too few tragedies about life of those living and left behind.
The darkest time of our saga – the 1976 act of shame that will stain – through eternity.
1980′s our soil was drenched in blood and eyes seldom seen without blinding tears from teargas cylinders and wrenching pain, at the horrific sight of necklaces, live bullets spraying humans as they ran, unprotected from from the hail of projectiles.
Spirits and hearts unhealed from pain, persecution and dastardly death of dear loved ones.
Damage done is ne’er undone.
Those killed in wrath remain dead; never to resurrect.
A wound so deep – this nation is riven with racism and resentment, roused by rhetoric about days long done – that can not be undone.
The children’s children carry the curse and blame for evil deeds of the days of their childhood.
Kwazakhele, a P.E. township had daily riots and deaths.
I was born and lived there most of my life.
The isiXhosa are not Warriors; yet their bravery in battles with police, need to be eulogised by a Xhosa.
Human bodies launched against Iron Monsters that shielded humans with guns firing on unshielded humans.
Man’s inhumanity to man is beyond comprehension.
Where did Madiba’s rainbow race ?
We, the people should ponder our values, respect each other and never, never again, turn on each other because of another.
Unity is sought but unattainable ?
The beach with the kak pype was called “New Brighton.”
Pure irony in the name.
Today Durban’s once pristine beach is covered in raw sewage.
Rivers pour sewage into our dams in Gauteng, Limpopo etc.
Kak pype are not supplied around communities anymore.
Children swim and humans drink faeces fouled water.
The second millennium is also a time of shame for the gross neglect of the desperate and the poor.
All is image. Only image. Make it look good and it will BE good. Reagan and Thatcher advanced this (existing) reality, and it has been honed since. The truth? C’mon. Be reasonable. Settle for the image (cash settlement, of course).