Africa! Birth you gave to beauty.
Son of a gun, are the beautiful ones —
Africa! — in tears of blood over your sons’
slaying each other cold-bloodedly.
Africa! Oh, the bleeding carcass now.
Youth taste not sweet youth
but like innocent old men they strangle
and are trigger-happy like strangers.
Son of a gun, it is a gun you hold in
Ethiopia, Angola, Eritrea, Algeria...
Egypt!
Son of a gun, what have you chosen:
the law or the gun, the light or the darkness?
Son of a gun, what have you chosen:
hope or despair, to live or to die?
Son of a gun, is it the past or the future?
Blood spiralling everywhere, kith and kin.
Like water it waters and quenches thirst
of trees and grass, crops and animals’ tastes.
Just look at what they are muck-wrecking in
Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sahrawi, Lesotho...
Somalia!
Africa! What hope of no war?
What safe haven have we left?
Africa! What peace is still left
when your soul wears away every day?
Africa! What is truly yours now?
Oppression, ruthlessness, extermination
gun-toting, blood-thirsty, in berserk
a mayhem for power and pounds’ sake.
Behold the maddening self-destruction in
Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Senegal...
Burundi!
Son of a gun, you have destroyed everything.
At whose flesh will your gun be pointed?
Son of a gun, what else will you destroy?
At whose head will your gun be pointed?
Son of a gun, it will be pointed at your head.
Death and sorrow are Africa’s history.
Warring and killing is Africa today.
What will our sons inherit tomorrow?
What grains have we harvested in
The Congos, Gambia, Chad, Namibia...
Zimbabwe?
Africa! Now ravaged endlessly by
famine, disease, poverty, despair.
Africa! What then must we do?
Live and work together harmoniously,
Africa! It is the only hope we have.
