A MEDITATION ON SOUTH AFRICAN CITIZENSHIP

A magnificent poem capturing the horrific shock and despair at the xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban:

If being a South African means beating on the red door of a shack and demanding to see a green identity book – the dompas of citizenship, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means dragging a woman into the road to push up her skirt and drive my boot between her legs, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means sharpening my machete to split the skull of a man returning home from work, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means ripping an infant from the swaddling on its mother’s back to spit in its face wizened by terror, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means dropping concrete blocks on that mother’s head until it bursts like a ripe watermelon on the dry dust of my street, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means arrogating the roles of policeman, prosecutor, judge and executioner, then I am a foreigner.

If being a South African means hanging over my garden fence and watching the smooth skin of a man blister as he burns a live, then I am a foreigner.

For that skin was an infant’s once, caressed by a mother’s marvelling hand.

That skins is a man’s, and a lover’s hand passed over it, marvelling at its smoothness. That skin is a father’s, reached for in the night by a child afraid of the dark.

That burning skin was a man’s and if being a South African means I cannot feel that skin as my own

Then I am a foreigner.

-- Margie Orford, South African poet and author