Fatherland [2] Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Mongane Wally Serote)

At a time I did call you fatherland
and there are other countries
from where my ancestors came
that does not even know me
or that I do exist
and like onto a father
I have been bound to you by birth
with no choice of where to see the first light

but as I had no choice to be born in you
my life, career, language and history
came from you and is part of you
and you do throb in my heartbeat.

You did force me into military service
and I was forced to defend your borders
and as a eighteen year old boy
was forced into situations and places
where mere boys were destroyed
and did fall down from living
into a suffering death
or had been burned alive
after the explosion of projectiles
and I have offered my very soul
to keep you safe and sound,
but what were you doing to me, fatherland?

Fatherland, you did chase away
my brothers and sisters
and other far-away countries
they now call home

and although I am well-educated and experienced
you have banished me from work
and you have reserved jobs
for your other children
whom you do regard with more love than me
and you do treat me
as if I do not have a right to make a living.

The criminals in you frighten me, fatherland.
Corrupt officials make me despondent
and I have been robbed of two cars
and see other people begging
on the corners of the streets
with boards tied around their necks

and some of my brothers have drank poison,
have hung themselves up in trees
in the very town where I do live
and I have become
but a throw-away child of you
and at a time you saw me
as your own
but now you have got contempt for me

and others from foreign countries
are treated by you as people
and still I do exist
as a child born onto your very earth.

[Referece: “Alexandra” by Mongane Wally Serote.]