Violence against Women in South Africa - A Resource for Journalists

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SURVIVOR

For Ingrid & survivors the world over

“Can you describe
The hells I’ve burned in?”
She asked as we sat face to face,
Fragile woman in her wheelchair,
Me at her feet,
Partners in a sacred ritual:
Healing through Releasing−
“I can,”
I said, echoing Anna Akhmatova
Who was posed a similar question
While she wrote her Requiem

How could I have forgotten you?
I left your all-pervading sadness,
Bitterness & hatred that flaked your sanity,
Your ache for revenge & retribution
That clouded your soul and
Your magnificent awakening
To the futility of
Fighting darkness with darkness
In a bright floating bubble of Memory—

Can you begin to understand why
I neglected to record your terror?

I can see your face, almost boyish,
Slightly tilted, hair black and short
And those expressive eyes
Filled with fiery desperation that broadcasted
Your need to re-invent yourself
Or die!

Abuse of Power, terror, mutilation,
Death by knife, bullet, stone, strangling,
bombing has become our daily diet, sister.
It dominates our lives,
Our papers,
Our Movies,
Our TV screens.
It has come down to this—

Ordinary men & little boys
Are gang-raping infants,
Heartless hands are breaking little girls like dolls,
Dismembering, mutilating the bodies of toddlers who are
Buried in shallow graves,
In buckets,
Under branches and bushes in fields,
Or simply dumped on rubbish heaps
And in storm-water drains—

Iron poles are introduced into little boys whose
Openings and orifices are systematically violated
And women of all ages are hunted like prey,
Beaten to a pulp, raped, sodomized, coerced into
Milking penises thrusting hate and lingering affliction—
Over and over,
We are fed these images of conquest, hurt and torture—
I watch,
I read,
I hear the pain of the victims,
Our nearest and dearest,
The neighbours,
Terrorized communities perpetually
Deprived of sleep,
I read our vulnerability,
Our impotence
Behind speeches of bravado
And a flawless Constitution & Bill of Rights
Over-ridden by customized Bills of Wrongs—

I admit
An overdose of terror
Has left me desensitized—
I observe,
I cringe,
But can no longer know what I really feel—

Today your face sprang from my memory
And dared me to write—
I remember you now;
How your story spilled from your tortured
Body like a river in flood—
I did not know you lived
Just a few streets away from us—

On the day you died
You lost God,
You lost your body,
Your mind,
Your arms,
Your legs,
Your children,
Friends,
House, animals and garden.
You lost everything, you said,
Everything!

You are a generous human being
With a passion for flowers & people & natural things—
The morning still haunting you was a clear, sunny morning.
You were resting
After watering the plants you had nurtured with your hands,
Three jobless men entered your quiet
With a knock on your front door for bread—
You shut the door and went to the kitchen
To prepare sandwiches for the hungry bellies—
The security gate was locked, or so you thought.
Butter knife in hand, you looked up to find yourself
Surrounded by three faces masked with anger.
They grabbed you, demanded money—
Your gave them what you had—
They opened your drawers and
Armed themselves with your sharpest knives—
They saw your fear
And laughed as they tore off your clothes,
No one heard your screams as they
Beat, kicked, pummeled your body
And one after the other
Rammed into your frozen form
Limp on the bloody kitchen floor—

Through with the raping,
The stabbing began—
You pleaded with them, called out to the Lord
For the torture to stop—
They stabbed you,
You don’t know how many times—
Then left you for dead,
Ransacked the place and left—
Neighbours found you hours later
Facedown in your own blood—

Your recuperation had been long one—
You were depressed,
Felt so violated, your body felt like some
Strange house you were forced to inhabit—
You wanted your old body back—
You wanted your legs back—
With severed spinal cord
And no hope of ever walking,
You felt sentenced to your iron chair—
You could not return home,
You had lost your house—
It was auctioned to cover medical bills—
You were miserable,
Hated the atmosphere of the institution—
You brought two sons into the world,
But hardly ever saw them—
Your disability made all your friends vanish,
“Just as well” you confided, you don’t need their pity—
Loneliness was shrinking your heart,
You longed to die—
You did not know how much you needed a familiar face,
Your own family in that godforsaken place—

As you hit rock-bottom,
Your howls for help were heard.
Your life took a turn
When a resident Angel,
Gave you hope, friendship,
And a warm new home—

Still, like one trapped in a Horror Movie
Those memories haunted you.
You had come to release them
With the help of the Most High—

Together we reconstructed
The scene of the wounding—
You entered the place with a newfound strength,
Courage and a resolution to understand and let go—
You took the hands of the men, the Black
Peril you were educated to fear,
Looked into their eyes,
Asked them what you wished to ask
All these burdened months
And forgave them—
You needed to let them go,
To reclaim your soul,
To travel lightly—

I don’t know where you are now woman—
You had wheeled out of the Sufi Temple much happier,
Much, much lighter and said that the releasing
Made you realize
That violence and evil
Had neither a black nor white face,
They were inexorably part of the
Design—

Dear Survivor,
I still reel with my daily doses of horror
I write what I can,
Read, cook and clean,
Walk the parks and roads with my God and my dog
And to the survivors and victims of our world
I send healing rays of Light & Grace
as
Relentlessly,
I continue
Broken but unbowed
In the face
of the
Relentlessly destructive
Spirit of our Time
Deela Khan