Fancies idle (iii) – Peter Abraham

Following my blog post on Lonmin and the horror story of the miners in South Africa, here’s a poem by Peter Abrahams from 1938 from ‘You Better Believe It: Black Verse in English’, published by Penguin. Abrahams, says the editor, “served as publicity secretary to the Fifth Pan-African Congress” in 1945 – led by the likes of George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. Born in South Africa to Ethiopian father and ‘Cape-coloured mother’, he lived in England after the war, where he had “An astonishingly creative decade”. After that he moved to Jamaica. Here is the poem:

Lonmin, slavery and normality

So I met some people who work in finance. Work hard, get some money and then get out. Maybe even before 45. Support your family. Etc. Then I read the story about Lonmin (London Mining, gettit?). And I thought, ‘but what would you be investing and trading in while you earn that money?’

If you missed the story – it’s all on the Guardian website. Platinum miners in South Africa go on strike, demanding a threefold increase in their £300-a-month wages. Bosses don’t want this to happen. Fight with some scabs and police leave 2 police and 8 other people dead. Later, police kill 34 and arrest 259.

In light of the tragedy, President Zuma declares national mourning (desperate to keep up his ratings?) and Lonmin in an unprecedented act of capitalist generosity give the strikers one more day to decide that they should give up and go back to work / get sacked. It’s a free world, guys!