Shame on Them

I am because we are -- the essence of being human.
Where is the spirit of ubuntu, or humanity in Africa?

I am disappointed and disillusioned by the actions
Of charlatans and liars and cowards and distorters.

The old French proverb says: there is no pillow
So soft as a clear conscience. Where is conscience?

Where is conscience in the utterances and lectures
That celebrate brutality, genocide, bias and fascism?

That glorify plunder, redundancy, decay, destruction?
That celebrate an antithesis of love, life, the rule of law?

When man's inhumanity to man is condoned, praised --
That's not only an act of hypocrisy, that's beastliness!

I am dismayed by the antics of some opposition parties,
The so-called contemporary and past African statesmen --

Their sudden U-turns, utterances in robes of expediency --
Their pronouncements, pontification -- are all a revelation

Talk of unashamed flip-floppers, toadies, cronies, populists --
Who say good things about evilness, who sterilize like antidotes!

Africa, know them for who they are -- cowards and chameleons
When they talk of revolutions know that these are mere illusions!

What everyone knew as repression, they eulogize as liberation
Disgrace as legacy, enslavement as enablement -- shame on them!