And I know that all human beings are born equal and free:
It's in the declaration of rights, look it's easy to see
How good this freedom would be.
While I'm spitting rhymes, others are bleeding for peace.
In Cambodia, some peeps against the Vietnamese:
Seen racial tendencies evolve into a real disease,
And I'm sick of it – all this hate is dissonance;
And even though I'm not the first one to have written it,
Or to have witnessed it..
I still believe that my voice will make a difference
In the battle against the blissfulness of ignorance,
It's insidious, and I will keep on insisting this.
So shift your focus to the people of South Africa.
Fifteen years gone the racism's still bad enough,
And I've had enough.
It seems this country will always be disaster run.
One white student kills four blacks, and that's the news.
It's commonplace for a student to want to blast his school.
I heard the victims of this violence getting silenced, and this fact is true,
The blacks are few, and there's racism from the highest all the way down back to youth.
And I got your back if you're looking out for theirs.
Held down by ignorance as if life was fair.
We got nothing, if we aren't unified:
Band together the ideas in our student minds.
Useless lies told that suppress the minority;
We need to protest if only for the weak.
Forget the order we will write our own story.
Stand up or fall down, drown in a sore defeat.
Stand up or fall down, stand up or fall down,
While the record goes round, stand up or fall down.
Stand up or fall down, stand up or fall down,
While the record goes round, let the whole town know that it's done.
It's post-apartheid; still half of blacks are unemployed;
This attitude of apathy needs to be destroyed.
There's an unspoken rule that they won't verbalize,
Suppress the victims and tell them they deserve to die.
And I'm sure that while a couple of us speak out,
We'll see some changes, break from chains, the weak out.
Defeat doubt from tutorials to real life.
It's hard to go from Galtung to feeling strife.
If we're to beat this fight, I encourage everyone's ready son,
Regardless of whether black or white to refuse the sight
of a breach of their human rights.
Together we stand, divided we will lose the fight!
And if we choose to fight the people who refute their rights,
Sometimes it seems there's no stopping short of suicide, while other's soon to die
Apathetic people still refuse to see through the lies,
While victims getting brutalized anticipating future cries.
Let's fill their future lives potentially with bluer skies,
And grant them back their rights, despite the lack of food to buy.
And as a student I declare a solidarity in
Action that's bigger than just you and I…
"I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit". – Miriam Makeba
It's in the declaration of rights, look it's easy to see
How good this freedom would be.
While I'm spitting rhymes, others are bleeding for peace.
In Cambodia, some peeps against the Vietnamese:
Seen racial tendencies evolve into a real disease,
And I'm sick of it – all this hate is dissonance;
And even though I'm not the first one to have written it,
Or to have witnessed it..
I still believe that my voice will make a difference
In the battle against the blissfulness of ignorance,
It's insidious, and I will keep on insisting this.
So shift your focus to the people of South Africa.
Fifteen years gone the racism's still bad enough,
And I've had enough.
It seems this country will always be disaster run.
One white student kills four blacks, and that's the news.
It's commonplace for a student to want to blast his school.
I heard the victims of this violence getting silenced, and this fact is true,
The blacks are few, and there's racism from the highest all the way down back to youth.
And I got your back if you're looking out for theirs.
Held down by ignorance as if life was fair.
We got nothing, if we aren't unified:
Band together the ideas in our student minds.
Useless lies told that suppress the minority;
We need to protest if only for the weak.
Forget the order we will write our own story.
Stand up or fall down, drown in a sore defeat.
Stand up or fall down, stand up or fall down,
While the record goes round, stand up or fall down.
Stand up or fall down, stand up or fall down,
While the record goes round, let the whole town know that it's done.
It's post-apartheid; still half of blacks are unemployed;
This attitude of apathy needs to be destroyed.
There's an unspoken rule that they won't verbalize,
Suppress the victims and tell them they deserve to die.
And I'm sure that while a couple of us speak out,
We'll see some changes, break from chains, the weak out.
Defeat doubt from tutorials to real life.
It's hard to go from Galtung to feeling strife.
If we're to beat this fight, I encourage everyone's ready son,
Regardless of whether black or white to refuse the sight
of a breach of their human rights.
Together we stand, divided we will lose the fight!
And if we choose to fight the people who refute their rights,
Sometimes it seems there's no stopping short of suicide, while other's soon to die
Apathetic people still refuse to see through the lies,
While victims getting brutalized anticipating future cries.
Let's fill their future lives potentially with bluer skies,
And grant them back their rights, despite the lack of food to buy.
And as a student I declare a solidarity in
Action that's bigger than just you and I…
"I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit". – Miriam Makeba
Contributed by giorgio - 2011/4/17 - 18:22
×
![]()
Note for non-Italian users: Sorry, though the interface of this website is translated into English, most commentaries and biographies are in Italian and/or in other languages like French, German, Spanish, Russian etc.
Post-apartheid South African racism, considered as an issue in Human Rights..
"A creative project for my Introduction to Peace Studies class, and an experiment in alternative hip/hop.."