{"id":4863,"date":"2015-04-25T09:55:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T09:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4863"},"modified":"2015-04-25T09:55:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T09:55:29","slug":"in-the-circle-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=4863","title":{"rendered":"IN THE CIRCLE OF FIRE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/south-Africa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4864\" src=\"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/south-Africa.jpg\" alt=\"south Africa\" width=\"290\" height=\"174\" \/><\/a>The lips part, the tongue twirls<br \/>\nLike a stone once out of the hand<br \/>\nNo more adheres the dictates of its master.<br \/>\nThe word is the mightiest weapon of all. Like a thunderclap before a storm<br \/>\nIt heralded the father of savage storms.<br \/>\nNow once again Soweto dawns<br \/>\nThe streets of Mother&#8217;s hearth<br \/>\nDrip with the hapless blood<br \/>\nOf her dazed children.<br \/>\nIn a ghastly wave of malignant frenzy<br \/>\nChildren yet in diapers are sitting ducks<br \/>\nTo the merciless blow of &#8216;father&#8217;s&#8217; onslaught.<br \/>\nStrapped to grumbling rubber rings<br \/>\nTheir hopeless pleas for their little lives<br \/>\nFell on the slant shoulders of indifference.<br \/>\nThe hand of &#8216;father&#8217; struck the match<br \/>\nAnd the bonfire flared up in outrage.<br \/>\nTurning and wriggling in raw agony<br \/>\nThe fiery waves bit by bit engulfed them.<br \/>\nSheer horror numbed their pleading mouths<br \/>\nAs flesh and blood ground to slow flaming death.<br \/>\nAnd the gory stench of charred remains Fumigating the land and rising up to heavens,<br \/>\nIn dark mournful accusing clouds.<br \/>\nThe gleeful crowd barricading the kids<br \/>\nConsenting witnesses to the hideous crime.<br \/>\nLaura McDonald-Amurun<br \/>\n24\/04\/2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lips part, the tongue twirls Like a stone once out of the hand No more adheres the dictates of its master. The word is the mightiest weapon of all. Like a thunderclap before a storm It heralded the father of savage storms. Now once again Soweto dawns The streets of Mother&#8217;s hearth Drip with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,207],"class_list":["post-4863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-south-africa","tag-xenophobia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/south-Africa.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1gr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4865,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions\/4865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}