Whistleblower

Today we pay
our own assassins
buy the bullets
that seal lips
and steal memory
drowning sounds
of mourning as howling
politicians hurl prayers
to personal gods
braying, baying
for blood to rewrite
lies in lost lives
Stitching time to bind
gaping wounds
hitching our minds
to history’s tow bar.

Slow drag down
the dirty streets
of that dream
deferred.

September 2021

Everyone in South Africa who is not engaging in corruption is paying for it three times over. Paying taxes, paying privately for services that should be public, paying with their lives.
It is reported that the assassins of Babita Deokaran were paid R2.8 million. A Maverick Citizen investigation revealed that what Deokaran uncovered went far beyond the Gauteng PPE scandal and implicates senior political figures.
In memory of all those murdered for exposing corruption in South Africa, including:
Thandi Mtsweni 2007
Jimmy Mohlala 2009
Moss Phakoe 2009
Sammy Mpatlanyane 2010
Xola Banisi 2013
Sindiso Magaqa 2017
Stanley Khanyile 2020
Teboho Makhoa 2021
Babita Deokaran 2021

This poem, under its original title, Silenced, won second prize in the Unused Futures poetry competition and is included in the lyric video Where is the Justice? featured in the Alchemical Tales Conference convened in 2025 by the University of Cape Town in tribute to Justice Albie Sachs.