Mandela, Forgive Us
Mandela, forgive us—
When Robben Island set you free after twenty-seven winters,
You stepped into sunlight and showed us the way.
You taught us peace when the world expected vengeance,
You offered us hope when our hearts were torn.
Your vision was a land reborn,
A South Africa dignified,
A rainbow nation rising beyond its past.
You told us to do better—
But oh, how far we've fallen.
If you were to walk again from the graveyard of heroes,
To look upon the nation you gave your life for,
You would weep like the sky in mourning.
This South Africa is dying.
The dreams you planted have withered.
The leaders you trusted have become wolves in silk suits,
Turning the country into a mafia state,
Where justice sleeps and corruption walks in daylight.
Ramaphosa dances with criminals beneath city lights,
While Zuma auctioned the soul of the republic
To foreign mafias with golden tongues.
The Guptas carved their empire in our wounds.
What’s left now are broken promises,
Scattered like ashes over Soweto’s streets.
HIV and AIDS rage like a wildfire unchecked,
And poverty no longer knocks—it lives here,
In every broken home, every hungry child.
Your children, once promised a dawn of dignity,
Now live beneath a sky of despair,
Their dreams dying in the gutters.
Infrastructure crumbles.
Institutions rot.
And the beauty that was once Africa’s pride
Is mocked by the world’s silent scorn.
Mandela, please—
Speak again from the silence of eternity.
Shake the bones of this sleeping nation.
Remind your children of the price you paid—
Of the chains you wore,
The blood you bled,
The love you gave.
Forgive us, Tata.
We have betrayed your sacrifice.
Copyright ©
Chanda Katonga
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