Let South Africa be our country again
Let South Africa be our country again
and South Africans from all over the world
stream back,
to dream here like before,
to hope, to wish
of a place
not bordered of by burglar bars
where people can stay free
before God and man.
Let merit and respect be present
and people receive what they deserve
rather than expecting affirmative-action
and mercy from others
and the whole world
and like in the past
let us successfully do our own thing.
Let opportunities really exist
to be free in work,
living and association,
to study in your own language,
let us pull the teeth of the dogs
that rips others apart to rule,
of might that shatters the weak.
Let the animal inside us die
and we really become people
that does not burn each other,
crush and vituperate
and in groups jeering urge the killing on
and do not rob, but work
for the life that we have got.
Let we break the chains
of people ruling
with profit, might
and work people into the ground
and misuse others to gain prosperity.
I am the white Afrikaner that had to fight in war
and now are unemployed and hungry,
while I have a university degree.
I am the black man that without education
have to dig holes and man garbage trucks
and conclude my life in a shack.
I am the coloured that always stand between all groups
and do not know where I belong
and rather gather in gangs.
I am the South African that life
drives down the whole time
and have to pray all the time,
to know how to carry on.
l’Envoi
Still, I am the one that dream
of a country free from crime,
where everybody have equal opportunity,
where rape, corruption
and lawlessness ends
and where South Africa is our country again.
poem by Gert Strydom
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South Africa Is Also My Country
From my birth South Africa is my own country
and my people can flee to an island
but my own culture and language stays holy
although this place is not safe,
I still trust on a much higher hand,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country
even if the struggling government gives me resistance,
do oppress me with unfair laws,
even if nothing can stop the disintegration,
even if I am not safe against the onslaught,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country,
even if some act with effrontery against my people
I come from a noble heritage,
I am proud on my Afrikaner lineage,
even if people and buildings are set alight,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
From my birth South Africa is my own country
with no other place I have such a deep bond
and even if here I will never have any job,
I believe in God and a Christian church,
God himself still keeps my ways intact,
from my birth South Africa is my own country.
poem by Gert Strydom
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African Identity Is Lost
Thank you South Africa Thank you
Today I don’t know why should I cal myself an African
South Africa I am afraid
I don’t know why you have killed people of Zimbabwe
You have exposed this mother land
It is like what Hitler was doing to the Jews
Why, Why, Why? ? ?
Yesterday we were depending on Zimbabwe for liberation struggle.
We had no fighting machines, no residences and no identity
Robert Mugabe Sacrificed all of his power, just because he wanted to see South Africa out of its previous crisis
With the lapse of 15 years?
Why don’t you look at United State of America?
United State has truly become a Model Liberal Country
Its President is a black person
It is a mixture of different people – none of which we have ever had such South African Tragic Killings
Today I am telling te whole world that I am so embarrassed
Ladies and Gentlemen: South Africa is a Xenophobic Country
If you think to pay a visit for study there: please take another option
I had never think that a person can be boiled with fire for no reason but Xenophobia
I wish you a very bad lucky
Perhaps God can give you a Tsunami over your bad reputation
South Africa does not only needs to apologize to Zimbabweans
It needs to apologies to the whole world
It needs to apologies to the whole Africa country
It need to apologies to God himself
It need to apologies to itself for having lost consciousness
I want to warn South Africa with one thing
Fire is not the end of the world
It is not to terminate the Zimbabweans by burning them alive
God has always been there before the fire
I remember when the King ordered fire to kill three men in the bible
God came out to be a shield
Just like he protect people from the lions he can be an answer to what South Africans have done to Zimbabweans
It is like there is absolutely nothing happened to all over the country
Nobody is feeling the sense of pity about these people
They are being treated as the dead dogs
Eve the policies who were there to mediate seem to smile, during event.
The religious groups who are always regarded as holy have not even gathered to express words of regret not only to Zimbabweans but to God himself.
I don’t know which country I can run to
Because I can hear the anger of Gods –talking to me
I wish I can fly away because the pain that South Africa will feel is more that the fire
I am not talking about a joke, I am talking about god
Africa what you have done is to challenge the Lord himself
Since God is able to protect a person that people are playing with
What about those South African who have decided to kill people the image of God himself.
I don’t know: but I think it will be better to be at Zimbabwean Starvation that to be at tragic South Africa
Don’t you remember what happened when people steal the covenant of God at Middle East Countries?
I am yours and you are not mine
No we are not the same
I am not xenophobic
I believe the extended hand is more blessed with receiving hand
I reconcile the process of giving the poor Zimbabwean the food they deserve
No I am an African; It won’t be Africa to me to kill another African
I cannot stop thinking about this
I have several friends and collogues that are coming from Zimbabwe
I am shame of myself
I don’t know what kind of friendship I have with them if my Brothers are killing them
I don’t know whether I will see the in future because of these continuous killings
Thank you South Africa thank you
I did not realize that you have lost the covenant of God
I don’t know whether you are prepared for God’s reaction
poem by Mthokozisi Ntokozo Maphumulo
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When times are bad
When times are bad
and I am with my hands in my hair
and black foreigners from all over Africa
overnight becomes citizens
and have more rights as a citizen than me
and affirmative action
puts her claws into my life
then I wonder about justice
and when merit and experience
will ever again apply
where my ancestors Joost Strydom
from Liefenshoek in the Netherlands
as a merchant seaman of the VOC
in 1678 came to Cape Town,
married his pretty well know wife
Maryna Ras who with a horse
could alone ride days long to Cape Town
with whom noblemen tried to have relationships,
where the indigenous zulu-xhosa-pondo-swazi people
are originating from a group
that during the same time
immigrated far away out of the north
from eMbo at the big lakes in central Africa
under the leadership of Nguni and later Dlamini
and then I wonder how
this country rather belongs to them
and they have to have work opportunities before me
and if you now say anything
about the new migration out of the whole of Africa
for which the country’s borders are now wide open
(in such a way that South Africans
must now get visas for Great Britain)
you are seen as xenophobic
and then there are citizens from right over Africa
who become South Africans overnight
attaining more rights than you
who forced by law
get secure job opportunities
and do people from Mozambique murder
Eugene Terreblance,
drug dealers from Nigeria
are caught by the local police
while against your will
you were forced into an army, into a war
still faithfully pay your taxes
when and where you have a job
and the current government
tries to stay in power
while Aids devours its voter numbers
and you as a white man
are despised by the current regime,
are treaded into the ground
while the country are falling to pieces
and then you pray
to Him (the God of the universe) who controls everything
to drastically intervene
rather than rousing people
for a civil war.
[Reference: VOC Verenigde Oost Indiëse companje.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
the home of the slaves
and the land of no freedom
I'm gonna take the south out of South Africa
where George Wallace stood
on the University steps
and said no blacks
no blacks shall enter here
except over my dead
and crippled body
I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
where separate but equal means
that blacks lived in the homelands
and not in their homes
I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
where Jim Crow laws
have tried to change their colors
but it's still the same old shackles
call Apartheid
I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
where young people are detained
...without trials
...without lawyers
...without rights
but never
... without hope
I'm gonna take the South out of South Africa
poem by Oscar Mireles
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But how long will this peace last
The night that peace comes
torches are launched into the sky
like stars
to glide hanging to the ground
and as far as I look
I see fireworks near and far,
but how long will this peace last?
Nelson Mandela walks out of jail
and there are people cheering
and dancing from joy
and some think
that now they are totally free,
but how long will this peace last?
His rainbow nation disappears
into the naught
and although the sun still shines
work are reserved for some
and people begin to leave the country
while others from all over Africa stream in
and South Africans are jobless,
but how long will this peace last?
There are incapable people getting positions
and the country goes years back
and murder and killings
are totally out of control
and the police are powerless
to stop it,
but how long will this peace last?
The government takes legal firearms in
while crime spreads wider
and the state are trying to control lives
more and more
and corruption, fraud, rape,
murder and robbery
happens every day,
but how long will this peace last?
l’Envoi
The slaughter of black on white
and robbery are urged on
and reverse racism
talked good
and the country is in chaos
with incapables controlling it
and the dilapidation nobody can stop
but how long will this peace last
before the country
gets another hell of a war?
poem by Gert Strydom
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Your name will not carry another meaning for me
Your name will not carry another meaning for me
like people see you in foreign countries,
as a place where people serve criminal kings
and even if they throw the South away and it becomes just Africa
with foreigners streaming in, I do not go out to hurt you,
even if we feel that we deserve a better country.
Your name will not carry another meaning for me
like people see you in foreign countries,
as a place where we have to ask God for help
in injustice, revolt and a loss of national dignity
where white people by force loose their own possessions
because I am born to you like my ancestors, my South Africa.
Your name will not carry another meaning for me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Submission (in answer to Don Mattera)
I have seen a white old man and woman
turned onto the street,
living in cardboard boxes
with their small white dog
in the new disastrous improved South Africa,
I have seen white people taking their own lives
when black mine owners robbed them of salaries
and there was no job to get,
no living to be made
and they did this
instead of starting to beg.
I have seen white men and women
with university degrees
leaving the country
in numbers that are more than a million
to find a place to have a life
somewhere else in a foreign country,
I have waited for more than a hour queuing
at a local bank to make a cash deposit,
as a payment to someone
and the way that things are going,
with the black economic empowerment
and people not up to doing a simple job,
soon all of private industry
will be falling apart
as the government departments are doing.
I have noticed friends and family members
who were robbed, hijacked in their vehicles,
raped, tortured and killed
while the South African Police
did their very best to make a arrest
and like in all other things
are not up to it.
I know people who live in despair,
who are totally without hope
while the country’s borders
are flung wide open
to the rest of Africa
to first have a chance at a job
and their degrees and experience
in the face of this means nothing
but not one does bend
under the black heel to submission,
at the mercy of God
their lives go on…
[Reference: “Submission” by Don Mattera.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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An elegy for South Africa
Weep South Africa
as you are no longer my country
and I live here
as if I am
from another planet
as part of a small minority
in a country where dark Africa
declares murderers as heroes
and act like barbarians
and dance and scream.
At a time the orange, white and blue
streamed proud over you
and people at work,
school to parliament
bended their knees to God
who was their supreme leader
right through hordes
at blood river,
the onslaught of the British Empire
and with God on our side
we would quarter
for nobody and nothing.
Our own culture flowered,
children went through schools
right through university
to distinguish themselves
and you could even leave the doors unlocked,
could make a living somewhere,
the police were a servant and a friend
and we under our own rule.
How many times our ancestors
tried to teach other people of God,
distributed medicine and food
and we even faced
the communists and Cubans in Angola,
till on a day a man
for the wide world a hero,
out of our own ranks betrayed his brothers
and he laid the whole country lame
and didn’t sell it out,
but rather gave it away.
Today incompetents are everywhere in control
of state departments
right through into the parliament,
money is squandered,
a whole generation
through their own choosing
did not receive any school education,
whites are affirmed and impoverished by the law
and criminals and foreigners stream in
from all over Africa
to start a new life here.
Today another Afrikaner son is slaughtered
(one of more than three thousand) ,
what happens tomorrow and the next day?
[Reference: Murder on Eugene Terreblance. General condition in the country.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Two Different People
Two different people
Black people, white people
Black world, White world
A black person thinks different from the white people
White people thinks highly of himself
White people works very hard for his living
Black's are lazy
They don't want to work, they just want the money
You have to work for the money, they just don't get it
White people knows that there are no free ride in life
Black's want a free ride, there are no free ride in life
Nothing is free in life except for the air that you breathe
The white people have to be careful of what they say to the black People
Whatever you say to the black people if they don't like it they will say it Is discrimination
We can't understand them
They have a mind of their own
The white people are loving and caring
What about the black people?
Not a hope in hell
I don't want any part of the black world
The black world is not safe for me
So I rather stay in my white world where I feel safe
We can't trust them
The reason why there is violence in this world is because the black People cause it
Now they don't like it because they have to live with it
We want a safe world for our people
The black people don't care about it because the only thing they know And seen is violence
There is too much violence on TV
They like it
They like the feeling of danger
We white don't like the feeling of danger
The blacks hate the white people and the white people don't like them Either
The white people knows when to shut up
The black people never knows when to shut up
There is why there are always problem with them
They make life miserable for us
The white people will always be a good friend
The black people can never be your friend
They will take everything they can get from you for free
poem by Aldo Kraas
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Free All The People
You got to free all the people in south africa...
You got to make life worth living in soweto
You got to free all the people in south africa
You got to make life worthwhile
Give reason to smile
Freedom is a birthright
Given by jah to man
You can not claim it...this you must understand
Who are you to decide...who has to give it up
Know it in your heart...that it's wrong
They've had enough
Chorus:
Slavery is brutal...it steals your identity
Wherever it's living...suffer humanity
What leads you to believe...you can treat people so
You know it isn't right...give up the fight
Let them go!
Chorus
It's not right...this hate for life you're teaching
No more fight...we're all in this together
You've lost sight...you'll never find what your
Soul is seeking
You...you abolish...apartheid
Chorus
song performed by by Santana
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The exiles
As an exile I live
in a country that despises me,
despises my whole nation, our language,
the colour of our skin
where the president
has opened the doors wide
to all of Africa,
and citizens from other countries
are more welcome here than us
but even if he tries
to drive me and my people
into the sea, as immigrants
right into the wide world,
like my ancestors
I have sprouted from this very earth
and there’s no other place
where I can make a living,
no other place that calls me
with the same intensity
and although work is being reserved
by the colour of skin
and my patience is running very thin
and I struggle to survive
in the situation that I am in
no highfalutin balderdash
of this country only belonging
to those who are black
is going to break my people or me
and still we trust God,
to change circumstances,
to change the mindset op people,
and if not to conquer and destroy
to make this country a place
in which all its citizens
have the opportunity
to make a living
and to be free in speech,
in dignity, in association,
in religious beliefs,
to live a life
according to your own culture and values.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Even though
Even though a new government
is in place,
in Soweto, Alexandra and Mamelodi
there are still hungry children
playing in the streets.
Even though BEE and opportunity
knocks on every black mans door,
hungered out dogs
still prowl the streets
and gangs of criminals
do not have respect
for any law at all
and steal and kill
and society in a way
is much worst than it was before.
Even though black politicians rule
the Filemons, the Thabo’s and most
other black men
still do the jobs
that they did before
and most of those
that now work for the government
do not know
how to work at all.
Even though mister Nelson Mandela is free
and in Dar es-Salaam
a statue of a black man
breaks its chains
and freedom is proclaimed
to be everywhere in this country,
freedom does not really matter
when a nation still lives in poverty
and corruption makes some people
more free than others
know how to be.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Don’t Cry For Me Africa
Don’t cry for me Africa
Because I will never let you out of my mind
I hear your voices people of Africa
I hear your cries people of Africa
I see pain in your eyes people of Africa
It is hard to describe what you people of Africa are going through
Poverty strikes you all people of Africa
Don’t cry for me Africa
Because I will keep you in my prayers people of Africa
Power to the people of Africa
People of Africa lift your spirit higher
Lord is the light and truth people of Africa
The Lord sends you a message from his heart to you people of Africa
He said because I love you
I will answer your prayers
I hear your prayers
Don’t cry for me Africa
Because you have a friend that is the Lord
People of Africa continue doing the Lords work
Make a wish people of Africa
The people of Africa are looking at the Lord face to face
Lord here is no paradise
We dream a little dream said the people of Africa to the Lord
The People of Africa Pray that the Lord will give each other strength every day
Don’t cry for me Africa
Save the people of Africa
Strengthened the people of Africa each day
Because I’ll be there in your dreams people of Africa
The people of Africa tells The Lord how much they love him
Don’t cry for me Africa
Lord comes when you are ready people of Africa
Feelings you have for your Lord People of Africa
And I know you will never let it die
Nothing but flowers the people of Africa will plant in the sea shore for the Lord
Don’t cry for me Africa
The people of Africa needs hope to heal there land
The Lord rose up on you people of Africa
Don’t cry for me Africa
My heart will go on
Once I close this door of the ship I will sail across the Atlantic Sea
poem by Aldo Kraas
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Where and when does freedom really come?
I am just a normal guy
who wants to make a living
and I went to university to study
but what is the value of it now?
My country has been given away
and Afrikaner businessmen go along pliable,
with suppressing laws
as if they are not in the highest positions.
Still I have got to pay tax
and my people are brutally murdered
on farmsteads and in the cities,
and even from before Dingaan
it is the story of this country.
of striking at, plundering and robbing
and of piercing, cleaving people open
as if taking, robbing and murder
has been generally adopted by some
from ages past
as if corruption and misdeeds are permitted
and I wonder how to stay in a country
where you work yourself to a standstill
for what belongs to you
which others later want to claim as their own
and where and when does freedom really come?
poem by Gert Strydom
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The state of the nation (in answer to T.T. Cloete and Clinton V. du Plessis)
The country have got too many people
that fancies themselves but really know nothing,
being in possession of jobs as if they belong there
without any comprehension how to do the work
while employers come in line with affirmative action.
The country have got too many
political leaders who are corrupt
that wants to tread on others as if they are elephant
or want to rip apart, want to slice others into pieces
with too many women
surrounding them like heroes
while they are supplanting others.
There are too many people
that takes that which belongs to others
with force, trying to steal the lives of others
while they play as if it is a computer game
killing farmers on farms, taking the right to existence
and humanity from others.
There are too many people only living for themselves,
trampling others around them
to get somewhere in life
who drive others out of their way,
who will do anything to earn more.
Too few people are still in love and love each other,
know how to protect
the sanctity of the marriage
and in vain lays the blame
with each and every beautiful escort
while the rotting
is already in their own hearts.
There are too many people
streaming in from other countries
with a dream to live here
while there is too little work
for the people that are here
and oppression is in place
over the jobs that exist
as if you want to go back
into the years of racism.
[References: Behoefte aan ongunstige weers- en ander omstandighede (Need for unfavourable weather – and other circumstances) by T.T. Cloete. tussentydse verslag (interim report) by Clinton V. Du Plessis.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Irene
She seems such a nice lady the beautiful Irene
Her hair as dark as raven's wing her countenance serene
She came out from South Africa with her husband and family
And in Australia for her kids she says more opportunity.
Some of her children miss South Africa still homesick so she say
But Australia they may grow to love at least she hopes one day
She emigrated for their sake she hopes they understand
Still young people have been known to yearn for years for their Homeland.
She talks about South Africa her Homeland far away
But she's not sorry that she left and here she plans to stay
When the Springboks played in the World cup final she watched that on T.V.
And with her family she rejoiced at their great victory.
She has a Grecian background but the moment that she speak
You know she is South African she doesn't sound like a Greek,
She came out to Australia just for her children's sake
And I thought that quite brave of her such a sacrifice to make.
Dark haired Irene from Africa so human and so warm
She's not a proud or showy type she has a quiet charm
And though I only spoke with her for a brief while that memory remain
And what's a loss to South Africa must be Australia's gain
poem by Francis Duggan
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Lotus land
I.
There are no more oxen
to tread through the dust,
not even those of A.G. Visser
or Jan F.E. Cilliers
because they have died long ago
or are eaten
by Afrikaners as steak
and there’s no wagon
to be drawn,
because every chariot has its own power
and its own beauty too.
II.
Fast the kilometres rush past
and marsh and meadow
are driven through before sunrise
and if you leave at dawn
you can reach the Cape before dusk
and we are already living in a languid country
where the sauce train
comes and get many people
while the others
still have to pay tax.
Some sit without education in offices
passing the hours on their chairs
while they do not know how to work
or to do a task
and are just waiting for their wage
or to talk on the phone
III.
The rich get richer
while white men
that can work and have university education,
are jobless
and women now try to do their thing.
The ignorant becomes bosses
that only knows how to cringe
and by black economic empowerment
and affirmative action
uneducated get big salaries
while the country slides backwards.
IV.
Wanderers even come from other countries
and just where they can
they squat.
At every traffic light people stand and beg
and do not know
how to work
and with coins and rands
that everybody give in pity
this evil is strengthened.
V.
Caning is gone out of the schools
and most children do not know
respect anymore
and do not know how to learn
or to honour their parents
and I wonder what have become of my people
and where our country is going
and if everything is rushing to the end?
[References: “Lotus-Land” by A.G. Visser and “Die Ossewa” by Jan F.E. Celliers.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Uhuru! Africa Is Free (To Fight Itself!)
Africa for Africans, President Mbeki
declared wisely – and white South
African numbers fell to nine percent
of the population; Africa returns to
the hands of its original inhabitants,
as it should be, the way it would
have been all those years ago
Zimbabwe is doing better than we,
only one per cent of white people are
left. Colonialism is Uhuru and finally a
thing of the past. Africa is free to kill
itself, focus on ethnic wars, cleanse
strange Western influences –
incomprehensible ideas of democracy
interfering with traditional tribalism,
autocracy and nationalism – Uhuru!
poem by Margaret Alice
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Now that you want to go away
For generations blood flowed,
and my ancestors fought
for this country to be their own
and it was asked from me
to carry a machinegun.
Still my country was given away
and opportunities with it
and what belongs to me,
robbers claim as their own
without the police trying to stop them.
My friends have left and gone into the world
and are far away from me
that still stays in South Africa
and now you my darling
also want to go away
to another place
that looks much better to you.
Maybe it will be much better
to read the newspaper somewhere else,
to paint brush strokes,
to compose music
and to play the piano and guitar
and to say your thoughts in poems
at another place,
but is it asking too much
that merit prevail for everyone
and to have my country back again?
poem by Gert Strydom
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(Africa poems) Unnatural frontiers
Unnatural frontiers
These artificial borders
They cut the womb of the mother
Land into these disjointed parts
Did you hear what they say?
Here too many failed states
Have mushroomed! Dictators
Like pests are killing the people
Africa! The oracles are not content!
These artificial borders and these
Unnatural frontiers were not there
In the beginning Oh Mother Africa!
What is South Africa? How dare you
Name a country after a direction?
Mind! There is a long stretch of wire
Some colonialist administrator put it
There on purpose now how can you, Oh Africa?
Tell the whole world that is your border?
The world was free to roam in unhindered!
What's so equatorial about Equatorial Guinea?
Now follow me and we're drunk my lord and there
He bares his thick canine teeth in his thick lips
The burly official slaps the hated passport before
Us and it'll cost us a small fortune my brother
And we were planning to drink till the morning
Now look what their unnatural frontiers have done
You're house arrested in a non functioning joke
Of a state I can't come to you my darling
We're told that we're the founder members of....
Wait for it! The African Union! And you can look but
You'll never find the African Union when it's needed
And the European Union and NATO must do the dirty
Work for them and then they'll come our leaders
At the press conference to cry the crocodile tears
And bemoan the fact that white media barons have
Stolen the lime light under their noses....
Mister Secretary General...do me a favor!
Bring back my Africa! My darling wants to roam the
Continent she's tired of the passport the visa
Is controlling her life she wants to be free mister
Expel the whole Africa bloc from the U.N.O take
The slave's yoke of the artificial borders and fake
Frontiers and set us free to roam our continent
In peace without the interference of anybody
As it was in the past of our father's fathers
poem by Ngaka Motaung
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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