Sharpeville
What is important
about Sharpeville
is not that seventy died:
nor even that they were shot in the back
retreating, unarmed, defenseless.
And certainly not
the heavy caliber slug
that tore through a mother’s back
and ripped through the child in her arms,
killing it.
Remember Sharpeville:
bullet-in-the-back day.
Because it epitomized oppression
and the nature of society
more clearly than anything else;
it was the classic event.
Nowhere is racial dominance
more clearly defined,
nowhere the will to oppress
more clearly demonstrated.
What the world whispers,
apartheid declares with snarling guns.
The blood the rich lust after,
South Africa spills in the dust.
Remember Sharpeville.
Remember bullet-in-the-back day.
And remember the unquenchable will for freedom.
Remember the dead
and be glad.
1973
Dennis:
"While at Northwestern University in 1973, I was invited to Madison to speak at an anti-apartheid rally at the University of Wisconsin. Unable to go, I sent this poem instead. I said, at the end, 'be glad' — to honor those who sacrificed, for their willingness to engage in civil disobedience, burning their passbooks. On March 21, 1960, at Green Street in the Port Elizabeth city centre, we had a meeting of radical teachers (Teachers League of South Africa), and afterwards, we listened to the radio and were shocked to hear live reports coming from Sharpeville, reports of the killing of unarmed people in a protest at the ghetto called Sharpeville — named after the supervisor, Mr. Sharpe. It was at that moment, I believe, that I understood very clearly that the government would be willing to kill in order to stay in power. And we who opposed the government stood a fair chance of being killed. It was also at that moment that I decided that I was committed to the struggle and that I would, if necessary, die in the cause of liberation: 'Freedom or Death.' It was a very simple resolve."
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