Mama Africa
Somalia, Nigeria, Ghana, Saudi Arabia
Mama Africa
Senegal, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, South Africa
The land of enormous mineral wealth
I salute thee; I adore thee even in poor health
So many countries I have not yet spelt
Have people ready and steady to flee before they melt
Mama Africa
You walk with a suicidal long rope
As your people lose all hope
Rather than cooking up a brand of prosperity
You the land of recognized poverty
Have mistakenly invented a brand of austerity
The masses are slowly dying
While only a few are high-flying
Mama Africa
We talk about your diamond rushes
We speak of numbers of human losses
We hide our fusses in internal silent boxes
While people struggle and fight in oil brushes
And external parties hide their delightful blushes
Mama Africa
How can a land of abundant resources and rich culture
That the world with marvel continuously captures
Allow wealth to be taken from you before it matures?
Why not divert these takers to signs labeled departure?
Mama Africa
Listen to your children’s voices
Listen to the peoples noises
They are crying to be heard
They are crying to be fed
They are crying for proper education
They are crying as a single nation
They are crying for an end to corruption
They are crying for an end to self-destruction
They are crying for your delinquent protection
Mama Africa
How many crying tears will it take by calculation?
How many dying years will it take to deliver salvation?
Mama Africa
Along with your weakness I salute thee!
Along with your greatness I adore thee!
Along with your madness I still love thee!
What do you mean, what is the meaning of Africa? Africa is the land that started everything. Africa can acredited for having the first real cilvilization. Africans are the people that made the Europeans feel inferior and so they began to eliminate our culture and displaced our people. I'm sure there are people from other nationalities that have pride for their country, but why they do not write ballads has no relavance to Africans writing about a land that they are told not to be proud of. Africans are not like everyone else and everyone knows it. Many Africans in America deny themself, they deny Africa.
What is the meaning of Africa and from which African language is it derived? How come 'Africans' deify Africa so much? Why don't Europeans write ballads about Europe or Asians about Asia, just the way 'Africans' keep doing? Is it still the spirit of Negritude? How 'African' are the Arab nations like Egypt, Morroco and Tunisia or the Afrikaans in South Africa? Why can't 'Africans' just be a citizen of their country like everybody else? Just asking!
I salute thee oh Mama Africa! ! ! Mama Africa my Homeland. Thanks for sharing this poem with us.
I came back to the poem after a decade and I can only affirm to its deeper meanings and echoes of the reality. Mama Africa....!
That poem is really inspiring and really revolving around African lives I really love poetry
Dear Sylvia I am really impressed by the poem. It reflects the reality about Africa; the paradoxes and the ambiguities. Many people from the west have only the dark side of the picture, which we cannot deny. But Africa is at the same time full of treasures of old that others do not have; it has its own identity and bless. Though globalisation is the order of the day, I do not think that emphasising on your identity and origin is narrow-mindedness. It is rather a way to universalism and better understanding. Africa is the most misunderstood continent by outsiders and Africans.
I agree with you sylvia in that you have pointed out what is happening in the African continent at the moment very well. I would however like to point out that Saudi Arabia is not a part of Africa and is in Asia. As for the point raised by Kiibaati, I think that being african is more to do with issues like identity and culture and being a white African or an Arab African like Tunisians and Morocans does not make one any less of an African.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
If we look at the big bang theory of the universe and attribute that to the creation of planets, the universe and life. We can apply that theory to this world. I personally believe that life started with clusters of a variety of living communities around the world at precisely the same time. Africa being large would have housed clusters of some of these growing communities and hence no one can positively or even scientifically state where life started. As for culture and pride being broken and taken away is part of history that cannot be changed. What Africa has now is vast amount of wealth managed extremely poorly and so many people infiltrated with poor health and lack of education hence my comment ' I adore thee even in poor health' My poem is about the reality of the situation in Africa at present and expressing my hope for the future of Africa with love.