“Torture, hatred and political rhetoric
stoke the flames” by Hasani

Hasani is a poet from Zimbabwe who left the country due to political strife. He writes protest poetry and advocates for recognition of human rights and justice in Zimbabwe. He currently lives in London.

Below is the poem he wrote to go with the image above. I read it for the first time in 2013.

Zimbabwe teapot

The fires of dictatorship, oppression
corruption and incarceration burn
beneath the kettle in which the people
are imprisoned.

Torture, hatred and political rhetoric
stoke the flames.

Inside, the people are trapped –
hopelessness gives way to terror and
despair.

As the heat increases and the pressure
builds, they are forced out of this
unbearable prison, and propelled
across the world – helpless, out of
control, silent, to land wherever fate
takes them.

They hope that they are escaping to a
better life, escaping from the worst.

They prefer the risks of lions and
crocodiles, of drowning, of suffocation
in a truck, of starvation on the journey,
to what they are leaving behind.

But when they land, wherever they
land, they may find they have only
exchanged the frying pan for a new fire.

Please click on  “Freedom from Torture”  to see more of Hasani’s poetry.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2018