To What Degree (Will We Force You)

To what degree
will we force you
to be a part of the new
Azania that is here
(can you feel it)
 
To what degree
will we force you
to graduate in the way
we want you to
(literate and numerate)
 
To what degree
will we force you
on your life’s journey
through your ivory tower
(spare the rod and spoil)
 
To what degree
will we force you
to learn another language
in the name of nation-building
(you of very little patriotism)
 
May the force take custody
of you and rote-learn you
you cussing, spitting, littering
smoking and drinking graduate
(from your cradle too)
 
May the force
of our comrade-minister
open the corners of your mind
and drag you fluently
into a better life for us all

Our well-meaning red-tie Higher Education Minister goes all indigenous, all in the name of nation-building. See Max Du Preez’s Pale Native column – “Open your mind to speaking diversity” (Cape Times, 12 April 2011); and at least 1 violent response to it in the form of a Letter to the Editor, headed “Insulting language” (Cape Times, 13 April 2011), which concludes ‘Du Preez decided to take a break from singing Madame Zille’s praises …. harping for the return of apartheid and colonialism through DA rule’.
 
David Kapp, david_kapp@yahoo.com