By Hassen Lorgat
1.
vignettes in slow motion…
This too shall pass
The pol-ICE in the UK
arresting poets for being poets,
protestors for clapping for Palestine,
for breaking the silence.
Even the 74-year-old Scottish granny from Dunoon—
arrested during prayer for Palestine—
whilst reading Rosen’s poetic cry against genocide:
“Don’t Mention the Children.”
We must not forget:
the Right of Return to Palestine
is sacrosanct in the liberation texts.
So the struggles of the displaced Palestinian
are our struggles everywhere.
As they try to distract,
we see Palestine in all suffering,
and all our suffering we see in Palestine.
This too shall pass.
For that to happen,
those puppeteers must fail—
but only if we make them.
As they are everywhere, so must we—
our verbs before metaphors,
and our melodies of liberation blues
must be everywhere.
For those running from the batons or the pangas,
or swimming to freedom,
or bombs from above—
our words and songs too
must be found bouncing on the walls of tents,
from Gaza to Minnesota to Joburg to Laayoune…
everywhere.
2.
The masked pol-ICE in the US—
arresting and killing Renee Good,
and other people for just being
human.
Breaking the silence:
no human being can be illegal.
And the polls for November do not look good.
So the pol-ICE will be seen
and felt again…
3.
In Mzansi they have inspired some
from the downtrodden
to seek out pure blood in the ghetto,
to take what they want—
even the pumping heart.
We must not forget:
we are also the children of the Mfecane
—the crushing, the scattering—
of the Difaqane
—forced migration, the hammering.
Under this logic, may the poet not ask:
do they not have a claim
to return home to their places of origin?
These memories are in short supply,
legacies of apartheid
with its old stratagems of divide and rule—
swart gevaar (black danger),
rooi gevaar (red danger),
and the dreaded dompas.
4.
Even those who once were warriors—a few—
decry Biko’s call for black solidarity
whilst quoting him.
Their chants of hate
desire the white gaze.
If you can’t be with the one you love,
beat the one you’re with.
5.
If it is Biko they claim to love,
then they must learn from all peoples,
like he did.
Bantu learnt at the lap of
Aimé Fernand David Césaire.
Aimé Césaire, the poet leader
from Martinique—
shared birthplace of Frantz Fanon,
whom he taught and mentored
at the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France.
He taught Steve Biko—
a man he never met, only through ideas.
And it shows when he wrote:
“When I turn on my radio,
when I hear that someone in the Pondoland forest
was beaten and tortured,
I say that we have been lied to:
Hitler is not dead.
When I turn on my radio, when I hear
that someone in jail slipped off a piece of soap,
fell and died,
I say that we have been lied to:
Hitler is not dead…”
But this too shall pass.
And for that we must cut
the puppeteers’ strings.
And cut—we will.
6.
In Royal Kingdom Morocco,
the king remains trapped in old robes.
At July’s shining of his crown,
he opened the gates—
but not his heart.
7.
He plays the pawn
in a game where he is not the king.
Surplus humans continue to wave and bob
in the Mediterranean—
this time to Ceuta and Melilla,
the sore on Africa’s burning skin.
This is not love for Africa,
nor a cry for liberation.
‘Tis a manoeuvre on a chessboard—
now used against the World Cup winners
of peace and justice, Pedro Sánchez,
for daring to beat his own Drumpf.
Some wonder if the ruling classes have woken up
and rediscovered
the gallant fight against colonialism,
seeking to reclaim lost lands—
But for whom?
Not for Africa, it seems.
Maybe it’s for their special relationships
whose heart lies outside the African chest.
Like the Abrahamic discords—
they are manufactured elsewhere –
And the factory faults will reveal themselves.
…And it is true:
Hitler is not dead.
8.
This is for the inhabitants of the desert,
the Sahrawi—
as the songbird Mariem Hassan reminds us,
Haiyu Haiyu,
Singing tunes in her Hassaniya tongue
and clapping to the beat
of her lost homeland:
“Cheer O revolutionaries! Cheer!
All revolutionaries!
Get ready for fighting!
Beat the colonialists!”
For that to happen,
the cords of the puppet masters
must be cut.
We all know that people have always come and gone—
on the move.
Now immigration is turned against us, retooled.
Once again, they hope we are fooled.
But this too shall pass.
It is the law of history.
We ALL must become African Again—
as it is not yet Uhuru, and we have much to do.
But I know that those who pull the strings
will fail—
as we will make them.
Hassen Lorgat
courtesy:https://www.aclu.org/
hassen photo: malawi deportees, Woodmead