(Reloaded Version)
"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate in to the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death...We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process. Ultimately, you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree...The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. It seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue.Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers...When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love.Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice." ---Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mother AFRICA… there is FIRE on the mountain!
Not the sacred fire of renewal,
But a ravenous tongue of rage
Licking the bones of her own children.
We are no longer at ease with one another.
The drumbeat of brotherhood has faltered,
Replaced by the hollow clang
Of suspicion and sharpened breath.
Shall we let go?
Fold our arms into silence
And watch the sky cave in on us,
While the centre bleeds into dust?
Must we rise at dawn,
Ride the famished wings of time,
To mend what we have broken...
Or remain locked in this suffocating chamber
Where humanity gasps for air?
We stagger...broken but breathing,
Gathering fragments of a destiny we ourselves shattered...
Like potters of ruin,
We cradle cracked vessels
And call them survival.
Our limbs, withered testimonies,
Tremble between memory and mourning.
We breathe, yes!
But not to poison the sacred air
That once carried songs of unity.
Yet we have forgotten how to heal.
From bones bent by greed and governance gone blind,
We have forged weapons of division,
Sharpened by decades of arrogance,
Fed by the rot of misrule.
Their indifference, cold and calculated,
Paved our streets with hunger,
Draped our nights in poverty,
And taught our children the language of hatred.
And now,
From this wounded womb of neglect,
Is born XENO, son of PHOBIA,
Baptized in FIRE,
Feasting on flesh that mirrors his own.
Were our hearts always this hardened?
Did we not rise together once,
When healing knocked at our battered doors?
We stood as one
When the shadow of EBOLA darkened our skies...
Our collective will, a shield of defiance.
We shattered the chains of APARTHEID,
Thread by thread,
With the stubborn courage of hope.
We dared to dream beyond the verdicts
Of foreign prophets of doom,
Who scripted our end before our beginning.
But joy,
Ah, joy is a fragile bird!
It sings… then shatters mid-flight.
And now we crawl,
Limbs trembling beneath the weight of betrayal,
As we flee from the very hands
That should have held us.
Oh Mother AFRICA...there is fire on the mountain!
Not from strangers,
But from the fury of her own BLOOD.
We are no longer at ease with one another,
The mirror has become our enemy.
Shall we remain still...
Silent witnesses to our own undoing?
Or will we rise,
Before the ashes forget our names?
Must we awaken at dawn,
Ride time like a storm,
To rewrite this broken story...?
Or forever dwell in this room called HELL,
Where brother hunts brother,
And home becomes exile?
--- Prince Adeola Goloba
First writen: Tuesday April 28, 2015 - 3:11am,
Reloaded: Tuesday May 12, 2026 - 8:53am,
Ejigbo, Lagos Nigeria.
Author’s Reflection:
“Shall We Let Go?” is a searing reflection on xenophobia as a tragic manifestation of internalized division, where Africans, shaped by the lingering shadows of colonialism and neocolonial manipulation, turn inherited wounds against one another in cycles of fear, blame, and violence. It exposes the painful irony of a continent that once stood united against oppression now fracturing from within, weakened by systemic failures, economic hardship, and distorted identities. In the spirit of Africa Day, this piece stands as both a mirror and a mandate: a mirror reflecting how far we have drifted from the ideals of unity, dignity, and the shared pains, sufferings, sacrifices, perseverance, resilience, and collective destiny exemplified by the legacies of our forebears; and a mandate calling us back to that higher consciousness. It reminds us that while our borders were imposed, the blood shed within them is ours to answer for, and that true liberation must move beyond political independence toward a deliberate reclamation of solidarity, humanity, and common purpose.
I wrote this poem from a place of deep anguish and urgency, troubled not only by the recurring violence against African migrants, but by the deafening silence that enables it. And that is the quiet complicity of our leadership, the indifference of our institutions, and the normalization of division among a people bound by history and struggle. Yet, beneath this grief lies an unshaken belief in Africa’s enduring strength and capacity for renewal. This poem is dedicated to all the victims of xenophobic attacks in South Africa; the injured, the dead, and the fortunate survivors, young and old, including the physically challenged, whose pain must never be reduced to statistics or forgotten in passing headlines. This is my offering to our collective conscience: a plea for remembrance, a call to unity, and a firm reminder that Africa cannot rise if she continues to war against herself, but can still heal, rebuild, and thrive if she rediscovers the power of brotherhood and shared destiny that bounded us together from the very beginning.
@Prince Adeola Goloba2026
