Back to the front

No more heckling at the back

No more ranting in the dark

No more pontificating from a distance

No more writing behind the scenes

No more analysis after the fact

No more paralysis by the facts

From now on we will regain

Our voices and reclaim the streets

We will control the schools

& takeover the farms & factories

We will run the city

Our poets and artists

Will write new songs

& give the nation

New symbols of hope

Worker and student

The red and the green

Together as one

We hearken to the call

To the front, comrades

No more slinking behind slogans

No more hiding in rhetoric

No more fighting over jargon

No more arguing over diction

No more debating accent

No more conflict over terminology

The earth is diminishing

The people are dying

We are called to the rescue

The call is out my people

To the front

No more children schooling

Under trees, the bush their loo

No more open toilets

& concrete slabs for houses

No more choking air & dummy foods

No children suckling thumbs for breasts

No more girls fearing the night

No more boys devoted to machineguns

No more adults chasing their shadows

No more frowning in the toilet

Emerging out with a smile

Knees on the ground

Hat in the air

This time we swear

Enough of hot air

From now on we will air

The boiling fury

Hidden in the eerie melodies

Hummed at the backyards

Of backyard dwellings

The call is out

Worker and student

Peasant and proletariat

Unemployed, employed and underemployed

Agnostic, atheist & gnostic

Red and green

Villager and township dweller

"Organize &mobilise, educate to liberate

Free the mind to free the land

Learn & Teach"

It's you who created

The dynamic slogans

Powerful symbols and songs

That carried the nation

Through years of struggle

"Burry division & build unity

Divided we fall, United we stand

An injury to one, is an injury to all"

It's you who will

Through action and struggle

Creative thought and imaginative thinking

Build the democratic left front

Create new slogans and songs

New platforms and new values

To guide us to the egalitarian society

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a cultural worker and social critic.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.