GIVE US FOOD OR GIVE US DEATH! GIVE US FOOD OR GIVE US DEATH!

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

― Patrick Henry

~

It would be safe to assume that all the signs, he never heeded.

Even as the petulant twitch on his nose screamed for him to stop and listen.

The skies, perhaps crabbed too, let the fiery rays and their anger show.

Stupefied, birds flew up above, no tweet could be heard.

It was strange. The usual hubbub of these streets,

Were draped in tight mystery, as if this patch of land was tiptoing

On a landmine.

If only he could have read the air that morning, this tale would have ended differently.

Hell hath no fury like street people scorned. The gathered mass soon was in a procession,

Chanting ‘Haki Yetu’ (Our Rights), and shouting “Give us Food or give us death”.

Where they got the energy, as they were starving, will forever remain a mystery.

If we could hazard, we could say that theirs was the drunken stagger of a speared elephant.

They chained themselves and out of their angry mouths spewed forth crystalline vehemence.

Their muscles tense, their coalesced anger dense, the city was under siege.

The poor people, unafraid, were now ready to taste death.

Police in riot gear had received clear instructions: “Lob tear gas canisters to the ingrates!”

For equal measure, in their guns were live bullets to shoot and kill.

Death was in the air.

But if the police thought the angry mass was afraid of death, they were mistaken.

Or we could rather say, if the poor people thought that the police were afraid of killing them, they were mistaken.

The poor chanted, “GIVE US FOOD OR GIVE US DEATH!”

GIVE US FOOD OR GIVE US DEATH

GIVE US FOOD OR GIVE US DEATH.

3,000 bodies lay sprawled, dead.

And now on these streets is a terse message:

This city is drenched in innocent blood shed.

And out of that blood, a revolution was born.

It was many years ago, but their blood was not in vain.