A Biko manifesto for the ages:
Black man you are on your own
In your own unmarked unknown grave
In your own land you do not own
With your own hands you own but lend to owners
With a job only to own bread
With the yield of your hand being owned
Forbid them to own your Black mind too
Black Token
Black man you died on your own
Only the Black skeleton is left
Your skin:
Baton-beaten,
Rope-ringfenced,
Gun-gashed,
Dog bite-dug,
Torture-torn,
Whip-whittled,
By slavery, coloniality, Apartheid, and continued oppression
Your skin skinned by old and new cacophonies of violence
Your skeleton — a witness to timeless tragedies befalling your skin
Sunny Africa
Rising in the Eastern Cape,
to awaken Biko’s consciousness
Setting in West Africa’s Ghana,
where Nkrumah settles for African unity
It heats the ripe red soil,
That warmly blankets sleeping souls,
Of Lumumba, Mandela and Nyerere
The Sun is African
Diliza L. Madikiza lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has published his work in various literary journals in South Africa and the UK. He has worked in the media and communications professions and, more recently, has been a lecturer at the University of South Africa in Communication Studies.
the Decolonial Passage 