BLACK HOLOCAUST, DISCONTINUED…
When I place my feet on this black soil
This black soil beneath my toes begins to vibrate
And a beautiful rhythm born of a cry begins to reverberate
I start to hear a story of what this black soil has seen
This black soil relates this tale to me
Allow me to tell you the story of a black holocaust, discontinued
And it goes like so:-
-Oh, you’ve heard this before and I shouldn’t tell it
How 1,2,3,4 centuries were filled with black blood and bleeding hearts
It’s an old tale osuyisuthi and it’s all in the past so ngcono ngingayithi vu
Well, uyadakwa, give 1,2,3,4 hundred years to get over this shit
But for now ngiyeke ngixoxe lendaba yami ith’:
Sulphuric acid baths soak the hacked pieces of our dignity
Burning and dissolving to black ash the remains of our African unity
Our pride shatters in a blast of fire and dust as in Kulunguku
But our vision of a black exultation is not dimmed, izoza ngolunye usuku
Mayibuy’ i-Afrika from heart-filled hymns in matchbox homes to large Lilies Leaf ops
Kruger left cold, but not as cold as the rock-hard ice that struck us that is degradation
Black panthers roam these battlefields incing the nation, a makeshift nation, a misplaced nation
Leaders that weren’t theirs tried to break the fort of their identity, this tower
Lyndon-Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower
Noma bengasenzani noma kuphi ngeke sawa
This black unifies us across the whitest oceans
I can’t stop myself from seeing through my brother’s eyes nor feeling with my sister’s heart
I can’t shut my ears as I hear the sound of the whip across my mother’s back
How can I shut my ears as I hear the chains dragged by my father’s feet
No, no, no this is not just textbook history of our forefathers
To me it’s of great pertinence
It’s unthinkable that I could forgive and forget when I see the detriment
Resulting from cowardly attempts to stunt the beauty that hails from the deep, dark corridors of this continent
Resulting from craven acts to strip us of the strength and greatness planted in our blackness lakithi,
Bakithi, bakhanda iziphithiphithi but sabalaya asithi were quitting
Black pebbles begin to bounce up and dance as this tale continues
The tale of the stories this black soil has seen
I can only hear this tale from this soil and from no other source
Because our beauty has been extracted from historical archives
Deceased Da Gama’s discovered lands already owned and ores already dug
353 pages of a composition on our so-called past
350 bleached white by the faces of Hertzog’s and van Riebeck’s
And their wives, pretty under umbrellas laden with pink lace
Tea cups in their left hands and rifles in their right
I want the record account of our existence yet I only find 48-94, a struggle survived
Our history’s been minimised to a fight
Our journey narrowed down to a march in ‘76
But this black soil tells me my blackness exists in its own right
I am black minus my suffering
My imperialists do not create the essence of my darkness
Before Africa was torn apart I was black
And long after the passing of this hate, I will still be black
But even then time will not erase the struggle of my people
The scorch remains engraved as evidence
No matter where I go I see the dents
I see the dents when you bow your head so low I think your neck will break as you address the Medem
I see the dents as your deep, black voice mimics into some unrecognizable squeal when like a stricken animal you cower before the Baas
I see the dents as I hear my 12-year-old sister Nomthandazo,
“Mommy, we’re sleeping over at Antoinette’s tonight,
They’ve got electric blankets and their lifestyle’s just so civilizedâ€
Nomthandazo, you are the black bullet that extinguished Malcolm X
Nomthandazo, you are the white stain that soils the fabric of our Azania
Nomthandazo, you are worse than those brothers of ours who tore down our struggle and handed over our bloody, lifeless bodies to the Master
I despise those lost, scavenging hyenas who chewed off their own asses
I praise the lionesses nezingonyama zomzabalazo
I forgive the hares of apartheid
While others fearlessly fought, these could only let out a stifled curse in between clenched lips
They couldn’t afford the high price of the active struggle
And opted for painful silence in exchange for brown bread and black tea with brown sugar
Can you blame the black leg that limps on to white duties while this fire burns in his black eye and meditations of freedom generate in his black head?
These cant be blackballed from future victory brought on by a fearless soldier and his fall,
Yes, another black widow
Tons of faceless corpses that breathe packed in the back of a Black Maria
Wide eyes dimmed with the lost hope of a Black Messiah
I praise all our pioneers, silent and celebrated
I write their names in blood in my black list
Eternally engraved in my black book bound by the stories they told with their lives
These black birds did not fall but took flight to greater elevation
And thus formulated this black magic and gave birth to this black exultation
This is the black holocaust this soil has seen
But this soil also foresees the beautiful pattern of its discontinuation
Bantu understood this, prophesied this
Writing what he liked and living what he believed
Until the living was stopped but the existence was in no way stopped nor even curbed
For he and the great cloud before and after him left behind a legacy
Outcome, become this stronger, darker beauty that is us,
One people, one Azania
Now we rise, fulfilling destinies long ago fought for by tireless heroes with a vision
This vision, so strong, so powerful, still forceful
Now burns in our eyes, our minds, our hearts
Woza, let us draw from the wells of colonization
Woza, let us drink the bitter water of slavery and swallow the acid that is apartheid
This is no solo war, we’re all aboard the vessel ending this holocaust
We are pioneers of this,
architects designing this
ushers leading into this
This black revolution, this black evolution, this black exultation
We live the dreams of those tireless heroes,
Samora, Sobukwe, Sisulu
Hear their heartbeat beat inside of my heart, inside of ours…
thishiwe