South Africa Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

South Africa

The rainbow paled in South Africa
the end of apartheid has ended, freedom for all.
Not quite, the poor in Soweto are getting poorer.
The difference it now consists of white poor as well.
The new leadership behave like the old one corruption
and shade dealings.
South Africa is practically a democratic one-party state.
Or was democracy and equality brought on too early?
It takes time.
What is there to say when people riot and burn down
the places where they buy their daily bread and have to walk for miles
to buy milk for their children, other than an act of despair.
Big business is doing well, thank you.
But nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the poor.
The rainbow state has lost its lustre.
If you wonder why the poor ran amok was the jailing of Jacob Zuma
Despite his failings, he has an African heart, which the new elite, dipped in white culture,
failed to see.
He is the chieftain dethroned and Africa bleeds.