The hijacked blood that screams below the roots of trees of freedom

A tribute to lives never lost

Writing a piece around an event that is in the public eye has never really been my thing perhaps because so much opinion is made public around such and the fight of opinions begin to cloud the core of the event. But also perhaps my difficulty around this piece is anchored on the personal question about my worthiness to write about such giants, but again this is the same reason many sacrificed themselves.

Today as I write this I'm sit in an air conditioned auditorium around the youth that have dreams, goals but most of all opportunities to make all these a reality, a right to be heard and above all a right to live. I write this piece sitting about 10 Km away from where the young people's lives were robbed away from them, a mere 10 km distance from where thunder of blazing guns failed to instil fear in the minds of young lions whose roar was heared across the globe and into the heavens. I sit in a place where the colour of my skin would have prevented me from entering, a place where my only presence would have been as a slave and not an individual who owns his destiny an individual who impacts lives of other young people.

But as I sit here my concentration is called upon by the screams that come from underneath the ground that gives life to the trees of freedom which provides no shade to the poor that burn from the harshness of the one sided economy, the screams that hold strong the roots of trees that bear the fruits of liberation that the people of the land are still yet to taste. The echo of battles for the naming rights of the souls that still lingers over the rivers that fail to satisfy the thirst for true freedom that many will never realise in this lifetime. But what the leaders of today are worried about is who did these young people support, belong to and enjoy membership of, these are the leaders of the same organisations which failed to provide security, guidance and safety to the ranging young lions tired of being bullied around by the bulldogs of the system without humanity.

Today many will celebrate the day, others commemorate it but these are just words from a language that introduced labels such as black, white and savages to define those whose culture they did not understand. The reality is today will be just a day that passes with a lot of noise made, ridiculous speeches and activities, embarrassing drunkenness in school uniforms but no true understanding of the anger, pain and suffering of those that stood infront of the barrel of their oppressor's gun. Today will be another day in the diary of politicians to score political points and credibility, another day for a writer like me to express the frustration of many others that live around them and sadly a day that a mother will remember picking up a bloodied corpse of a 13 years old who was suppose to begin going through a teenage stage of life but had to take a responsibility that their fathers were only too scared face. 

Well this here is not a dedication to the life of those that died for the freedom of others but a tribute to lives that were never lost, a tribute to the souls that resonate in the youth that still fight for the rights of the little man, a tribute to the heroes. #tributetothelivesneverlost