Versindaba
~ die Afrikaanse digkuns in een kraal ~

Daar was skynbaar heelwat ontevredenheid verlede week oor Charl-Pierre Naudé se bloginskrywing oor burgerlike ongehoorsaamheid. Wat het die politiek te make met die poësie?, wou sommige lesers weet.

Dit het my laat dink aan ‘n ou gunstelinggedig van my, W.H. Auden se Refugee Blues, wat ook Passport Blues genoem sou kon gewees het. Auden het dit vroeg in 1939 geskryf; die Tweede Wêreldoorlog was op hande.

Maar die gedig resoneer veel wyer as daardie oorlog en Joodse vlugtelinge. Dit spreek die hele politieke orde van moderniteit, van nasie-state en genasionaliseerde burgerskap, aan vanuit die perspektief van die uitgeslotenes. ‘The consul banged the table and said,/ “If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:/ But we are still alive my dear, but we are still alive.’

Daar is dalk weinig beelde in die moderne poësie wat die impak van die politieke op die private of die persoonlike meer onstellend en akkuraat uitbeeld. Júís om die geroetineerde, alledaagsheid van die toneel van uitsluiting en ‘maatskaplike dood’ wat dit beskryf. Júís omdat dit so endemies is aan ‘n politieke orde wat ons die meeste van die tyd as natuurlik en vanselfsprekend aanvaar.

Maar dalk is daar ook weinig treffender voorbeelde in die moderne poësie van mense se vermoë om hulleself ten spyte van, in reaksie teen, en anderkant die bestaande politieke orde(ning) uit te herverbeel: ‘But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.’ Om hierdie stem te hoor, te amplifiseer, en te herhaal in die skep van ‘n mensliker, sagter wêreld, is tegelykertyd ‘n poëtiese en ‘n politieke daad.   

W.H. Auden

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

The consul banged the table and said,
“If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
“If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread”:
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, “They must die”:
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.