As Previously Advantaged, Now Disadvantaged Poem by Gert Strydom

we are humbly sorry that our ancestors
sailed with ships from Europe
to discover other continents,
putting their intelligence and advanced
technology into good practice,
discovering the Cape of Good Hope
and developing this country
to the best of their ability and knowledge
while your ancestors migrated from the big lakes
in central Africa, under chief Dlamini
from eMbo killing the other local inhabitants
as far as they were going,
even wiping them out after they had settled.

We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took you from the bush, tried to teach you
Christian values and a Christian religion,
instead of worshiping to ancestral spirits,
dead stones of which you believe the silence
have greater meaning and more depth
than any other teachings,
tried to teach you to earn a living
by planting crops, maintaining and herding cattle
instead of pillaging, robbing and killing others,
instead of trapping, killing animals,
with sticks, stones and iron spears.

We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took the wild bush as pioneers
planned and developed
farms, towns and cities, mines, factories,
the infrastructure that are in them,
developed water resources,
electrical powering and laid railway lines,
developed the roads,
the harbors and airports that link them
to each other and the rest of the wide world,
which you now view as belonging to you,
to at your discretion take over by force
from the people to whom they did belong,
to rob, kill and pillage property
to rename airports, harbors, streets,
towns and cities at your own discretion.

We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
after fighting victoriously against yours
at Blood River and in other wars and battles
respected you as people living in this country,
did not like the Americans and Australians
go out to wipe you out of the country,
administered medicine when your ancestors
where dying form plagues and devastating
spreading illnesses like measles and influenza,
that they fed your ancestors
to try and save a whole nation
when your ancestors destroyed their own crops,
killed all their own cattle at the insistence
of the witch medium Nonqawuse.

We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
tried to teach you to only have as many children
in families, as you can support as parents,
not to breed as many as is possible
to prevent dwelling in shacks, impoverishment,
diseases like cholera spread by urinating and defecating
in drinking water.

We are humbly sorry that our ancestors,
and the terrible Apartheid government
tried to provide you with schools
where you urinated in cans in public,
where you broke all the windows,
where you broke tables, chairs and black boards
which you burnt down to the ground,
preventing yourselves
to get a proper education, where a whole
generation of your youth decided
on first getting liberation and later education
and are not literate at all.

We were happy to have learned discipline,
Christian values, languages, mathematics,
science, geography and any other subjects
and having received canings, for being disobedient,
for doing things wrong, for not studying
and now really prefer the teacher’s union riots at schools,
especially schools where those unions do not belong,
we prefer the wanton destruction of school property,
the chaos in which teachers have got to instruct,
the new curriculum based on human rights,
the spreading of lawlessness among children,
the drawing of swords, knives and guns,
even pairs of scissors to settle issues
the disrespect, the chaos, the pregnancies
of school children, the disowning of religion
at schools, the disowning of culture, language
and well-taught values.

We are humbly sorry that we are experiencing
a secret war in which you are wiping out our families
one by one, in which thousands of white people
have already perished,

we are humbly sorry that we hear the current government
is singing inciting songs, that advises their followers
to kill us, to shoot us,

we are humbly sorry
that the robberies, affirmative action, raping,
torture and murder of our friends
and our family members
prevents us from not being bitter,
proof to us your inhumanity,
that you are secretly hiding behind
the ancient rights of pillage,
that you are openly hiding
behind human rights,
while smiling in pleasure.

We have all the reason in the world
to trust the new government
as none of its members
were previously involved in bombings,
terrorist attacks in churches,
murders, setting alive people on fire,
corruption or other financial irregularities.

We are humbly sorry that we have no trust
in the South African Police Service,
or any of its officers,
who walk us out of the way with sub-machineguns,
in shopping malls,
who search us and take our cellular phones
when we receive calls at public roadblocks,
who do not find our stolen property,
or our stolen cars,
who admit quite openly
that they are inadequate to fight crime
and have lost that fight,
while they just carrying on
as if they are really interested in doing their duty,
who do not control rioters
damaging innocent individuals or property,
who do not have a vehicle available
in a real emergency,
but arrive with five vehicles
when there’s a family incident
or where a child falsely
accuses the parent of sexual battery.

We are humbly sorry that the members
of our national teams
are not selected on merit,
but on color,
that winning and patriotism is not important,
to the citizens of this country
or to the sponsors who pay the bills.

We are humbly sorry that jobs
are not determined on merit,
education, experience but by
affirmative action, that you
have flung the borders open wide
to citizens of all countries in Africa,
illegal immigrants from all
of the African countries
which are huge economic powerhouses,
are streaming here in a new migration
after kicking out the white settlers,
are becoming citizens over night.

We are humbly sorry that
that universities, hospitals, water cleaning facilities,
roads, railroads and electricity supplying facilities
are going slowly but surely into ruination
as you are preventing skilled white persons
from running these facilities,
have driven a lot away to work
in foreign countries
where there skills are really needed.

We are humbly sorry that we
do not believe in ancestral spirits,
any kind of witchcraft, urinating on trees,
on buildings, at street corners,
spitting anywhere, slaughtering live
cattle and bulls for sacrifices
in our back yards
or on our properties in town,
virginity testing, circumcision,
cures from seawater, beetroot or garlic
and any other barbaric practices
like trading for or buying
the woman that you want to marry.

This clearly state that we
come from quite another world,
than yours and that our world
which is in the whole
of the civilized western society
is inadequate against yours,

that we are truly sorry that we are not up
to being indoctrinated into your
primitive culture, way of life,
life expectancy, values and religion,
that this country will never
rise to its full potential.

I as a poet am truly sorry
that this might be the last poem
that I publish against the current government,
as from tomorrow freedom of speech may be gone
and I might be arrested for these words,
as any government that suppresses human rights,
have things to hide from its own citizens
and from the wide world.