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UNDERGROUND STRUGGLES A-Poem

By Hassen Lorgat
A
Our pedagogy of the oppressed taught us
the road less traveled is long, rocky—
then and now, we fight to free ourselves
from looters, from oppressors.
We once believed liberation, fully embraced,
might also liberate them.

But our pedagogy demands more:
that we face our small-a-nyana skeletons,
that we choke the enemy within.

Last November a comrade hurled his toys out of his adult cot
infuriated by a wayward minister’s venom:
tet them starve—
these humans of a special type:
illegal immigrants, zama zamas,
syndicates, criminals!

B
(Note to engineers: loop Vala Ngodi’s sign language,
wordless, 4 or 5 times. Let the hands scream.)

Operation Vala Umgodi. Close the hole, was not the whole story
Wall-to-wall coverage, in all 12 languages (plus signs)
even the BBC,/CNN genocide-enablers were here present
as they were absent n Gaza
…Struggles within struggles.

This is the NEWS:
Since August ’24, police storm
Stilfontein’s abandoned mines—
Unusually disciplined, the police to swear to not leave their posts
until the shaft is sealed,
rehabilitated.” (Lord, forgive them, they know not what they say…)

Two thousand arrested.
Eighty-seven bodies pulled from the dark.
Nine chained to hospital beds.
Mozambique: 1,125. Zimbabwe: 465.
Lesotho: 200. South Africa: 26.

Afrophobia—unseen, but in your face!
Xenophobia—laid bare!
Yet smartphones and the broadcasters, radio and TV rolled on,
feeding the world this spec of the human drama
…the theatre of the mine rescue mission
As activists screamed”Save them!”
“An injury to one is an injury to all.”

The living, the dead, dragged from wreckage,
headlines in sound and print still cold: “Extracted to safety.”
Extracted? Since when did ¨extraction¨ become salvation? Or safe?
Extractivismo is the creed of the looters:
Our hands have to be tied and our rights denied
So that they can ravish our lands and bleed our rivers —
mines today, mega-dams and industrial farms – and solar eating drinking tomorrow,
safaris on stolen soil.

Are we all complicit? Maybe …
A leader spews on a public stage:
1994 was fake—a sellout
brought about by liberation groups, fake unions,
fake student movements, fake women’s leagues…
Days later, she’s on another stage,
free to mouth slogans that would’ve seen her behind bars or underground
…yesteryear.

Days later, she’s on another stage,
Wearing her new colours,
free to fabricate in a manner that would have encaged her
yesteryear

We speak in many tongues -a few are official.
The rest? Just mere idle talk in echo chambers?

Yet atomized souls still lament
To the family and on talk shows and other post-‘94 soapboxes:
“…Look, what you’ve done?
You have pissed off the giant
Whose orders executive or others
Cuts jobs, health services and and more at home and abroad
Here, all our jobs will AGOA-way …
But go after Genocider in Chief Netanyahu?
He’s not not our problem…”

C
But our struggle isn’t only in one kasi or barrio
It is everywhere
Injustice anywhere—threatens justice everywhere.

The screams from Gaza are loudest now.
And we must respond as South Africa did at the ICJ
With mouth and heart they called out the genocide
As the global street punched the fists up high
Demanding the right of Palestine to live
walk, run, swim in their own waters.

The new fascists count calories instead of rosaries
And have done so for years
starving Palestinians in Gaza before the outbreak of war as we know it

Since October over 60 thousand humans have been genocided
Countless more rot under the rubble
…emaciated humans
and fattened dogs abound

This did not surprise many
numbed by the 24hour genocide news cyle

D
Yet in Stilfontein, far too many were surprised
that desperately starving survivors started eating their deceased comrades
It was not their first choice or course… obviously
That was ..cockroaches, mixed with toothpaste and salt,
still, it satiated no one
in the tunnels the menu was crafted between hope of survival or certain death

When the cabinet ministers speak about Stilfontein
Or mining (legal and otherwise) – they bury the truth
If they took time to listen… to themselves
They would have heard the voice of one of their heavyweights:
¨sealing mines is costly and takes long
Seventeen years, to close only those in Gauteng¨

Asinamali, this same person, the Minister of Mines complained
¨to properly close over 6 000 mines will cost R49 billion
…but my department’s budget is only R140 million! ¨
That was then…

But now, it was the Minister in the Presidency who played tough guy
“We are not sending help to criminals.
We are going to smoke them out.
They will come out.
Criminals are not to be helped;
criminals are to be prosecuted.
We didn’t send them there,” she said, with tinge of ministerial arrogance
(Play the full AUDIO – instruction to engineers)

E
The battles within the minds of the tunnels
is ongoing, dark and long
…but there must is always light at the end
as the Vietcong showed us…
From the tunnels Stilfontein to Gaza
We must fight on
with solidarity …

Being in solidarity with Palestine,
Is not an act of charity
It is self-liberation
for today, Palestine remains the testing ground
for corporate rule
for surveillance capitalism
and sophisticated technologies of repression and genocide

Being in solidarity with Palestine
Is not an act of charity
Palestinians are in the throes of a genocide
And as they keep reminding us
-the right to resist is sacrosanct
-Steadfastness or Sumud, the perseverance of one and all
… against all odds

The Nakba is not a noun chained to 1948
but the vicious verb – repeated daily
…but we still hold the keys

…as we battle Zionism where we stand
It is from where we stand that it will victor or vanquish

It is here, where their power is emboldened
as austerity bites everything in sight, jobs, health care and..
The illiberal West governments’ continue to criminalize boycott
and the movements that spearhead it
…and it all starts here
Where we make our stand

I end with Madiba’s prophecy:
“Our freedom is incomplete
without Palestine’s.”

We are the two ends of the same, severed umbilical cord
We are one, the children of ubuntu
a person is a person because of others
And nothing, or no one, can Trump that!

Hassl, 29 March 2025

Poetic footnotes : 17 years to close a mine august 2022
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-08-12-mantashe-says-it-will-take-17-years-to-completely-close-known-abandoned-mines-to-stop-illegal-activity/

About 49 bn needed to close mines Sept 2022.
https://www.polity.org.za/article/zama-zama-crisis-mantashe-announces-new-security-force-says-r49bn-needed-for-derelict-mines-2022-09-09

Hassen Lorgat
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