Read the excerpt below and answer the question. The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers on guard with rifles Saracens and b
atons the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere the child grown to a man treks through all Africa In this excerpt from Ingrid Jonker’s poem, “The child is not dead,” the “child” most likely refers to _____. the system of apartheid the struggle for freedom the racism in every country the corruption in government
In this excerpt from Ingrid Jonker’s poem, “The child is not dead,” the “child” most likely refers to the struggle for freedom.
Jonker wrote her poem after going to the Philippi police station and seeing the body of a child who had been shot dead in his mother's arms by the police in the township of Nyanga in Cape Town. In 1960, 69 people were killed while marching to the police station to protest having to carry passbooks to travel in their own native country in Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg.
<em>The poem evokes the struggle and longing for freedom while being violently oppressed.</em>
