2018-07-27Staff Report 2 Born you were a tiny bundle to African peasants of conquered ancestry Born you were in dust and rags, an abode akin to the Savior’s Bethlehem’s stable In the cradle of the oppressive white hand, bended you were, as were your ancestors Yet, destiny penciled your youthfulness on education’s path, from iron-clad servitude forcibly yoked onto millions Tanganyika, you knew not, but it’s call grew irresistibly burdensome, the call of exodus from the oppressive white hand Wisdom and stealth wed, in Augustineum and Walvis Bay, begetting the Way, for the call had to be embraced, dangers lurked everywhere Tanganyika it has to be, Tanganyika it is, Tanganyika it was, for in genesis, Uhuru echoed in the deep recesses of your soul Oh the saccharinity of Lake Tanganyika, its bowels exudes comrades, guns, literature, companionship, the world, for freedom Dar es Salaam, New York, Moscow, Beijing, Havana, Berlin, Lusaka, Luanda, Addis Abba, all at your feet, and so OAU and UN, the world stage for freedom, your feet and soul traversed Youthfulness cast aside, the most astute of the oppressive white tongues confessed, knees bent, to your aged shrewd intellect and logic Like Moses’ your voice lent to God, the oppressive white Pharaohs obliged the people of Namibia drink Uhuru Destiny’s end faded, leadership baton of burdens passed on, debts of borrowed years accrued, the currency of death for passage you had to pay, as all great and small Comrades in soul’s torment, the world in celebration released you, yet one Tanganyika giant, this one, descent from /Uikrens, close to my quintessence, into eternity. As the sun set, on the eve of your epoch’s end, a burdened youth enters the cold grips of fate, about to don the mantle cast aside, of the /Uikrens diplomat * By Moses Pakote in memory of the venerable Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab. 2018-07-27Staff Report 2
