Grocott’s Mail has acquired two previously unpublished poems, written by poet and social activist Dennis Brutus in the months before he died.
When Brutus received an honorary Doctorate of Literature from Rhodes University in 2009, his acceptance speech must have raised a few eyebrows. Instead of the traditional advice to graduates, Brutus used his time to advocate that the university change its name to honour Xhosa chief Makana. He went on to criticise the institution’s namesake, Cecil Rhodes, as “one of the great empire-builders, responsible for more looting of African resources, geopolitical chaos, destruction of indigenous culture and durable white racism than any other settler in history”.
Grocott’s Mail has acquired two previously unpublished poems, written by poet and social activist Dennis Brutus in the months before he died.
When Brutus received an honorary Doctorate of Literature from Rhodes University in 2009, his acceptance speech must have raised a few eyebrows. Instead of the traditional advice to graduates, Brutus used his time to advocate that the university change its name to honour Xhosa chief Makana. He went on to criticise the institution’s namesake, Cecil Rhodes, as “one of the great empire-builders, responsible for more looting of African resources, geopolitical chaos, destruction of indigenous culture and durable white racism than any other settler in history”.
Brutus made a point of acknowledging that he felt honoured to receive a degree from the school, despite its name, and dignitaries certainly cannot say they didn’t see it coming: in his introduction, Professor Paul Maylam spoke of Brutus in the same breath as world-famous struggle poets Pablo Neruda, Leopold Senghor and Aime Cesaire.
Throughout his career, Brutus was devoted to the cause of desegregation. Perhaps his most famous involvement was with the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, which successfully led to the country’s ban from all Olympic Games between 1964 and 1991.
Brutus learned of this ban while serving time on Robben Island, where he spent 18 months in the cell next to Nelson Mandela’s.
After apartheid, his activist instincts led him to speak out against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, and the Iraq war. His friend Claudia Martinez-Mullen recalled: “His genuine spirit always found the courage to defend as a tiger those who were the unprivileged of our society, wherever he was.”
Brutus died on 26 December 2009, at the age of 85.
In the following poems, written by him in the months before he died, his passion for social justice is evident, as is his optimism that it is not too late for humanity to change for the better.
Guernica, Shatila, Sharpeville, Gaza
Horror is all around us:
Death, destruction, mashed corpses,
It is all around us; commonplace
Astonishing, humanity erupts
Such virulent excess against humanity
There is no limit to our ingenuity
In the service of torture carnage;
Astonishingly, too, we have levels
Of pity, mercy, goodness:
We can find ways to heal wounds
Devices to repair injury;
Miraculously, somewhere, we have compassion.
-Undated
****
Behaviour
“There is a season” we sang
And our hopes ran high
Our voices rang clear
Like bells in frosty air
There is a time to live
And a time to die
A time to hope
And a time to despair
And a time to survive
To survive, to survive
And a time to survive.
-July 5, 2009 (Parklands Hospital, Durban)
