The Second Dispossession

First came the strangers, with maps and flags

Invasive, like ants to a feast

In wonder, they gazed upon our land–

Wide, wild, untouched by fence or boundary

Where man, bird and beast roamed free

Each belonging to no one but themselves

So they called us headless. 

We, whose spirits birthed kingdoms?

Preposterous!

And with swift strokes of the mighty pen,

Lines were drawn across our lives and hearts. 

As bloodless as it was brutal, it reads:

"We hereby claim this land for Her Majesty the Queen!"

 

But our fathers arose,

And fought and bled and won it back

But when the invading flags were lowered,

New masters emerged from among us:

Big men, genteel ladies, pot-bellied tycoons, 

Chiefs, or is it 'thiefs'? We know not,

Multinational looters and robbers in suits,

and the political crooks behind them.

"The land does not belong to us; we belong to it,

It cannot be sold"! Our fathers said,

Now they grieve in their graves, while

Red signs on whiteboards

Declare our final doom:

“KEEP OFF!

PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING!” 

 

All over the land, the signs stand tall.

Stiff and silent, yet loud in command.

Like sentinels on stolen soil. 

From the Black Volta westward

To the slave defence wall

and eastward to the crocodile ponds, 

No inch is spared.

Community lands. Ancestral lands.   

Sacred grooves. Riverbanks. Farmlands.

All swallowed by the potbellies of our leaders.

 

Every village, every path,

Every field once caressed by calloused hands

Now lies behind barbed borders,

Preserved not for the people,

But for profit.

Only the silent sentinels loudly

Proclaim the evil deed;

“Keep off!

Property of Looters International Ltd

Trespassers will be shot, survivors shot again!” 

 

 

The second dispossession alas! 

A traitorous cancer from within,

more deadly than the first.

Keep off here,

Keep off there,  

Keep off everywhere, 

Nowhere to plant a crop

Nowhere to lay our heads

No place left  

even for our dead to rest.