African Artists Against Apartheid. Poems and Other Works
by: African Artists Against Apartheid Poetry Group
solidarity
Words to Stop a Genocide
Thandi Gamedze
I wish poetry could end the pain
I’m trying to come up with the exact configuration of words able to terminate a genocide
Like in the movies when everything hangs on figuring out the correct combination to open up the safe
I am listening intently for the clicks that would indicate progress
The state of Israel is not the Israel of which the bible speaks
Click
Just because something is in the bible doesn’t make it right
Click
The Israelites in the Old Testament moved from being enslaved to practicing genocidal settler colonialism
Click
That was not, is not, and never will be okay
Click
Breathe
Re-strategise
The state of Israel is built on violent settler colonialism
Click
It was created in 1948, orchestrated by Western powers who thought they could kill many birds with one stone
Click
Those Western powers have never stopped pulling strings or killing birds but they have increased their stones and their targets
Click
They continue to benefit through their devoted ally in the Middle East
Click
Breathe
Re-strategise
This is not a religious conflict
Click
Before Israel was created, Arab Jews, Christians, and Muslims were indigenous to the land
Click
Jesus himself was a Palestinian
Click
He is an ancestor of those currently being bombed
Click
Breathe
Re-strategise
Violence meted out by settler colonial powers is not self-defence
Click
The United Nations says so
Click
It also says that Israel is an apartheid state
Click
Surely we can at least agree that genocide is never okay?
Click
Breathe
Re-strategise
Think about the children
Click
Children everywhere belong to all of us
Click
We all belong to each other
Click
Think about our shared humanity
Click
I’m grasping at straws here
I had thought the lock would be open by now
But we have to keep trying
Because everything hangs on us figuring out the correct combination
Because a threat to injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere
Because we are at risk of losing our humanity
Yet it doesn’t seem like there is an end to the numbers in the password to this particular safe
I’m starting to lose faith that all the words in the world could make even a dent in the Iron Dome of global evil
I wish I knew the combination of words that could stop a genocide
But I don’t
Khalidi, Walid (1984) “Before their diaspora: a photographic history of the Palestinians, 1876-1948.”
Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, p. 203
Crescent Moon Center for Healing: Poetic Medicine
Nadine Ghammache
These days
Dumped
In a shiny Lego box
All the same
Gray pieces, thousands
No figurines, none needed
Dead, dead, dead
Thousand gray pieces
No booklet needed
None needed
These days are
Palestine, my homeland,
My mother, my uncles
My aunts, my grandmother,
Jeddo, my olives, my sea,
My wind, my swallows,
My beautiful children,
My beautiful Palestinian accent,
My dabke, my keffiyeh,
My land I’ve never been allowed to be
These days speak
They plead
Why me?
I’m only a child
Why me? Why me?
What have I done?
I’m only a child
These days
I’m an no longer an only child
But all my people
¡Gazi 2
Fatima Gabru, edited by Milisuthando
1948, 1948
Lara Reddy
How I hate you, how I detest you
I cannot count the number of your
Laws I loathe that made us insane
That stole, mocked, made us mortified
At our own existence, so crucified
Dear 1948 Apartheid South Africa.
How we dislike you, no, we abhor you!
And just when we thought you were rid of
In South Africa, you continued to spew fire
Like a dragon, fumed over another
Landscape, another people, prejudiced, imprisoned
Robbed of their homes, why 1948? Why?
You settled there, you made refugees
In their own land, in their own land shared with you
Colonised, stolen and reduced to Gaza
A prison with your ration of calories and water and life
A landfill out of indigenous people
And called it your paradise 1948
Called it holy land, recapitulate
Yet dreams of our own
Prayers same that we moan
But 1948, like a demon who never died
Destined itself in 1967, to dictatorship
We still remain in your gruesome grip
In another place, for another ailing
Screaming, suffering, martyred, bombed and bleeding people
Who the Zionists want to obliterate
Who apartheid Israel wants to obliterate
Who the US and the rest of the west
Just cheer on with more bombs and power
And disregard for the lives of babies
Een if they survive, left abandoned as orphans
And if they die
The pain of burying your child
Before you
Follows you like a ghost
For the rest of death
‘for we can’t call it life…
After the bombs
What then
After cease-fire
What then
What dreams
1948
Still fighting to end your Apartheid era
Let’s mention your other name now
And not be afraid
You’re Israeli Apartheid
Even Harvard deems it so
While shaking hands with foes
Once, South African Apartheid
Now-You’re Israeli Apartheid
Historical and cruel
David and Goliath
Even biblically true
South Africa’s Apartheid
1948 you stole the show
And made it legislation
Made love a crime
Humanity was a dime
Yet we sent you flying
But not too far away to…
1994 who became your liberal child
But still playing at oppression
And Injustice, lingering
in a deceitful way
called democracy
Hah!!!!
Democracy!
Hah!
Israel
The ‘democracy in the
Middle east’
Is an Apartheid Regime
Twin to the 1948
South African Apartheid Regime
Only worse, only worse…
As South Africa,
And Palestine you helped us to our freedom
Avoided genocide, ethnic cleansing
And a ‘leader ‘on hyper-fascist-Hitler mode
Supported by other neo-liberal fascist leaders
The people, from the river to the sea
Must rise for revolution-
And disrupt the normalcy of their world
As it is not normal
But cruel and unjust
Where babies in incubators are killed
Before they breathe life
1948
We see you; we have felt your force before
And defeated you
We will defeat you again.
My sisters and brothers in Palestine
For the whole world’s Palestine
I feel your pain
we feel your pain
Do not despair
Do not despair
1948,1948
Dear 1948, 1948
Also Born in the Arab Israeli war
From Egypt to Jerusalem
Your colonisation
You kill with
The Apartheid you
Sanctify and occupy with
never ended
1948 1948
From your regime
In South Africa, to now Zionist Israel
We aim to defeat you
Your era is ending
1948,1948
2024 is the new 1994 for Palestine
We aim to destroy you
Now it’s almost 2024
Israeli Apartheid
We have to destroy you too.
We must destroy you too.
From the river to the sea
Palestine will be free
From the rivers to the seas
The world will be free
Beloved Palestine – Natasha Vally
African Artists Against Apartheid is a group of artists, writers, journalists and cultural workers mobilising for a Free Palestine through Whatsapp. Sign up to join here:
forms.gle/GPGkqQwa6N8kCsYd8