As Previously Advantaged, Now Disadvantaged
we are humbly sorry that our ancestors
sailed with ships from Europe
to discover other continents,
putting their intelligence and advanced
technology into good practice,
discovering the Cape of Good Hope
and developing this country
to the best of their ability and knowledge
while your ancestors migrated from the big lakes
in central Africa, under chief Dlamini
from eMbo killing the other local inhabitants
as far as they were going,
even wiping them out after they had settled.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took you from the bush, tried to teach you
Christian values and a Christian religion,
instead of worshiping to ancestral spirits,
dead stones of which you believe the silence
have greater meaning and more depth
than any other teachings,
tried to teach you to earn a living
by planting crops, maintaining and herding cattle
instead of pillaging, robbing and killing others,
instead of trapping, killing animals,
with sticks, stones and iron spears.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
took the wild bush as pioneers
planned and developed
farms, towns and cities, mines, factories,
the infrastructure that are in them,
developed water resources,
electrical powering and laid railway lines,
developed the roads,
the harbors and airports that link them
to each other and the rest of the wide world,
which you now view as belonging to you,
to at your discretion take over by force
from the people to whom they did belong,
to rob, kill and pillage property
to rename airports, harbors, streets,
towns and cities at your own discretion.
We are humbly sorry that our ancestors
after fighting victoriously against yours
at Blood River and in other wars and battles
respected you as people living in this country,
did not like the Americans and Australians
go out to wipe you out of the country,
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
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