Submission (In Answer To Don Mattera) Poem by Gert Strydom

I have seen a white old man and woman
turned onto the street,
living in cardboard boxes
with their small white dog
in the new disastrous improved South Africa,

I have seen white people taking their own lives
when black mine owners robbed them of salaries
and there was no job to get,
no living to be made
and they did this
instead of starting to beg.

I have seen white men and women
with university degrees
leaving the country
in numbers that are more than a million
to find a place to have a life
somewhere else in a foreign country,

I have waited for more than a hour queuing
at a local bank to make a cash deposit,
as a payment to someone
and the way that things are going,
with the black economic empowerment
and people not up to doing a simple job,
soon all of private industry
will be falling apart
as the government departments are doing.

I have noticed friends and family members
who were robbed, hijacked in their vehicles,
raped, tortured and killed
while the South African Police
did their very best to make a arrest
and like in all other things
are not up to it.

I know people who live in despair,
who are totally without hope
while the country’s borders
are flung wide open
to the rest of Africa
to first have a chance at a job
and their degrees and experience
in the face of this means nothing

but not one does bend
under the black heel to submission,
at the mercy of God
their lives go on…

[Reference: “Submission” by Don Mattera.]