Written piece
The Land is Sold
Moneilweng Patience Khantsi
South Africa
About this piece
This poem resulted in what I've observed in my community. Foreigners systematically taking control of those who are less fortunate. Offering them food in their Mosques, and not only to help fight hunger, but to reproduce and take advantage of women who can't feed their children.
As I'm standing at my doorstep
Looking at figures passing by
In a blessed Sunday morning
A day when souls remember to visit the house of the Lord!
I'm standing here scouting
Familiar faces wearing foreign clothes,
Women's heads covered with Muslim hijabs
Children following with mugs and plates,
Visiting the mosque of the foreign god.
Then I wondered...
Are these headwraps worn to cover the shame of hunger, or worn to join the Islamic customs?
Is this the strike of poverty?
Or true worship to the god of Abraham?
Who to be blamed? Hunger or foreigners?
Government, unemployment or poverty-striken communities?
Women, mothers, or those who fend for their children's empty stomachs?
Then I wondered!
Where are the fathers of these children?
Are these children products of hunger?
Or the results of dining in Islamic Mosques?
Did these women sell their lands? Or are the foreigners trading food with our land?
Then I conclude...
Food can be a token of good or bad.
A ticket to one's stomach or one's land.
It can be a bait to rip lands from women, or bait to win the land from its natives.
While men are still asleep, the land is sold.