Let's Celebrate!

Country people,
Today is our nation's day
The day we claimed and declared
To the whole world a new identity
An identity of hope
A daring identity of prosperity
A towering identity of a new giant.
And like a lion we roared our arrival
Amongst the nations sovereign.

So, let's celebrate this day
The day our freedom we declared
From the clutches of colonialists
But came straight into the dungeon
Of our own brothers
The neo-colonialists we make with our thumbs
Who took away the tiny single British broom
That beat our backs black
But replaced it with logs from our own forests.

Let's celebrate this freedom
That stopped the meagre earnings of the whites
And replaced them with nothing in our pockets
That our people now steal 'amala' pots
While many commit suicide
For responsibilities unmet.

Let's celebrate our freedom of injustices
That celebrates rogues and robbers
But executes pilfers
That makes robbers kings and chiefs
That lets rogues go free
But makes saints rot in gaol
That sits atop big cases
But expedites actions on 'smallies.'

Let's celebrate our freedom of hunger
That took away our white crumbs
But feed our bellies with black nothing
That our children go thin
In the face of our scarce prosperity
And our bodies emaciate
Because we are overfed.

Oh, let"s celebrate our freedom of illusions
That turned prosperity into a mirage
As the leaders quench the lights of hope
And left us to grope
And drawn along by the rope
In this dark alley of disillusionment.

Brothers and sisters,
Let's celebrate today
That maybe tomorrow
Our dreams of yesteryears
May yet materialize.

Let's celebrate today
For who knows in a short while
A saving root may sprout
Yet among the thorns
To rekindle the dying hopes
Yet to wipe away our tears of five decades and six
To refill our emaciated bodies
And yet reflate our thin children's bodies
To put books back in our schools
To put drugs back in our worn syringes
To put paints on our tarred roads
To put round pegs in round holes
To put rogues where they belong; behind bars
And make kings of our saints.

Let's celebrate
My people, let's celebrate!