need to extract a guarantee for life within the domain of a subordinated group. In other
words, their departure can be gleaned as a guarantee for life and freedom for those that
would be left behind in the post-struggle era. Their death thus ramifies both possibilities.
Moreover, their passage must be remembered and mourned in the era of freedom,
precisely because of the sacrificial and redemptive cause it charted for the overthrow of a
social order made despicable by imperialist and racial abstractions and sentiments.
The first figure of remembrance is Jabu. He has, in an indefinite way, been introduced at
the end of the first part of the poem, and the tragedy of his liberation adventure has been
conveyed by the analogy of “dead meat” in this closing part of the poem. The subsequent
mention of his name leads us head on into his involvement in the struggle. Having
prioritized the struggle above his family, even his wife at a point had to learn “to use the
guns and grenades” (10). Such was the life led by Jabu and his wife Fikile. It thus
becomes understandable why the poet observes that he will miss these friends claimed by
the struggle “the way i would miss life when i am dead” (10). Needles to say, the couple
thus predeceased their minor offspring and left a long threnody to define their growing
years. Similar to this is the fate of another couple of passionate young lovers: Thule and
Thuli. The passions and emotions that went with the killing of the husband Thule remains
a point that cannot be glossed over. For he was not just killed: “they killed him one early
morning/ and left the back of his head empty” (10). The horror of the act is undeniable;
how then does one sweep this underground? Another victim in line is Vusi. The
dramatization of his victimhood is significant:
he fell at the border one day
in a battle
without a grave he lies
somewhere on the road from Gaborone or Lobatse
at the border
when you go on holiday across the border
please
don’t break his bones
don’t spill his blood
don’t wound his soul. (15-16)If Vusi’s fate was pathetic, Thabo and Dikeledi’s was even more so. Their space of
struggle as a couple is “a foreign land”, yet the repression of apartheid catches up with