Memory to Eugène Terreblancé at Rooigrond prison
This government slammed a jail door behind you,
caged you in like a animal, locked you behind bars
in the prison at Rooigrond;
when this government took your freedom
a potted plant was your biggest treasure
and the grace that you found on your knees
from the almighty Lord God
and between the prisoners with tin plates,
who were continuously making a ruckus,
they tried to devour your humanity.
In the mornings they gave you porridge,
before prison doors slammed behind you,
in the afternoons again porridge and for dinner pale soup;
but still you are walking through my thoughts,
your splendid poems turn and whirl in my mind
as if they are still keeping you alive
and this government
does not hear the cock crowing three times,
the Son of God was also betrayed and sold.
The barbarians that slaughtered you with pangas
already got bail,
(the one as a child is free from prosecution)
and in a few days your killers
(from Mozambique who brought disorder here)
will probably walk free as heroes into the streets.
By some of your own people despised
you were actually right, your own blood that flowed;
on the hands of black people,
stays proof of it eternally
l’Envoi
and somehow the blacks in our country
has totally lost their senses,
where they rob and decimate
the Afrikaner people and Afrikaner farmers.
[Reference: Rooigrondtronk (Rooigrond prison) by Eugène Terreblancé.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Not with a machinegun, but with a pen (in answer to Breyten Breytenbach)
Not with a machinegun, but with a pen
I write this prayer
since Your might is greater than any weapon:
What am I able to tell You, Jesus Christ,
almighty Creator, God and upper Lord,
I who are only an Afrikaner in my forties,
since You know every thing, even before it happens
and there’s nothing that I can teach You.
How my country was taken away
by people who pray to ancestral spirits
(who probably are demons) ,
that a man with more than one wife
sit in the highest chair,
that I still pay taxes
when and where I have a job
and that it is difficult times
and work is very scarce
for a white man.
Would I have to tell about a government
that sings give me my machinegun
and a bullet for a Boer
and kill the farmer,
kill the white
as You know every thing.
That my people were disarmed
by the government
and by barbarians
are hacked into pieces
with panga-blades and axes
like you were sacrificed
and even in death
they are humiliated
by pulling their pants down
like You had to hang naked on the cross,
that women are raped
as if every white woman
is a sex slave
belonging to the hordes
that they still throw knucklebones
and think that it brings them invincibility
and freedom from blame.
l’Envoi
All that I am really asking
is that all of these deeds
and the things that they do, say and sing
go into the cup of Your wrath
and please help
my people and me
to serve You better
that the wide world
(like with our ancestors)
can see Your might and salvation.
[References: nie met die pen nie maar met die masjiengeweer by Breyten Breytenbach. Murder on Eugene Terreblance. Murder and violence on white people.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Anarchists
The leaders of this country,
Think were the ones that do wrong,
They take control of the power,
and steal this land of forgotten freedom
Its not the people afraid of the government,
Its the government afraid of the people
They call the ones dressed in black,
The evil ones but we fight back,
We've got hackers, we've got protesters,
we let no man left behind
Its not the people afraid of the government,
Its the government afraid of the people
The unions dressed in black,
With their flag raised up high,
Don't take no for an answer,
As the forces stain the streets with blood
Its not the people afraid of the government,
Its the government afraid of the people
We fight for the people,
Our obligation is good as gold,
And though we fight with arms of steel,
we don't let death go in vein
Its not the people afraid of the government,
Its the government afraid of the people
poem by Bing D'Amico
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Painful thoughts
Like a lightning
striking from a azure blue sky
and hitting where nobody expects it,
is the pain
when a Afrikaner hand
hits another Afrikaner down.
The bullet that bursts through Jopie Fourie
nobody can stop
and still that shot rings out
and are deafening.
How is a great Commandant General honoured
who for a day was President
of the Orange Free State
and taught the British a thing or two
about warfare?
How many women had to suffer anguish
and chained themselves
to free Christiaan De Wet
out of a nation’s
own prison
and his people
that buys his freedom
will forever stay with me.
By himself Jan Smuts changed
from a Boer hero,
to somebody
that lifts his hand against his own
to get worldly fame
and for his own benefit.
Today I wonder
where you and I
stand in these things?
How easy it has become with affirmative action
and BEE
to destroy the careers
of innocent Afrikaner men
and to push their life’s
on the rubbish dump
and I wonder how many Afrikaner women,
sit in the front chairs
while Afrikaner men
are praying to find a job?
It cuts like an unknown pain through me
and I wonder when merit
will again find a place
as a measure of fairness
and I see that my people are torn apart
and own benefit
is leading before integrity
and I wonder what are my people becoming?
[Reference: Jopie by: Jan F.E. Celliers. BEE=> Black Economic Empowerment.]
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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I believe in an America with a government of men devoted solely to the public interests — men of ability and dedication, free from conflict or corruption or other commitment — a responsible government that is efficient and economical, with a balanced budget over the years of the cycle, reducing its debt in prosperous times — a government willing to entrust the people with the facts that they have — not a businessman's government, with business in the saddle … not a labor government, not a farmer's government, not a government of one section of the country or another, but a government of, for and by the people.
quote by John F. Kennedy
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Locked Inside Your Prison
Your love is like a prison wall
And its getting higher
I get so far and then I fall
I cant get through the wire
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Its as though Im doing time
And you wont free me
Let the punishment befit the crime
And say you need me
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Save me save me cant you see Im innocent
Turn the key that will set me free
Please let it end oh let it end
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Save me save me cant you see Im innocent
Turn the key that will set me free
Please let it end wont you let it end
Ill dig a tunnel to your heart
Let me remind you
Even gonna tear the walls apart
Until I find you
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
Oh oh oh Im locked inside your prison
song performed by by Cliff Richard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Freedom Now
They throwed him in jail
And they kept him there
Hoping soo hed die
That his body and spirit would waste away
And soon after that his mind
But every day is born a fool
One who thinks that he can rule
One who says tomorrows mine
One who wakes one day to find
The prison doors open the shackles broken
And chaos in the street
Everybody sing were free free free free
Everybody sing were free free free free
Everybody sing were free free free free
They throwed him in jail
And they kept him there
Hoping his memoryd die
That the people forget how he once led
And fought for justice in their lives
But every day is born a man
Who hates what he cant understand
Who thinks the answer is to kill
Who thinks his actions are gods will
And he thinks hes free free free free
Yes he thinks hes free free free free
He thinks hes free free free free
Soon must come the day
Whe the righteous have their way
Unjustly tried are free
And people live in peace I say
Give the man release
Go on and set your conscience free
Right the wrongs you made
Even a fool can have his day
Let us all be free free free free
Let us all be free free free free
Let us all be free free free free
Free our bodies free our minds
Free our hearts
Freedom for everyone
And freedom now
Freedom now
Freedom now
Freedom now
Let us all be free free free free
Let us all be free free free free
Let us all be free free free free
song performed by by Tracy Chapman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Freedom (in answer to A.G. Visser)
Lord, You have formed our nation,
out of various nations You have built the Afrikaner nation
and led them miraculously to here.
The command comes from You
to get a own freedom,
that urge resides in You
and then our people trekked north
with some up to the equator,
defying barbarian, beast and every other danger
and at the onslaught at Blood River You became involved,
even when the British tried to force us into a kingdom
we later got our freedom, but now:
we are trampled; some of our people are scattered worldwide
and the urge to be free comes out of Your hand, almighty Lord.
[Reference: Vry! (Free!) by A.G. Visser.]
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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Waiting on the barbarians (a reply to C.P. Cavafy)
Called up for armed military service
hundreds of thousands white boys
are forced into a war
of whom I am but a single one
and with all battles won and even the war,
with the enemy forces shattered,
thousands of Cubans killed,
almost a hundred enemy tanks shot out,
hundreds of enemy armoured cars destroyed,
even the soviets admitting that no victory
against us is possible
the man with the bold polished head
doesn’t surrender, doesn’t even sell out,
no, he gives the whole country away
and gets a Nobel Prize for it
he opens the prison doors for the leaders
of bomb planting killers
to walk to freedom
and we and the world expect the barbarians
who used burning tires as necklaces
to appear
and out steps a man, dignified
and also receives a Nobel Prize
for his charity
and now years later the damage is done
with affirmative action
and nobody that is white who still has a job
realizes the impact of it,
that it is just another kind of racial discrimination
and slowly but surely in the long run
every white person is forced to into poverty
and the bold man sees himself
as a hero,
is viewed as a type of messiah by some
and the utmost traitor by others
and I wonder where the barbarians are
who torched living people?
Since they did not come but for one
who was the leader of our own ranks
whose actions are forcing everyone
slowly but surely into the gutter
and now the present government
wants to implement a law
to take away freedom of speech
to quench, to sensor, to scrap all poems all stories,
all news articles like this.
[Reference: Waiting on the Barbarians by C.P. Cavafy.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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An Elegy to Eugene Terreblance
You are gone without a farewell
and like a great De Wet
or De La Rey
you stood single
for your people
to also have
a place in the sun.
When your men went into Bophuthatswana
there was fear in me
that they wouldn’t be able to bring peace there
and would get death for their trouble.
Time after time I have listened
to your electronic Afrikaans poems
about the field, nature
and God to whom
you bended your knee
and the beauty of it
and your humanity
came to lie in my heart.
I was at Church Square
when you on the day of the covenant
read a piece out of the Bible
and prayed for your country, your people
and that God reach out His hand
against the dark might
that takes their humanity away,
but in your sleep
you were hacked to pieces
with a Panga-blade
and a martyr was made of you.
Let dark Africa rejoice
and declare killers as heroes
and reveal themselves to journalists
and the wide world.
Let people interpret you wrongly
as a bellicose person
that wanted to bring conflict.
l’Envoi
I see a honourable man
who wanted to serve his Lord,
who set his people first
and your death plucks through me
and cuts where it hurts most,
as in a way
every Afrikaner is portrayed in you.
poem by Gert Strydom
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The prison of poverty...
Freedom in our land not gives us enough food,
Freedom in our land not has enough work,
Freedom in our land creates the lazy cowards,
Freedom in our land not worth to have power of people,
Believe me that we are free to do anything that could,
Walking through the streets to find out the meaning,
Of acquired freedom that we have to materialize nothing.
What a rush is this, human have no direction to go towards,
What a mad rat race is it, that human take part in it,
What a planner are these people,
who neglect the people in their planning,
What type of freedom is it that put,
minds of people in the prison of poverty?
poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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On a Close-up of Louis Esterhuizen, on His Verse Novel “die onderwaterweg, ” (The Underwater Way)
So tell me Louis, you start your verse novel
of which the story line is very thin,
with a white man lying drunk and silent in hospital
after trying to commit suicide,
with memories taking him back
to events in his marriage with his white wife
who had been a left wing political activist,
where politics makes the marriage crumble,
rather than interpersonal relationships,
were marriages usually crumble
from a lack of communication
and respect for each other?
Where at times he is impotent,
where at times he gets it right,
where he looses her in consequence of a rebellious march
are cut from her leftwing circle of friends,
where she head over heels in the middle of the road
lift her dress; let her panties hang around her knees
where she has sex with a black freedom fighter
(how realistic this may be)
is pregnant with a child for Azania
while children in rags string along after her,
where they again sleep together
and he does not catch AIDS,
she is slaughtered in a pincher operation
or maybe by canister-shot
(again utterly unrealistic)
after which he buries her
along with her black friends.
On visits by a certain Jabula, fall in love with her,
he changes from white to black,
so much so that he takes a taxi to a hut somewhere,
where she is a labourer on a sugar plantation
where she makes love to him, they give life to a child
and I wonder if you want to draw this story
through to every white Afrikaner?
Especially where the main character in a prayer
to the almighty God wants to know
if the AK-47 and famine
is God’s own way of controlling vermin?
A person can easily come to the conclusion
along with the thirst for heroes for the black struggle
and where you write “morning walk”
set against Ingrid Jonker’s poem of the child,
that you view every Afrikaner,
every white farmer killed on a farm,
as plague or vermin,
that God kills through black people,
if white people do not mix with blacks,
as the main character in your story does?
[After Anthony Delius/References: Louis Esterhuizen, “Die onderwaterweg, ‘n versroman, Human & Rousseau, (1996) Kaapstad. “On a Close-up of Dirk Opperman, on the Jacket of his Komas” by Anthony Delius.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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You Are So Far Away
You are so far away, I say,
My life is an empty cage
Inside which they put me into last night-
An empty room, an empty space,
An empty heart and a forbidden soul-
Grabbed by my limbs, Kicking and screaming?
All I could hear were the tears my own despair,
It only matters that they brought me to this prison last night- and
The only light I see is creeping through the crack
Of a locked door and reflecting against the
Aluminum strap of my restraints- You are so far away-
You, my family deceased as of nineteen years,
You, my home in my solitude-
You, what was left of my sanity? I scream to be set free,
I beg to be let out of this tenement of my suffering-
Nobody hears my cries- Silent or loud and desperate,
I call myself a wild animal, fearful of human assassins,
None but a helpless child not knowing right from wrong.
The key to this door that I am locked behind,
Within my state of terror and the indifference of this
Cruel and mindless world,
I am a child who has never known her mother's love and
Who never learned to run from the confinement of the hell into which I was born?
I stand upon the peak of a phantasmal mountain
Looking down upon a river in which I could drown
If I were to jump-inside the world of my dreams
I would like to jump and swim the length of this river below
Until I return to the solitary universe I had once created for myself-
And the people I have created inside my own mind and right now
I speak to you, these people- 'You are so far away, ' and
I have begun to realize that my life has been none but a glorified delusion-
Please set me free from this suicidal prison- set me free from
These devilish beings tampering with my mind,
Has the horrific day now come to lock me away forever?
No one can hear my desperate cries,
I am a lost spirit on the verge of emotional death-
Who is to be snatched away from all that is real-?
I have never been heard because in so many misunderstood ways,
I have been deemed to be none but a wounded soul whose thoughts are so far away
From anything real and only I can only live inside the world of my dreams which is to
Everyone else is too far away to reach? And my voice-too far away to be heard?
poem by Claudia Krizay
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Night of the long knives
People now believe that if
somebody like Eugene Terreblance
could be killed so cruelly
it awaits every white person
and that black folks are itching
to rob, to chop to pieces
and to dishonour whites
and to rape women
and that the government propagates it.
It is thought that farms and houses
will be stolen with force
in the same way as in Zimbabwe
and many people now want to leave
and go to other countries
to escape poverty
and avoid being forced
into a squatters’ settlements.
l’Envoi
Friends and loved ones of mine
want to escape the night of the long knives
that they get out of the writings
of visionary Van Rensburg
but still the One that could save at Blood river
walks on my side.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I sit in a bar in Sixth Street (a reply to W.H. Auden.)
I sit in a bar in Sixth Street,
with some flashing lights at the slot machines,
people playing at the pool tables,
the bar man smiling at someone’s joke
and bringing another cold Hunters Gold
and I am neither afraid nor uncertain
nor doubt what my future is going to be
and the world has changed in this decade
men guilty of crimes are in the highest positions,
for some people a political party
has become a religion,
people from all over Africa
are streaming in, are killing whites
with more than three thousand farmers dead
and I have no fear but trust in God instead
and no scholarship nor a study
from Luther till whenever
is needed to know
why the government is oppressing
white Afrikaner men, are acting
against human rights,
are reserving job opportunities, economic wealth
l’Envoi
and even if the bewitching stays
like one last final curse
of evil received creating evil in return
and the innocents who received punishment
become the monsters of tomorrow,
even if a psychopathic god is in place
still destiny, the will of the creator God
holds the future, raises leaders and nations,
brings them to a fall.
[Reference: September 1,1939 by W.H. Auden.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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For Government To Be Fair!
for any government to be fair,
every citizen has to be
just as important as every other.
every citizen has to have equal rights,
whether black or white,
rich or poor, gay or straight.
whether they believe in the same god,
in another, or in none.
whether they speak english,
or another language.
whether they are educated,
or not!
every citizen has to have an equal chance,
for employment, for education,
for housing, for love and happiness.
and every citizen has to respect,
both himself, and others...
this government should be
a government by the people...
any leader should be from among the people.
government, small in tether,
large in affirmation!
we're not anywhere close to this in America!
we have been sold out by our own greed,
and have chosen in our apathy to follow the lie.
now it's come to a head!
what we do next determines if democracy works.
what we do next defines our level of humanity.
call it democracy, call it socialism,
it doesnt matter what you call it.
what it has to be is redemption...
what it has to bring, is freedom!
finally!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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The White Man Blues
An AK-47 submachine gun shoots stammering,
a rocket propelled grenade whooshes past
and I am in the middle
of another country’s civil war
shooting off short bursts, trying to stay alive
while forced into military service
by the government
and this day could be my last,
but it’s ok as I am still alive
and praying to an almighty God.
Having lost two cars, in less than a week
from theft by some black hooligans
who thinks that what you own
belongs to them
from which the insurance absolved themselves,
having lost my job by affirmative action
and only receiving a few months salary as pay
with all the fringe benefits being cut away
with the wife and her kids walking out
into the arms and the charms
of her new boyfriend
and in Soweto and wherever
the gangsters and politicians live, they know,
they wait and try to relieve me
from my humanity
and to turn me into a ravenous hating thing
and it isn’t news to them
they see my plight
as they are causing it
and even the government holds out its hand
for taxes when and where I have a contract work
but it’s ok as I am still alive
and praying to an almighty God.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Open Wide These Prison Doors
Written by: neil diamond and stewart harris
Tied by love to you, but I was tied too strong
Still Im afraid of knowing what leaving means
I know I lived for you, and all I tried to do
You were the keeper of my dreams
Open wide these prison doors
Take these chains from around my heart
Make believe that Im no more
And dont mind when I depart
Need to find another place
Where love is not just tossed away
If you really care for me
Open wide these prison doors
And set me free
You were always caring, always warm and kind
But that was long ago, when love was blind
And I dont want to hurt you, the way that Ive been hurt
But if I stay Ill lose my mind
Open wide these prison doors
Take these chains from around my heart
Make believe that Im no more
And dont mind when I depart
Need to find another place
Where love is not just tossed away
If you really care for me
Open wide these prison doors
And set me free
Time is always moving
While were here standing still
I love you even though Im leaving
And maybe I always will
But, open wide these prison doors
Take these chains from around my heart
Make believe that Im no more
And dont mind when I depart
Need to find another place
Where love is not just tossed away
And if you really care for me
Open wide these prison doors
And set me free
If you really care for me
Open wide these prison doors
And set me free
Set me free, yeah
Come on and set me free
Set me free
song performed by by Neil Diamond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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