Look up, South Africa: Wounded, yes, but still breathing

Look up, South Africa! My late pastor used to say, “Breathe… if you are alive, you are winning!” Today, we need those words. Chin up. Shoulders back. Breathe in. Hope is a life force. August was Women’s Month, but September was the month we learnt that a dozen or so women’s bodies were found dumped like rubbish in Gauteng.A further 27 people were killed in mass shootings, even as the Madlanga Commission showcased systemic corruption and the arrest of Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya on allegations including rape, trafficking of persons and the sexual grooming of a child, painting a shocking picture of our national sport: the abuse of power. The euphoria over the Springboks’ victory against the All Blacks in September was short-lived after we learnt that in 2012, Springbok captain André Esterhuizen was found guilty and sanctioned for using the k-word. While all this is happening, the Americans are gearing up to sanction us, even as white Afrikaner right-wingers and the families of farm murder victims dominate airwaves about racial hatred and “white genocide” in South Africa. These are hard times. But South Africa has been through hard times before. ***The poet, Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali, wrote Nightfall in Soweto:Nightfall comes likea dreaded diseaseseeping through the poresof a healthy bodyand ravaging it beyond repairA murderer’s hand,lurking in the shadows,clasping the dagger,strikes down the helpless victim.I am the victim.I am slaughteredevery night in the streets.I am cornered by the feargnawing at my timid heart;in my helplessness I languish.Man has ceased to be manMan has become beastMan has become prey.I am the prey;I am the quarry to be run downby the marauding beastlet loose by cruel nightfallfrom his cage of death.Where is my refuge?Where am I safe?Not in my matchbox houseWhere I barricade myself against nightfall.I tremble at his crunching footsteps,I quake at his deafening knock at the door.“Open up!” he barks like a rabid dogthirsty for my blood.Nightfall! Nightfall!You are my mortal enemy.But why were you ever created?Why can’t it be daytime?Daytime forever more?It feels like nightfall in South Africa. But we are not done yet. We have an indomitable spirit. ***The poet, Siza Nkosi Mokhele, wrote the poem, Broken things: not because I emerge outof broken thingskraals in my homestead are overflowinggrandmother has named them allone day one of the heiferswas late to return to the great-housewe heard it bellowingmoooo mooo my teats are in heatthere is abundant milk, the calf is emaciatedplease let me in old-ladygrandmother opened up to the calf’s jubilationit soothed its mother by sucklingwe also assisted by milking itwe drank the milk while it was warmnot because I emerge outof broken thingsI come from maternal quartersfrom ancestral altars soiled by whirlwindsat the hearth – where the elders lie waitingwhere women kneel on broken kneesI know pain wellthe sorrow of losing that which I held deara bowl in which flowers were keptthe coal-stove tales of grandmotherI am built out of ashesI break things out of anguishnot because I came fromthe midst of broken things(Translated from isiZulu by Menzi Maseko)At the opening of the first democratic Parliament on 24 May, 1994, Nelson Mandela read a poem in the original Afrikaans, about a child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga.***The Child is Not Dead was written by poet Ingrid Jonker:The child is not deadThe child lifts his fists against his motherWho shouts Afrika ! shouts the breathOf freedom and the veldIn the locations of the cordoned heartThe child lifts his fists against his fatherin the march of the generationswho shouts Afrika ! shout the breathof righteousness and bloodin the streets of his embattled prideThe child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanganot at Orlando nor at Sharpevillenor at the police station at Philippiwhere he lies with a bullet through his brainThe child is the dark shadow of the soldierson guard with rifles Saracens and batonsthe child is present at all assemblies and law-givingsthe child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothersthis child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywherethe child grown to a man treks through all Africathe child grown into a giant journeys through the whole worldWithout a pass***Look up, South Africa! You are the child. The child of Soweto. The child of suffering and of death. But you are not dead, South Africa. You are wounded, but you are still breathing. In you is life. In you is a future. In you is a hope. Beside your pain is your fire. Beside your fire are your songs. Within your songs is your spirit. And within your spirit, is your future. Look up. Let your indomitable spirit overflow like blood. Let it fill the wounds of the wounded. Let it weave the weeping into wonderment. Let the world see your many colours.Look up. Above your dark clouds is a rainbow. DM