#SantaMustFall!!

Dear Santa

This must really come as a surprise given the number of years since I last believed in the fantasy you are. But seeing that Christmas is not long past and you are still all over the show I thought perhaps I might catch your attention.

You are terribly lucky to be a white old man; if you were black you would have long been killed, worse off if you were in the United States of America. I cannot imagine your kith and kin entertaining the idea of a bulky black old man going down their chimneys, even if it’s to secretly hide presents for their kids.

You are also very lucky that your life was not spent underground, rock drilling in Marikana; given your turbulent schedule over the years I am impressed you can still stand and breathe at ease, no silicosis for you. I am sure if Mambush Noki had his way- like you seem to have – he would have preferred old age after 40 years of earning a mere salary of R12 500.00 rather than the murderous ambush that befell him, thanks to the black-skin-draped buffalo owning former pseudo-unionist. I hope you had something for Noki’s kids this Christmas, 2012 was a hard year for them. I hope this year was better. Also, I hope you didn’t forget the kids of all the black mine workers who were murdered in Marikana.

Santa, I am wondering though if you also gave toys and presents to the kids of those who are sending arms to Burundi, perpetuating a genocide right in front of our eyes. Day in and day out, kids in Burundi are losing parents, siblings and relatives. I am wondering if you had anything for them. Anything that could comfort them and dry their tears. I hope you also had something for the kids at the West Bank standing up to a bigotry army of men determined to wipe them off the face of this planet.  I hope you didn’t give them sweets; I hope you armed them, gave them the courage and strength to stand up and continue to demand justice in their life time.

I will say nothing of Libya, you know it’s a mess right now and I hope you had nothing for the kids of those who started the illegal invasion of Libya and the brutal murder of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. I also hope you had nothing to give the kids of those who supported the UN resolution legalizing aggression where there was no basis for war.

Santa, I am sure you know about the so called “Born Frees“. These kids were promised a rainbow nation dream but a majority of them are languishing in the slums of Alexandra and other apartheid-architectured settlements for black people in the so called South Africa. Their parents marveled at the ability to vote a popular government in place but they only set these kids economically against beneficiaries of years of exploitative labour, plunder, dispossession, land grab and settler-colonial dominance. Their economic freedom was traded for a mansion in Houghton and a prison-replica in Qunu.  I hope you had something for them. Perhaps you will answer their call for a free decolonized education in this country. As you know, fees didn’t fall- only the increase of fees fell; so the kids of domestic workers, petrol attendants, taxi drivers and farm workers are still excluded.

Santa, more than half of the youth in our country are unemployed and I don’t know if you also had presents for them. They have been victims of a failed state, a perpetuation of the apartheid socio-economic marginalization of black people. The future of these young people was sold in Kliptown for expediency and material gain for the elite few. If you gave them anything, I hope it was the will to rise and recapture state power, the courage to reclaim their dignity and the choice to rather die in defense of their freedom which is now gripped in the hands of a few handpicked blacks and the white monopoly capital. I hope you opened their eyes, it is due time they see that the ballot changed vokol for them and their parents- except to make them complicit in their dispossession and to legitimize the theft of their land. Santa, I hope you gave them the courage to rise, and give them each the hearts of the miners that fell in Marikana face to face with white monopoly capital and its state captains.

Santa this is getting too long, unintended. But one more thing Santa… its time you fell and got buried from society’s consciousness. You have been nothing but a farce, even Christ the subject of Christmas day had nothing to do with you. To our people you have been a messenger of doom, a reseller of false hope. Instead of giving our people prosperity you have drowned them in debts so that your alter ego and your kith and kin white monopoly capital could be serviced. if you gave the kids in Burundi nothing, if you gave the kids in Gaza and the West Bank nothing, if you gave the kids of those slain in Marikana nothing, if you gave nothing to the kids of those who fell in Sirte and other parts of Libya, if you gave nothing to the kids of those who are falling in war infested countries everyday, at least Santa give us this, Fall!!

Still landless and disposed.

dzumbu