lost and found

I wondered through Glasgow today, catching up with some lovely people but also feeling horribly lost. Disillusioned by rampant consumerism, confused by the image of 'Africa' being propogated by fundraisers who acost me in the street. I look slightly deranged in the bookshop, until a glint appears in my eye at the sight of a South African flag on a book cover. I open it and stop myself from crying as I read:

New Year in Cape Town

David Nicol

It is hogmanay and holidaymakers head back to the city
from beaches at Muizenberg, St James and Noordhoek bay.
In the evening beneath Table Mountain we gather
in Kirstenbosch Gardens, where we sit in the amphitheatre
of a sloping lawn enclosed by trees and aloes to hear
the Cape Town Philharmonic, and Yvonne Chaka Chaka
sings Motherland. Thousands of hand held candles light
the cooling darkness at midnight.

Here they are singing Auld Land Syne with a zed in the syne.
Nobody seems to know of Robert Burns. And new year comes
hot on the heels of midsummer. Orion is upside down in the sky.
We have moved beyond dreams and this rainbow nation
dances to salsa music on the lawn; the wind of change
is balmy and strong enough to make candles flicker.
In another part of town the police appeal to the public
to not carry guns at parties.

Soon Tweede Neu Jarre will mark the one day of the year
when slaves could walk free from their labour. The minstrel bands
will play through city streets, where stalls advertise Halal Boerwors,
where security fences seperate performer from spectator;
as commerce divides participant from consumer the world over;
(in Edinburgh Hogmanay was cancelled - the Cape Times reports
- a man is in trouble for getting too chummy with sharks)
as cameras turn celebration
into mass entertainment and tv ratings.

In the museums people are claiming their own space
in history; they are talking about restitution, planning
to rebuild the streets of District Six that were cleared
in the name of apartheid. In community projects they are
photographing poverty, bodymapping AIDS.
And you wonder at times when you drive
past Khayelitsha township and the squatter camps,
what kind of flame is burning there?

Beyond the words of tour guides (free to speak
of their captivity at the visitor centre on Robben Island)
those who continue to struggle are counselled
to 'Carry it lightly.' Reconciliation
is for the generous hearted. Justice is for the full bellied.
And truth is for those who lived through the night in dread
of police raid and torture cell. But how many daughters and sons
are happy to live by their parents' bond?

I remember the television images of Mandela walking free,
and the crowds queuing to vote in 1994. I recall
the Sharpeville Six, and the words of Mandela
imprisoned, the songs of Hamish Henderson,
and the slogans of the ANC. I marched among thirty thousand
to Glasgow Green. I remember the promises we made singing
the words of the Freedom Charter. Forward we will march
to the People's Government.

There is a song to keep singing, for the freedom fighters
who are building communities, educating the children, healing
the sick. Freedom is coming.

......

I find myself again, fall back into my own body, I am at ease.