Tribute to Tsietsi Mashinini
– The 1976 student uprising leader
Blessed is the mother
Who gave birth to this son
The comforting hands she carried him with
The pride she had to bring him up
This son of the revolution.
Brothers and sisters
Have courage to part with him
Our believed tsietsi
He did not want to go
But the pressure upon him
He could not bear.
I shall not accuse the hostel dwellers
Of their stupidity
But sympathise with them
For they were set against you
By the racist, oppressive regime
For the price of your life
And that of the struggling masses, your people.
I honour his followers
For they did not fear death
Even now they share in his courage
Our solidarity shall not be broken
Solidarity is forever, ‘til you come again!’
The police who went after you
Will crawl on their knees
Their conscience torturing them
They’ll die too
They’ll return to dust that shall be blown away
You will remain among us in triumph.
I promise you my solidarity
For the courage in you and
The faith I have in you
You are my hope
My sympathy I give to your family
That has loved you and will always love you
We will await your return.
Wherever you are
Sone of the soil, son of the revolution
I honour you for what you did for me
To discover the blackness in me
The dignity I uphold for being black
My clenched fist I raise
Mayibuye iAfrika!
– 12 August 1977
Tsietsi died in exile in 1990. His remains were brought home for burial.
Another June 16 in my lifetime
– in commemoration of june 1976, a turning point in the life of a black child
This child I name
Nkululeko, Tokoloho
This child is born of a bitter struggle
Of a marriage of perseverance
Of tears, blood and toil
Of crushed yet forever rising hopes
Of truths untold yet still to be revealed.
Nkululeko, Tokoloho
The ground upon which you are standing now
Is resting on the scaffolds
Of skulls and limbs of your people
People whose lives and dignity were trampled upon
People whose limbs broke, were broken
Blown with bombs of injustice
As they hammered, drilled, shook and moved
The thought-to-be-indestructible pillars of injustice
Until their flesh was stripped
There were no more blood, saliva nor tears
To sustain them
Only their quest for freedom and justice
Kept them holding the ground upon which you are standing.
Nkululeko, Tokoloho
Feel this ground bend down
Put your ear on the ground
Listen to the echoes of the singing and chanting masses
To the piercing sounds of cries of your people
And the endless release of rounds of bullets on your people.
Nkululeko, Tokoloho
It is not for you to forget
The ground upon which you are standing
Is fertile from feeding from the flesh of your people
From the sweat and blood of their resistance
For every soul
Whose remains make the particles of this soil
Plant a tree
To hold the soil
To give shade to the sun burned souls
To prevent the torrent rains from taking your ancestral souls to exile
To lands unknown to you.
Nkululeko, Tokoloho
My child
It is exactly twenty-one years
Since you were conceived in me
There were others before you
Some are buried in exile
Some are maimed
Some are blind
Many of them remain
The evidence of the tyrannic, draconian rule
Of the past three hundred years, even more.
Remember child
It is not for you to forget
Arise and shine
Run with the flame of freedom
Cast light in the dark shadowed lives of your brothers and sisters
Rebuild this country, your home
This chapter I leave for you and generations to come after you.
– 11 June 1994
