Painful Thoughts Poem by Gert Strydom

Like a lightning
striking from a azure blue sky
and hitting where nobody expects it,
is the pain
when a Afrikaner hand
hits another Afrikaner down.

The bullet that bursts through Jopie Fourie
nobody can stop
and still that shot rings out
and are deafening.

How is a great Commandant General honoured
who for a day was President
of the Orange Free State
and taught the British a thing or two
about warfare?
How many women had to suffer anguish
and chained themselves
to free Christiaan De Wet
out of a nation’s
own prison
and his people
that buys his freedom
will forever stay with me.

By himself Jan Smuts changed
from a Boer hero,
to somebody
that lifts his hand against his own
to get worldly fame
and for his own benefit.

Today I wonder
where you and I
stand in these things?

How easy it has become with affirmative action
and BEE
to destroy the careers
of innocent Afrikaner men
and to push their life’s
on the rubbish dump
and I wonder how many Afrikaner women,
sit in the front chairs
while Afrikaner men
are praying to find a job?

It cuts like an unknown pain through me
and I wonder when merit
will again find a place
as a measure of fairness
and I see that my people are torn apart
and own benefit
is leading before integrity
and I wonder what are my people becoming?

[Reference: Jopie by: Jan F.E. Celliers. BEE= Black Economic Empowerment.]