Pic Courtesy: IOL
By Palisa Fiona Makhaphela
The heroic figure born to bend the line, To break the dark regime that sought to keep his soul minor, caged & not out of time.
A teacher is not built by brick nor stone but born with fire within the mind, to transform thought and make the futures known, and leave the chains of ignorance behind.
His voice a curriculum of light, in classrooms where the brave & the broken dared to dream beyond the shadows of the night.
In the quiet rooms of Amina’s & Suliman Desai’s home, an intellectual stood unbowed & not alone.
Where a Roodepoort study group dared to dream aloud to end the heavy struggle wrapped Africans in a shroud.
A self taught sign language interpreter of Justice, a home schooled chap, Re- drawing the boundaries of a stolen, broken map.
At the Roodepoort Muslim Club he defied hate, though religious movements shaped the lives a battle ground broke wide The RMC still kept him, a burning torch inside.
They stole the breadth of Baabla Saloojee, threw him from a height,They locked train doors tight to trap the children of the night.
They turned the ones he loved into corpses, cold and Gray, trying to break the dawn before it ever found day.
In the secret corridors of Moscows winter air,Where international Lenin school held them all, two sons of the South an extraordinaire pair,
Ahmed with a sharp mind, Thabo Mbeki’s tracing out the plan,moving unseen, decoding the plan of their fellow man.
They spoke of underground cells, dead letter boxes left in the driving rain & roads that would take them back to the. hearts of pain.
Away from the maps lived the quiet ache of a different fire, The pillow talks with Ruth Langoni, untold where love was a sanctuary, holding each other through the tumult & war he loved deeply but the underground called. Where his people were dying in the old home place.
27 October we teleport through decades of rust 1971 at 3:45, where a trap was thrust. We camp our minds inside a cold detention cell, where heartless Police thought they could construct a quiet hell.
A son of the soil known by Chief Luthuli’s name, By Ahmed Kathrada a warrior of the same sacred flame.
A brother to Indress Moodley, to Salim Essop bound & to Haroon harmed yet tortured.
They endured the paralyzed current, the numbing, freezing pain revived with a bucket of water just to break them again.
In the shadows Haseem Jooma swept Timols hair & blood from floor, While Saleem caught a desperate, fleeting glimpse through the heavy door.
While Amina’s telephones tapped with wires of strife.
They wanted to collapse one man to break an iron frame & they held a monstrous lie beneath Rodriguez’s name : As A Poet In A Suit, he was never alone in that cell, he was with the executioners of John Vorster square,
how do you run, how do you rush, how do you dive in the air?
When your flesh is torn, fractured & wrecked?
But your spirit remains unyeilding, willing and unborn.
Landing on commissioner Street was the simplest brutal lie, to silence an underground soldier trained never to die.
At the morgue the cold view of Timols body spoke the truth aloud: Burnt elbows, a broken neck, a form bloodied but proud.Finger nails ripped away,eyes forced out of their sockets, burnt marks mapping the hatred of the regimes pockets.
But nothing could kill him
So Rodriguez your soul suffers a guilt no history can applaud, your hands harbour the death of a spirit they never thawed.
You died inside yourself before you pushed him to the streets, there is no honour to your title only absolute defeat.
In ’72 De Willie’s to the family in an inquest response no one is to be blamed for the death of Ahmed Timol, What sickness of Justice stole the nation’s breadth.
The wheels of time turn, 2017 brought the truths hidden.Judge Billy Mothle stood tall righting ancient wrong; Declaring it MURDER In 1999 Nelson Mandela breathed a second soaring life renaming Azaadville SECONDARY after the giant of strife, & Dr Yusuf Dadoo you’re not just a hospital name on Krugersdorps air, you’re a reminder of a gentle, asthmatic worrior who handled the flare.
He held the fire with his bare hands, whispered intellect into the room, teaching our children how to break the systematic gloom
Serve our people just like he would’ve done, love each patient as of Ahmed Timols life just begun, revive the justice we deserve, lead with unbroken pride,for though the regimes Ghost still haunts this country
The Giant walks beside us an immortal living Guide.
The Poet In A Suit: The undying spirit of Ahmed Timol, Thank you ♥️🤝🔥
By Palisa Fiona Makhaphela