Wait, don’t read between the lines…
It is the pregnant pauses between the words that hides the lies that you turn your face from and call victimless crimes
It is the raised fist in solidarity and that mispronounced title, “comrade” that allows you to say “okay but at least he bathed” and forget all the mess he made.
So let’s rise from our chairs and shout out “BUA”
Let’s dance and sing alluta continua while we pretend it is not we who are the losers because with some water in the morning, we can bare the hangover, run over to church, step in line and chant hallelujah!
NO!! NOT THAT?! because it’s the third time I called you a slave. Everything matters except that you’re black! I hope it’s not lost on you but NO!! NOT THAT!
Let’s all take a collective spit on the dead who took the spear to their necks, chests and heads and in one drunken voice say FUCK UHURU at least one of us is eating THAT’S UBUNTU
One day we will realise they were never victimless crimes but the choked out voices of the victims without faces and that struggle songs were nothing more than meaningless jingles
When we wear guns around our necks like jewellery and our lives are nothing but death and war…. hold up a mirror
For It is you who read between the lines
It is you who called them victimless crimes
By Tiro Makhudu
Tiro Makhudu is an aspiring writer who has written for several local television productions and a voice screaming the narrative that needs to be heard with no one willing it to tell it. With an unapologetic, no nonsense approach, Tiro holds no punches and purports to wake the spirit of his fellow man with the belief that that woke spirit will translate into a sharp and pro-African weapon of a mind that will deliver the African from his mind, body and soul penitentiary. An Africanist through and through and all round social commentator, Tiroseeks to plant his tiny seedlings in the landscape of the discourse that will one day give rise to the brightest Africa that the winds of change and hands of time will allow
