AFRICA CENTRE OF THE WORLD

Africa the land of my birth
where my heart beat first
where I breathed my first breath,
words are inadequate to describe your beauty
but few of mankind believe in your deity,
my heart bleeds when I think of injustices past and present
the Diaspora of your children, their enslavement you couldn't prevent,
the racial relegation
the spiritual emasculation,
the methodical colonization
the never ending subjugation

When will the children of Africa arise?
when will they unite? when will they realize?
when will they cast away the feelings of inferiority?
when will they be rid of this cursed mentality?

Maybe in a decade's time
maybe in half a century,
maybe never in my lifetime
but surely, it must happen eventually,
the emancipation of Africa's children
is as sure as the rising and setting of the sun,
as sure as night and day
as sure as black and white is gray

The whole world should listen to these lines
because Africa's children will soon arise,
I say what I mean, I mean what I say
these are words I speak with pride every single day

I yearn earnestly for that glorious awakening
when conflict and strife become relics of a forgotten time
when a coup is nothing but a capital crime
successful or not, is punishable by a public killing,
when famine is just a word in the dictionary
when ethnic tolerance is not extra-ordinary,
when all whose origins are African
become united with their kith and kin,
when they see through western propaganda
and realize the true splendor of Africa
the beauty of their heritage
that has been maligned through the ages,
the time will come, believe me, I'm sure
I see it, clear as the visions that Ifa sees

One Black Love

Ras Benjamine