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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Related quotes
The secret war that is raging in South Africa
The secret war that is raging in South Africa
asks for white blood,
these black people first kill and torture
before they take your possessions.
Incident upon incident I can tell about
where white families have been killed,
just think about the Orffer family
who was killed in Stellenbosch
on Friday 31 July 1994
by black people:
First the trustworthy black maid Sannetjie,
who tried to ward off the attackers with her bare hands
like a Amakeia of days gone,
then the blonde small girl
then the dad and the deaf little boy
and last the mother
were chopped with a axe to death
and everywhere there was blood.
Nowadays the tendency is
to first bind up the head of the family,
the man, to assault him
and to torture him to death in front of his family
and then to rape the women,
even toddlers and babies
and if the women are lucky
they survive
when the criminals
leave with their possessions
and it seems as if the police
do not want to, or are not able to stop this thing
and then it is claimed
that these people kill and steal
because they are hungry, while people in government
sings songs to wipe out whites.
From April 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president
the wiping out of white families is our destiny,
the Afrikaner nation is in the melting pot
we who have an own culture, language and identity,
who cannot become part of the hurly-burly
are killed, not only robbed
but tortured and horribly killed
and our women and children are raped.
Even Eugene Terreblancé
had befallen this same lot
and if this is not a war
that is raging against us,
where we are systematically
bit by bit, family by family
wiped out, and the numbers
are already in the thousands, then what is it?
[References: Klaaglied: Stellenbosch, Vrydag,31 Julie 1994 (Song of lamentation: Stellenbosch, Friday,31 Julie 1994) by Lina Spies. Amakeia by A. G. Visser, Amakeia, Amakeia then and now by Gert Strydom.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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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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There are things that you cannot avoid
There are things that you cannot avoid
like the call-up instruction which cruelly
brings you to another world and measure you out
for whom you must become and be and stay
and you can never find escape
from violence, killing, guilt and grief.
There are things that a soldier cannot avoid
like war that cruelly let people suffer
with flames, bullets and bombs
and there are events that you cannot forget,
although you and you comrades freed the innocent
and at night it’s sweated out in dreams
and there are things that you cannot avoid.
poem by Gert Strydom
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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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I Only Wish
I only wish I were a better person
And do at least one good deed every day
There is plenty room for me of self improvement
On the righteous path to go I have some way.
In the World there are so many good people
Some doctors and nurses go to Countries far away
To improve the health of poverty stricken people
Without Government assistance or any cash for pay.
Some semi skilled and skilled people leave their Hometowns
For to work in Lands where poverty is rife
To impart their knowledge to the poor less privileged
And help them to attain for themselves a far better life.
I only wish I were a better person
Since that is all to which I do aspire,
So many who do lead by good example
And these are the people that I do most admire.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I can't escape
I can’t escape from this place,
I am caged inside from this nightmare,
So what if you can see the darkest side of me,
Too many lies you told me,
Somebody help me,
From the person I have become,
I can’t escape from you,
Somebody help me escape from this nightmare,
We believe that I can be a good person,
Yet something sweet as you,
Just fades away like the rest,
I can’t escape from this place,
This place that calls out my name,
My heart is empty,
My eyes are black,
I am cold as ice,
Forget me,
Forget that we ever met,
I am on the edge of falling off,
My mind is scattered,
I can’t escape from this place no matter where I run to.
poem by Jennifer Rondeau
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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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Chop, Chop, Chop
Some people call me the Creeper
'Cuz they don't know my name or face
I got 'em running in circles
Because a homicidal genius never leaves a trace
I'm a lonely hunter
City full of game
Walkin' in the neon lights
Chop, chop, chop, engine of destruction
Chop, chop, chop, a perfect killing machine
Chop, chop, chop, it's a symbiotic function
Chop, chop, chop, I keep the city so clean
Chop, chop, chop
Some people call me the Ripper
Stole my modus operandi from the movie screen
She's just a celluloid stripper
Just another bloody player in my splatter-filled dream
Women on the streets
Want money when we meet
I take them for a little ride
Chop, chop, chop, engine of destruction
Chop, chop, chop, a perfect killing machine
Chop, chop, chop, it's symbiotic function
Chop, chop, chop, I keep the city so clean
Chop, chop, chop
She was standing on the corner
With her bright red lips
Her face was so white and pale (so pale)
She had a black leather skirt
That was tight to her hips
And an anklet with a name
It spelled M A R Y..... Gail
Gail Gail Gail Gail
Gail Gail Gail Gail
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Escape
Escape
Escape
That one word resonates in my mind
I need an escape a reprieve from
All this energy surrounding me
Escape
Escape
I want to be let out for awhile
To be free and alone
To do what I want without interference
Escape
Escape
I don't wanna hear arguing
Or little petty problems
I want to not have to do anything
Escape
Escape
I want to Escape
poem by Autumn Winds
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When he walked into his cell
(after Eugène Terreblancé)
When he walked into his cell
with the light falling through a small window,
with the jail door slamming close behind him,
the hammer of the judge was still sounding in his ears,
he did not realize that God was waiting there on him,
while his whole world was shattered into pieces
and as the darkness of the first nigh was cutting through him,
he came to a confession
that he had changed and somehow had forgotten about God,
but still God was near to him
and in the raw stench of tobacco and sweat,
a new realization came to him
that the light of God was still shining over him,
that his own pain and longing disappears in the presence of God.
[Reference: Hy Hou Wag (He Is Guarding) by Eugène Terreblancé.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Escape
Paint on my cruel or happy face
I hide me behind it
It takes me inside another place where no-one can find it
Escape
I get out when I can
Escape
Anytime I can
Escape
I'm crying in my beer Escape
Just get me out of here
Don't get me wrong
Don't get me right
I'm not like you are
When I get home from work at night
I'm blacker and bluer
So I escape
I get out when I can
Escape
Anytime I can
Escape
I'm crying in my beer Escape
Just get me out of here
Where am I running to?
There's no place to go
Just put on my makeup and get me to the show
Yeah
Escape
My doctor said just come around
You'll be taken care of
And while he ran my problems down
I stole his mascara
That's how I escape
I get out when I can
Escape
Anytime I can
Escape
I'm crying in my beer Escape
Just get me out of here
Escape
song performed by by Alice Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Still collective man feels compelled
Have you killed a white today
is still being proclaimed
and old people are killed,
white farmers pay a price
and robberies and killings
in suburban arias
never stop
as if every criminal
in Africa
have being heading south
and some are taught
to take from others
as if the possessions
are their own
and in the doing of it
to maim, rape, kill
and slaughter
without conscience
and the killings
are still being done
by psychopathic people
who like animals in a pack
follow a new psychopathic god
proclaiming an insane culture.
Still collective man
feels compelled
to claim love
only for the self
and not to care
about love for another
while the affirmative flame
burns bright
in a beleaguered night
and guns and knives flash
on the defenceless
and the state, police
and maddened population
do not comprehend
that no one lives alone
and everyone eventually
pays the price
when hunger, poverty
and destruction
takes its course.
[Reference: September 1,1939 by W.H. Auden.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Cant Escape
This song appears on two albums, and was first released on the one world album. it has also been released on the country roads collection album.
Funny thing about this little heart of mine
All the ways that it can say
(I love you)
Longer than forever
Till the end of time
No matter baby come what may
(I love you)
Look at me now sittin all by myself
Face another sleepless night all alone
All I look forward to is lying here living this song
I cant escape thinking every day about you
Cant escape wishing dear you were still mine
Cant escape thinking maybe I still love you
Cant escape caring for you all of the time
Listen to the music on the radio
Top forty hits of yesterday
(I love you)
Leavin on a jet plane
Blowin in the wind
The silly games that people play
(I love you)
Each of them carries your memory still
I can still see that look in your eyes
The one that preceded your kisses and followed your sighs
I cant escape thinking every day about you
Cant escape wishing dear you were still mine
Cant escape thinking maybe I still love you
Cant escape caring for you all of the time
Every rain in the morning reminds me of you
Every night when its cold outside
Every time that I ache inside
(I love you)
(I love you)
Sometimes I wish it was ten years ago
We were starting all over again
Yet the way that I feel is much more than just remembering when
I cant escape thinking every day about you
Cant escape wishing dear you were still mine
Cant escape thinking maybe I still love you
Cant escape caring for you all of the time
All of the time
All of the time
Words and music by john denver
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There are people
There are people
that claims the street as their own
and stand
at parking places on the sidewalk
and do no work
but to look after cars.
If you park there
and ignore them
and do not
want to use their services
you immediately
become a racist in their eyes
and they will make a scene,
threaten to damage your car,
or make sure that it’s stolen
or so they tell you
since they believe
that you owe them something.
Some spray soapy water
without invitation
on the front window
of your car
when you stop
at a traffic light
and wipe it off
demanding a price.
I wonder why the education
is still lacking
since they have already
got their liberation
and just as odd
these people are ignored
by their compatriots in government
as if they do not exist,
while the country
falls slowly
but surely to pieces.
There are people
that claims the possessions
of others as their own
and at night
prowl around in the streets
shooting, stabbing
and robbing
and estranging people
from their cars.
l’Envoi
Still I wonder where
the problem lies
and would really like
both of my cars back
and I do not know
about white people
that sneak around
in black neighbourhoods at night,
hijack cars,
brake windows
and demand possessions
with loaded guns.
All that they do,
is try to make a living
or hurry away in their leaving.
{Reference: “First liberation, then education.” Political slogan of the ruling party.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Awaiting Lover
I close my eyes
And see him looming
Black and endless
Staring, staring in the night
His bony fingers
Softly scarring my face
tracing lines
Like a lover
Teased too long
He grows impatient
Tugging, tugging at my hair
Transforming raven tresses
Into lifeless white
A Coming winter
I feel his breath
Upon my cheek
His hungry kisses
Pecking, pecking at my lips
Taking little pieces
Till only brittle bones
Lay bear
He whispers to me
In my sleep
You will be mine
Soon, soon my sweet
And though I long to escape,
His bed of earth and worms
Awaits, and I alone
Must come
poem by Annabel Cruz
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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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God Is The Only Shepherd To Me (In Answer To L.R.)
Not Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki,
or Jacob Zuma is a shepherd to me
and to them I do not bow my knee
as they are not godly
and their policies and laws rob me,
leave me needy and make me want,
robbing me of my university education,
robbing me of my experience,
depriving me from work,
leaving my people to be killed in cities,
to be murdered on farms
leading me to destruction
and I do not fear the evil
that is unleashed against me,
I do not fear to be without a job,
even a temporary one
I do not resist paying income taxes
to a corrupt government
of which the departments
do not function properly
even if people try to threaten me,
even when my property and two of my cars
have been stolen,
and the South African Police
are too inadequate to find them back
and I am driven into poverty
as the Sheppard in heaven feeds me, supports me
and with His mighty hand shields me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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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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God of our fathers
With their eyes set on the distance
our fathers
trekked into their promised land
as children of the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
After the murders on Piet Retief and his men
our fathers made a holy covenant
with the almighty God
to rescue them in their laager at Blood River
against a very big army
of about twenty thousand Zulus.
With their victory
they did not go forth
to wipe out every single Zulu,
rather with the Bible in the hand
they wanted to teach
other people about God.
When the Xhosas slaughtered
almost all their livestock,
were burning their own harvests
believing the medium Nonqawuse
that ancestral spirits
will rise to wipe out the white man
and thousands of them
were dying from starvation
our fathers reached out their hands
and in neighbourly love gave food to those people,
doing what they could
to try and save them.
When droughts, illness of the livestock,
locusts were ravaging, even when the British Empire
came to take the mineral treasures,
were burning down farms and towns,
were murdering women and children
in concentration camps
our fathers went on their knees,
placing their destiny in the hands
of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
knowing that his shadow was falling over them,
that He keeps account
was folding His Godly hand over them
l’Envoi
and now that thousands of farmers
are being killed on their farms
are being tortured, murdered and robbed
Afrikaners with qualifications
and experience, even artisans
are unemployed on the street,
people in cities
are hijacked, robbed and raped
I am praying to the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
to keep His hand over us,
to draws His laager
around the lives and property
of everyone that comes to Him,
to free us from this oppression.
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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