XUNICEF News and Views

A song against gender based violence Posted on Vision, Voices and Views -  April 4, 2012 by Noel Ihebuzor Short and simple – for the battered and abused – “and the moon cried herself dark the night you battered me, the silent stars sobbed and the heavens rained tears….and frowned at your flowers of appeasement” Flowers, presents, clumsy sluggish contrition Wham, bang, in, out and over Short, quick and simple And with this short and insensitive flourish, this contrived contrition failings are expected to be deleted, even denied and wiped clean the slate is made clean, ready for fresh battery to be scribbled on it… A ritual of voluntary and selective amnesia is once again re-enacted on an over-burdened and traumatized victim…. this abused, reduced, confused object this ravaged, ripped off, ripped up, this maligned, denied, defiled piece of womanity One for whom there is no longer peace and life together empties her of all reason and rhythm, save a rhythm rich in thuds and thumps whi...

No more shall a million songs be dimmed and muffled by the shutters of tradition, no more shall we remain silent before the stunting of the living to humor the dead no longer shall we remain mute  in drunk like obedience to hollow and hollowing echoes from the past   before the snuffing out of ten thousand and one voices, no longer remain silent accomplices when rich possibilities are denied in deadening numbing initiations, where blind tradition visits violence on the present,  dulls, dumbs, blunts and limits it  no more be partakers of a tragedy. For is it not tragedy when the crusted boney hands of the past trap and choke the present and deny its petals and potentials from unfurling and feeling? We sing the voice of hope, we sing a new dawn, our voices affirm the present unbind it from the rusty manacles of practices that hurt, humiliate and harm, our voices tear down blinding practices as we shake ourselves free from the shackles and tyranny of  some pa...

A poem was inspired by the sad picture of IDPs in Eastern DRC, by Noel Ihebuzor The tragedy of a journey on this hunch back road, slippery, muddy, filled with slime and grime tired limbs trudging round in unending cycles and circles, on this sterile, empty, barren highway smeared generous with a coating slippery, of thick okro sauce, now going sour Truth does not walk this road any more lies lie in wait for the unwary, from all four winds and corners fetid fumes and foams frothing from ogbono coated tongues hollow throats, mirroring hollowed consciences, deformed by elephantiasis of the soul the festering cancer enlarges feeding off a bottomless greed that has gripped the strong breed ripped their souls grim with the grim reaper’s blade moral paralysis now spawns new barren creeds of chop comot make we chop on a betrayed people, trapped in endless cycles and circles.

By Noel Ihebuzor Eyes buried deep in hollow round sockets, the sagging sack of bones speak for bodies clothed in loose fitting tired plastic skin buckets drooping like tired jute bags, brown, crumpling floppies Buttocks shrivelled and feet swollen ungainly, dragging weeping frame around in now ending cycles the circling flies, whirling after twirling running tummies meet mums in panic, running around dazed in dizzying circles holding on to and hoping…. and ignoring hopes now withering yet stubbornly clutching to withered hopes, wilting and dithering Close by, on well manicured lawns, watered tenderly by cycling swinging sprayers, in circles of overflowing affluence where grass lawns are fed with grace from the proceeds of illicit deals and heist of disgrace Pastors, prophets, politicians co-habit preach, pray, praise, and pontificate in voluminous waffle, clogging spaces with sterile volubility, consciences clogged, hard hearts twisted, greed terraced mindscapes and bodyscapes, carousi...