We’ve been lied to

I wrote To Tell the Honest Truth late Saturday night after returning home from the funeral of Zwelakhe Sisulu, a former activist, journalist and editor turned multimillionaire businessman.

That afternoon I had joined family and friends at a reunion party to celebrate the return home of the 30-year-old son of a former freedom fighter from a drug rehabilitation centre.

The gathering was full of well-to-do young and old people whose families had, in one way or another, sacrificed much for the struggle to liberate South Africa. As the event progressed into the evening, I was deeply disturbed and disappointed with the flow of conversation punctuated with a sense of political betrayal.

I drove back home watching and listening to the darkness and the sounds of engines speeding away to nowhere in particular. There on the highway, a poem wrote itself in my mind to capture and say how my experience and perception of democracy was shaped by the people I had watched and listened to that night.

When I got home I made coffee and sat in the dark to listen to the echo of the voices I had heard that night. I felt I needed to capture them even though poetry is not my favourite mode of self-expression. This is my attempt to document the deep spiritual longing of people who have been engaged in a centuries-long struggle for economic justice and social equality.

When I imagine myself as an old man in 2030, when I evaluate my life and its contribution, if any, there is only one question that will bother me: was I the voice of truth and reason? Did I have the courage to say what had to be said when everyone was cowering in fear to gain or preserve their bank accounts, jobs and middle-class status?

There were a thousand ways that Sisulu expressed his love for his country and its people.

But the one that endeared me to him was his courage to speak truth freely according to his conscience. This is what I admired most about him when I was an entry-level journalist in 1986/7. I wanted to be like him when I grew up. This is what woke me up that Saturday morning to join President Jacob Zuma, Anglican Archbishop Thabo Magoba, Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and hundreds of other black and white South Africans who paid their last respects to a good but not-so-great son of the soil. I believe that all men will be judged by their legacy.

So this poem is an expression of my hunger to be the courageous writer Sisulu was in his younger days. Through this little piece of creative writing I seek to increase my ability to be as close as possible to truth in my writing. I don’t want to be the voice of the people but of truth and justice. This is what has made me bring you this poem. It’s my tribute to him.

To Tell the Honest Truth

For Zwelakhe Sisulu

We have been lied to
By those we called leaders
Without us knowing their deepest desires
And the avaricious dreams that keep them awake at night
When all we needed were genuine servants of the people.
We have been lied to
By those who have lived to advanced age
When they died and lost their virginity at 17
To live with neither purpose nor meaning
for more than seven score years
Without telling us what they will do for love
That puts the interests of the other first
And makes the people the centre of the universe.
We have been lied to
By those at home coming we transformed into stars of our firmament
When they had not looked into what is in their hearts
To know what it feels like to lose the ones who loved you
After being lost in transformation
A wanderer without direction at home
Searching and seeking for answers
In a new brave world that faded before the dirty and old disappeared.
It is time they told us nothing but the truth, now
For they live for nobody but themselves
To be Number One
Only to use the name of the people
Without telling us that it is only a gimmick
To put their sticky fingers on the levers of power
To fill their pockets with bounty from a country
That has always been home for those eager to kill, to plunder.
They must tell the truth now
For their babies are weeping stories
That for a century now
They have disappointed those who looked up to them
By wheeling and dealing with robber barons
Who are known for stealing from the land its wealth
Thus betraying the souls
Of those who have given their lives
For true liberty
And to dig and die for the riches in the belly of Mother Earth
To be only enjoyed by the select few
Who sip champagne on behalf of the people.
We have to tell nothing but the truth, now
For you can find neither peace of mind nor love
in this country or its people
Where to be beautiful
You must dress up in borrowed robes
To speak softly in forked tongues
For that will make you feel accepted
In the company of those who rob rape and kill to live.
They must tell the truth now
For their lies, sex and red tapes are carried by the wind
With their failures choking the air of freedom
And the people are ready to draw a line in blood
Where the inner voice shouts to false human gods:
“Enough is enough!”
We have been lied to
For their position, power and status
And everything that blood money can buy
Cannot deliver integrity respect and dignity;
This makes people heavy with burden in the soul
To continue in the long walk to freedom in the sky
That ought to yield what has to be.
We must tell the truth
About how the people of the south ended up in the west
When they gave birth to humankind
That has transmogrified into a commercial monster
With money at the centre of a heartless Constitution.
We have to unlearn the propaganda
That taught us that exile, Robben Island
The underground and political connections
Tell us what you know
About visionary leadership, business management
Accounting, strategic planning and problem solving
Yet neither put bread and butter on the table
Nor inspire a broken heart with hope
For the naked hungry and jobless
who provide legitimacy to corrupted souls.
We must rediscover our own Truth
That has always taught us that
None but ourselves can save our souls
As everything that happens
Is a direct result of what we do or do not do
As a matter of freedom of choice.
Where the personal is the political
Only the truth can set us free!