The Mess In Which The Country Is Poem by Gert Strydom

(in answer to Fanie Olivier)

That South Africa does die
and that dark works of its own people
caused this
I cannot argue with

but most of the Afrikaners did not contribute to this,
from young boys a blood-sacrifice was asked at the border
and the inheritance that they do get as a reward
is eternal damnation and punishment

and some people have got it totally wrong
about the white holy ones that do look down on others,
about the white Afrikaner capitalist
that they do view as rich and wealthy
and these days the people with the money
are black and not white.

It's such people that do drag God along with them
when they do defend racism with Godly teachings
but do declare that Jesus Christ is not God,
that as a man,
a fabulous incredible myth he did return to the earth
and did not as God rise after the crucifixion.

Even a separate tax is insisted upon
by that so-called holy man,
a youth leader and now the leader of a political party
also wants to claim the farms, mines and properties

and the Fascistic shredding of a society
is the ugly thing into which I do daily look
when other people do go to work
and I am searching for an existence like a person drowning.

The worst is that people do creep
deeper into the corrupt government
while others do wonder
how to come to terms with this kind of life

and the local Aurora mine with its black owners
(a son of Nelson Mandela and a cousin of Zuma)
did rob their workers of a salary, did keep it back
until white men who could not get another work
did hang themselves and so it is reported in the newspaper

and those that still do have a job
do live as if they are small gods,
do want to ride each other out of the road
and in this gangster paradise they do feel free.

[Reference: "my country ‘tis thy people you're dying" by Fanie Olivier.]