South Africa: Freedom Day April 27 2013
1.
On the 27th day of April in Nineteen Ninety-Four,
Freedom was won, at long last.
The battles were many, the foe brutal,
Apartheid tore our southern tip of the continent of Africa apart,
it’s notions of racial-superiority,
its religious fundamentalism,
its fascist tendencies,
its beastly nature,
ripped the flesh off the skin of our collective selves,
but resistance to tyranny has always been a basic human aspiration,
and so resistance flourished.
2.
Ordinary folk,
school-teachers and machinists,
nurses and poets,
labourers and engineers,
lawyers and students,
resisted!
We remember you today,
as a copper African sun shines bright this Saturday morning in April of Two-Thousand and Thirteen,
we honour you, who fought,
Comrades all –
Walter Sisulu,
Nelson Mandela,
Joe Slovo,
Ahmed Kathrada,
Bram Fischer,
Steve Biko,
Solomon Mahlangu,
Vuyisile Mini,
Denis Goldberg,
and many many more,
those we know and love,
and those whose bones have now settled in our rich African soil,
those who died,
those who were executed,
those who were shot,
those who were tortured,
those who were killed,
and the countless who are still tortured today by the swords of memory,
the emotional and psychological torture,
that still rains down on the valiant ones and their families.
Families!
Families fractured, broken and scattered throughout the world,
fragments of a sister’s laugh, a daughter’s smile,
bite as harshly into the soul as did Apartheid’s cruel lashes of violence.
So many died, too many died,
and I remember them,
Dulcie September – Assassinated in Paris
Steve Biko – Tortured and Murdered in South Africa
Solomon Mahlangu – Hanged by the Apartheid State
Ahmed Timol – Tortured and Murdered
Bram Fischer – Died in Prison
Hector Petersen – Shot in Soweto ’76
David Webster – Killed
and many many more,
their blood flowing into the soil of our ancestors,
our country, our South Africa,
for all South Africans,
Black and white and brown and all the shades of humanity’s mosaic.
3.
Now we reflect,
now we must dissect,
the fruits of freedom,
thus far,
much has been achieved,
yet,
the struggles continue,
for employment,
health-care for all,
shelter and housing for all,
and my compatriots have earned it,
they have stewed in the mines,
deep beneath the soil,
for shiny metals and glittering glass.
The revolution is a work-in-progress,
true liberation shall be economic liberation,
where each and every South African,
can walk the land of our ancestors,
truly free.
We SHALL overcome!
Amandla!
Mayibuye-i-Afrika!
The Struggles Continue, Comrades…
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