In Defence Of The Ndr? Poem by Mpho Ramaano

outside the university in turfloop
donning identity of the defenders of revolution
in the hype of petit politics and hooliganism
some criminal drunks tagged sasco
coldly slaughtered a christian student last night

he had gone to a students’ march in pretoria
from the sacred hilled nylstroom
to the glitzy and glittering turfloop
they stoned and knifed him to death
his frightened comrades watched in grief
as they pounded him
with halved and loaved bricks
like the biblical stephen

he yelled and screamed
as they crushed his fragile bones
from modimolle to turfloop
he summoned his god for help
but the boys from sasco did not listen
nor fear the god he called

they invoked the name of the ndr
as they performed the dreadful deed
unapologetically they termed it
curbing christian dogmatism
as they punched, kicked, stoned
and knifed him to his final breath

then they threw him out the window
of a moving vehicle
for unsuspecting speeding cars
to crush his still fragile body
so we would mistaken his brutal murder
for a terrible accident

in the campus
carrying stones and empty beer bottles
like the mad-machete-wielding men
of the janjaweed in darfur
they shouted slogans at the src chambers
proclaiming victory of their brutal murder

has politics become so volatile in turfloop?

this morning i saw long-faced elderly mothers
sweeping the bloody crime scene
by the side of the shamed road
painstakingly gathering blood soaked soil
into a black dirt bag
for a ritual to bring the young boy’s soul
back home in mabundweni

i tell you it’s not funny
the young vararas of turfloop
swore in the name of the embattled ndr
as they broke a young swazi boy’s life
yesternight



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Notes:

NDR is the South African Communist Party’s theoretical doctrine which emphasises the revolution of stages against the theory of permanent revolution. This theory has its roots in the Bolsheviks' mistaken analysis of the 1905 Revolution in Russian but it became more popular during Joseph Stalin’s rise to power in the early 20's and his return to the thesis of socialism in one country. It has since been adopted by the tripartite alliance as their theoretical framework for shaping social policy in South Africa.