I am a child of war, misery, anger and suffering.
I grew up with sadness, uncertainty and anxiety.
I took refuge in solitude to avoid human bestiality and its hypocrisy.
My distress illuminated the darkness of my weaknesses.
I am forged in the burning furnaces of struggle and survival.
In my veins flows the impure blood of slaves, riflemen and resistance fighters.
My gaze carries the weight of the pain of my color and the age-old injustices of my oppressed people throughout the Earth.
My persecuted skin is the cemetery of the scars of battles, trials and sacrifices of my ancestors dehumanized by supremacist slave traders and racialist colonialists.
I am the bitter fruit of a continent nourished by fratricidal conflicts, genocides, civil wars, coups d'état, dictatorial excesses, tribal hatred, treachery, corruption and neocolonial stratagems.
My memories are horrible nightmares, broken fragments of all the horrors my eyes have seen.
My mind is a battlefield where truth, justice, liberty, equality and fraternity are expressed without hindrance.
Firecracker - a paper or cardboard cylinder filled with an explosive and having a fuse, for discharging to make a noise.
Firethe Southern sergeant shouts to the boys behind him
In unison, we live or die together, light the fuse. The enemy
Rises up from behind a rocky outcropping
Effectively blocking the allied advance. Shrapnel
Crescendos from the jeeps in the rear, cutting down
Riflemen not killed instantly by the attack.
Another night passes, nightmares replay the
Carnage of a war un-won, I see the bodies of friends
Killed in the name of God. Every dead man
Earnestly left life not knowing if
Right was truly in their
Side.
REMEMBER RUBEN
Sons of peasants
Insolent and craving
For Grandeur, nay for
Moneys
Trampling to death,
Proud, oh! Too proud
To see death beside
Just waiting the
Hour.
Sons of
Officers and officials
Pale, empty, worldly
Certificates at shaky hand
Oubliettes, wine and whores
They prefer to our flags
And behind they lag, rank
Commandoes
Devouring and
Devoured
Forgetting the killing
Diseases
Aids!
Senegalese riflemen
Chadians of early sacrifices
Heroes of the resistance
Past warriors
Who for freedom died
Here or there
Remember Ruben,
Ouandié Ernest
Manga Bell
Martin Paul Samba
Félix Roland Moumié
Njoya
Ahidjo
Who said that these
Were not brave?
Let new heroes emerge
From the North
In Fotokol
And Kolofata
Let heroes come home
Singing our national anthem
O thou land of our fathers!
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