Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Mido Macia was a 27 year old Mozambican man, working in Daveyton near Johannesburg as a taxi-driver, who was found dead in a police cell, after police savagely dragged Mr. Macia whom they had tied to their police van.
The brutal incident of Mr. Macia being dragged was caught on camera and has shocked South Africa.
The 8 police officers involved are facing charges of murder, and have been suspended from the South African Police Service (SAPS).
This poem is an angry poem that I felt had to be written, because as a society, we need to ask ourselves and each other the hardest questions about xenophobia and intolerance and violence.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Death came to Mido Macia,
a savage, brutal, hellish death came to Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
death dressed-up in the colours of authority,
as callous, vile, sadistic policemen murdered Mido Macia.
The video-footage is blood-curdling,
Mido Macia being dragged,
his hands tied behind him,
to a police van.
But death came later to Mido Macia,
death cheered, clapped, and tore into Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
in the cells where they murdered Mido Macia.
Death came to Mido Macia,
a fuelled, cheered-on, instigated death came to Mido Macia.
We are all culpable,
every one of us is culpable,
from racist ‘jokes’ emailed and texted,
to self-righteous comments about the ‘foreigners’,
from casual dinner-table conversations,
‘they take our jobs’,
‘they are crooks’
the ‘they marry our women’ kind of lunch-time chats,
racist, xenophobic, hate-filled talk,
to beating a human-being to death in a police cell,
or on the streets of Cape Town, Johannesburg ,
and in Daveyton,
where death came to Mido Macia.
Mido Macia 1986 – 2013
Scribbled Verse 