Treachery, ill feeling,

oppression, blood feuding

before the Judge watching us:

what can He think?

I'll roar my basic position

like thunder over Umtata.

I'll even take a Khoi to wife,

useless as long-left ruins.

This nation rests on the law of the bible,

traitors must forfeit their lives.

Turncoats wound it, rip out its lifeblood:

our power wanes, and we're ripe for invasion.

My people, we're stabbing Africa,

we kill our own through betrayal:

we court celebrity status,

honours for killing Africa.

When we trade our own people to whites for profit

we inflict a deep wound on Africa.

I'm not one to shy from saying so:

your public behaviour bears eloquent witness.

So there's the lament, my people,

provoked by our every effort.

As we idly bicker we're left in the dust

and Africa slips through our fingers forever.

We split into factions, betray our own people,

Africa leaves as we claw at each other.

We'd be all at sea if we ruled ourselves:

our cry for self-rule is vapid!

Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Mfengu,

all are the same despite distinctions.

On this earth all are one:

under this rule they suffer alike.

You scatter your own, assisting strangers,

currying praise and property:

through you they know our every secret.

Thus my question: “How much longer?”

Africa, what's this lament,

Nursemaid slain by your sucklings?

Nitpicking poets, I say,

ignore the grain that pecks the chicken.

How many Judases toyed in secret

with black people's lives, then died in the dark?

Men, please assemble and talk:

we can't endure this lament.

God bless Africa!

Smear all traitors with dripping mud,

lend them chameleon colours

to brand them, then we can unite.

Peace!!