Justice and Mercy in South Africa

If people understood the importance of relationships in South Africa they would do everything in their power to make them happen cross culturally, between the rich, poor and middle class. You have no idea the difference it makes when justice has a face, and not just any face you can dismiss but one you love wholeheartedly. You will think very carefully about what and how and if... the way you will navigate between justice and mercy will matter... Without relationships you do not care about mercy. With relationships mercy is everything... but for the love of truth, for the love of God, the love of His children, justice and mercy must be together...

A poet's dream - A prince's birth?

My poetry campaign

Fell on the days

Where the world’s most powerful cameras

Were held outside hospital gates

Held with the precision of a gunman

Waiting for his target

Waiting to shoot

The last blink of a legend

Before the earth takes him from us

Microphones artistically extended like Mpondo sticks at Marikana

Hungry for any word from his daughters

Who called it violence?

Only the cameraman knew that his target

Was as intense as the soldiers at war

Only this time it was not ‘shoot to kill’
It was to shoot for the love of a man held so dear

To capture a moment that belongs not only to this generation

A moment too great to slip quietly

This was a gift for generations

Just as the man has been a gift to a generation

My poetry campaign

Falls on the days where scribes, story-tellers

In two continents

Sat waiting outside hospital gates

One for the end of a great story

Another for the birth of a prince

Whose former fathers

once stripped off the royalty of the father

of the grey-haired-great-man lying in hospital

Invincible

The master of his own destiny

The little prince is born

Angelic in nature as all babies

With an inheritance like no other baby

With a heritage that looks like yin and yang

I sit

In South Africa

In a town called East London

Writing in the language the little prince will one day speak

And wonder if the prince will one day read these words

When I am fifty or sixty

What would I want the prince to know?

That on Mandela’s 95^th birthday my poetry reached its first five thousand milestone?

That five days later the prince was born and I received a healthy sum for my poetry from England?

That South African born Jeanette Kruger was that famous donor?

That our money was called the Kruger Rand?

What would I want the prince to know?

With the millions of messages he has received

With the zillions of information that will one day be his to sort through

Will he find the poem that will always be as old as he is?

© siki dlanga

22 July 2013

One day when you’re looking wondering when the prince of England was born remember it was on this date. 
Give my campaign some royal treatment. I only have 19 days left to make it count! www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

It's not just a poetry book... it's royal beyond design. African and universal. www.thundafund.com/sikidlanga

Quote about the future of South Africa

"The future of South Africa isn't going to be white, it isn't going to be black. It is going to be African." - Chief Albert Luthuli
The man was a prophet.

Concrete beauty displayed in Nature

A beautiful seat of history found at Cape Grace hotel, Cape Town.

This is a series of images taken in Seapoint.

 A view of Table Mountain from Century City.

I am South African

I am a South African

I owe my being to the women in red, white and black

I owe my being to the women in purple and black

I owe my being to the women in black and white

Who seek no positions

Who take no credit

Who never fight to be seen

Who expect no crowns

Abafazi boxolo               (women of peace)

Abafazi bankol’ingagungqhiyo      (women of unshakable faith)

Abafazi abathi behluphekile bathi bahluthi     (women who are poor yet count themselves as rich)

I owe my being

To women who do not beg

Who seek no human favours

Who seek the favour of One

When they appear before God

They know that kugqinyiwe, kwanele  (it is finished, it is enough)

I am South African

I owe my being not to the hills

Nor the mountains

I owe my being to the women

Abathi mntan’am qina          (who say my child be stand strong)

Mntan’am kuyanyanyezelwa   (my child perservere)

Mntan’am uThix’uyaphendula   (my child God answers)

I am South African

I do not owe my being to the mountains

I owe my being to the women whose faith is as unshakable as mountains

I owe my being to women who have said God’s love is deeper than the ocean

I owe my being to the women

Who have gathered every Thursday from Colonial days, apartheid and post-apartheid days

I owe my being to the women whose prayers are going up to heaven as I write

I am South African

I owe my being to every unacknowledged missionary

Who left England, Germany or France

Who braved unknown lands and scripted languages never before written

Who made mistakes but created ways for the future

I owe my being to my grandmothers’ prayers

I owe my being to my great grandmothers’ conversion

I owe my being to the fire of the Methodists

The faithfulness of the Anglicans

And every mother who prays

I am a South African

© siki dlanga

Inspired by Women’s Thursday prayers over Mhlobowene radio station.

She said NO

1956
She marched on
She was black
She was white
She was Indian
She was coloured
She said NO 

Strydom hid
From her voice
Demanding justice
Strydom hid

Under her gaze
Apartheid shuddered
Apartheid quivered
Until it shattered

She said NO

2012
She is black
She is white
She is Indian
She is coloured
She says NO

Do not touch
My children!

She says NO
Do not
touch
me

She said NO

(c) siki dlanga
2012

BRETT MURRAY BURN ZUMA PAINTING

All along I have been advocating Brett Murray’s right to paint what he wishes. I was like Tselane Tambo asking the president to get over it, inquire of the painting’s deeper meaning and get on with running the country. I have been like Ayanda Mabhulu the irreverent artist who had committed the same act as that of Brett Murray except that his artwork received no uproar. Ayanda said the response to this painting only shows how artistically illiterate the leaders are. I too thought so. Can everybody get beyond the president’s dangly bits in the painting and look at the full exhibition and concentrate on the cleverness of it all, I thought. I was convinced and am still convinced that the depiction carries a much greater meaning than making a mockery of the president as a man. I was pleading to everyone to look deeper. As a side issue unintended by the artist I am certain; I thought yes, the ruthless object that has been destroying femininity in South Africa has finally been named by another man. The president was merely a representative of the nation’s broader masculine community. The violent weapon that is most feared by any woman in this country that destroys children and women daily had finally been hung on the wall of the nation. There it was and its exposure caused a great uproar. It was named. It was hung. Its power suddenly dissipated and the fear of rape evaporated.

Had it been a different figure represented the image would not have represented the entire nation, yet we know that is not what the artwork is about. Yes, The Spear is social commentary on South Africa’s current politics and political leaders and the real uproar was that Jacob Zuma, the country’s president was depicted with his private manhood parts exposed. Indeed a powerful image, one that offended most of the black country and the more reverent nation. How could such an act be done to our president? The ANC called for it to be removed from the Goodman gallery while Blade Nzimande declared war on the City Press for refusing to remove it on their website accusing them of double standards. I thought Nzimande was being extreme for calling the painting racist. I thought that was uncalled for and it was a refusal to understand what the exhibition was about because it is about them. Nzimande further said the painting was an insult to all black people, this was a statement that infuriated me because I felt that he was highly irresponsible for inciting more racial anger in the country. I wanted Nzimande to control himself because he was simply upset that his demands were not met and now this was his retaliation, I concluded.

 I watched the president deliver a speech at the University of Forte in honour of Pixely Seme the great ANC icon, the originator of I am an African. He began his speech by singing a song I hate, a song that was sung during the struggle, a song I regard as one of gross self-pity. A song I could understand why it would have been sung none-the-less. The president’s face was not the jubilant face we have come to know since the fall of Julius. His face was somber and appeared to have more frikkles than usual. He sang with a lovely voice, and it was good to hear the president’s voice sing even though the song was “Senzeni na, senzeni na” (what have we done, what have we done). It is a lament that was sung in apartheid South Africa that said “our only sin is our blackness”. This I wondered if he sang because of Brett Murray’s depiction of him as he made reference to how Africans had been portrayed historically in a negative light and in this case Brett had done so even though he never spelt it out.  I looked at the president and felt that I did not want to pity my president. I wanted to admire him; I wanted to be inspired by him.

I spoke with my mother about these matters and my irritation at everyone who calls the artwork racist, especially Nzimande. My mother then recounted the times in history when black masculinity had been humiliated. She mentioned the humiliation suffered by Saartjie Baartman under the hand of whites. She told me of the many migrant labours who would be stripped off their clothing and dipped in water that would rid them of the germs they must have carried because they were black before they would be allowed to work. She told me how the black man would all strip naked and stand in line while a white female inspected them. She told me that Brett Murray’s painting brings back all those memories. Jacob Zuma in his speech said: “They want us to forget”. Those were very weighty words. What he was saying was; they, the whites, want us black people to forget everything about the past while they replicate the past only to remind us of what they want us to forget. Zuma did not elaborate as everyone knew what he meant.

Here is a man like Jacob Zuma who is the president of the Republic of South Africa despite all his weaknesses is passionate about reconciliation perhaps even more so than the former president Mbeki. While I am grateful that Murray showed the power of art and that he had us talking about it, is it too much to ask for a positive representation of the country? My mother concluded and said that in her opinion though we are a free nation, whites should tread with greater sensitivity and should perhaps be the last to criticise the current government harshly, out of repentance. We are all free but we must heal one another’s wounds first.  I concluded that Brett Murray must burn his painting if he wants to show remorse for the pain he has caused. The City Press and the Goodman Gallery need to also acknowledge that this has caused pain. Looking back at the SAMA awards, all I can remember is how beautiful the rainbow nation looked. It was beautiful to watch musicians from different cultural back grounds and across the colour line made melodies together. They celebrated diversity. They celebrated the streets we all come from. If we listen to the music coming out of our nation we will know that we are reconciling and that we are healing one another’s wounds.