What Dreams Are Left To Dream? (In Answer To Mathews Phosa) Poem by Gert Strydom

Everywhere where a person looks for work
the indication BEE only is proclaimed,
as if the claws of the monster
of affirmative action
continually goes wider and wider

and it’s not only
at state departments
but even in the private sector
that you get this onslaught of racism.

Without work, you are impoverished
even if you have whatever kind of degree
or experience,
in the end it means absolutely nothing
when you loose everything
and cannot pay your accounts.

Where will you get money for a cool drink or tea,
or to buy something at the nearest café
and what dreams are left to dream,
but for liberation
from this hellish oppression

[References: Only by Matthews Phosa. BEE is Black economic empowerment. (The poet Mathews Phosa is the premier of the Orange Free State province) ]