Before the Rainbow

We Must Talk

1 We Must Talk We must talk! We must talk To usher in the rainbow: The tables have tilted with So many promises broken And our protestations ignored; We must talk. We must talk, we must talk If the rainbow will mean anything: Our resources have been plundered without gain Our landscape blatantly ignored Our children and our goals slighted. We must talk. We must talk, we must talk, for Our bodies and minds have been scarred By gendarmerie hooliganism, Our minds distorted by divide and rule With suspicion rife amidst us. We must talk. We must talk, we must talk: It is the path to peace and love; Dialoguing breeds understanding. Who is afraid to talk but the thief, Thieves of our constitution. We must talk. We must talk, we must talk If we must go past this bazaar 2 If we must in place a structure And our country managed as ours Instead of reporting in colonial palaces We must talk. We must talk, we must talk To know what our sons and daughters Want, to help them reconnect, if need be, To apologize here and there for hurts Revealed by the lips of history We must talk. We must talk, we must talk If we must be one again And feel that we truly belong Instead of this division we wade in While a few thrive over the majority We must talk. We must talk, we must talk, Then the colours of the rainbow Would be brighter and string together Our thoughts and wishes with the Chord of love and nationhood We must talk. We must talk, we must talk That this nation must grow We must talk that this nation may Emerge with a positive vision Unlike the dead we are without a purpose We must talk; indeed we must! ...