Africa A Cemetery Poem by Phillip Nine Mafunga

I do not have a proper formal education as in education
And yet I am educated as in being educated to know my left hand from my right
We get schooled on the continent and then run to use the skills elsewhere outside
Could it be that what we are taught here is not good for the continent?
Maybe the Russian president was right after all
Could this be contemporary intellectual slave trade?

I hear you Minister of Garbage, Emmanuel Botalatala
Your grief is my grief and your sorrow mine too
Our skilled sons and daughters return home in the cargo section of the plane
Guns and war tanks in our streets and yet we manufacture none
For our resources we are made to kill each other with weapons we do not make
They are made in the countries that have eaten all our sharp brains for decades

I agree with you Minister Botalatala for our continent has become a cemetery indeed
We who remain on we are here to look after our ancestors' graves
We are here to be used as cheap labour by those with whose guns we kill ourselves
We are to watch them strip our land bare of all that matter to us
Yes, I hear you minister, I hear you perfectly well
From Marrakesh to Cape Town, Freetown to Djibout, a massive cemetery!

Phillip Nine Mafunga
24 September 2019