A tribute to Sajida Khan, who fought against global capitalism at the continent’s largest rubbish dump - a fight that cost her life. Sajida was a key activist against carbon trading and died as a direct result of the toxins emitted from illegal medical waste in an incinerator and waste from a nearly paper mill and sugar factory on her doorstep. The landfill site will continue to emit toxins for the next 27 20 years.

Below is the Google Earth rendition showing the landfill and the surrounding houses in Durban including her family’s.

Sometimes when lives are judged by visual victories, we see failures, and after all, the dump remains right outside Sajida’s front door after her 14 year fight. But on the other hand, if a life is judged by a legacy that endures and is built upon, hers is one of multiple larger victories: of a woman standing against male domination of nationalist politics, of knowledge about global capitalist ecology over amnesia, of ordinary people harnessing the most incredible forms of expertise so as to enter forums usually dominated by people with multiple degrees, and of a political ecology that is a politics of all the people. Whatever you might say about her race and class privilege, the final denominator is that she’ll die fighting the cancer infection, and fighting the dump that gave her that cancer. This was not a death of privilege, it was murder Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada [Ashwin Desai]

The government had repeatedly broken it’s promise to close the dump and the practice continued unchecked in the post Apartheid period. In 1996 a landfill in Umhlanga, white suburb in the north of Durban, began closing down. And where did the waste previously destined for Umhlanga go? To Bisasar Road.

According to Carl Albrecht, research director at the Cancer Association of SA,

‘Clare Estate residents are like animals involved in a biological experiment.’

Sajida Khan documented 70% of Bisasar Road households with tumor cases, not to mention severe respiratory problems. Bisasar Road toxic dumps are replicated across the continent and no one knows how many poor people, many unaware of the dangers of the air they breathe, have died and continue to die from this practice.

Sources:
see CCS also for an interview with Sajida and more on her work as an eco-feminist activist.

“Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere” A Civil Society Energy Reader edited by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada.

Links: South Africa: Durban’s perfume rods, plastic covers and sweet-smelling toxic dump

Tags: Sajida Khan; Africa; Carbon Trading; Toxic Waste; Durban + South Africa

In a disappointing move the 41st session of African Commission on Human Rights has not made any decision on LGBT rights in Africa. The excuse by the AC was a lack of time. However LGBT rights have been discussed over the past year at the ACHR so they have had plenty of time to think about the issue and allocate the necessary time to devote to LGBT rights. It is particularly disappointing considering the recent creation of ILGA Africa last month in Johannesburg and the subsequent 3 day conference. The ground breaking conference brought together activists from across the continent including representatives from Algeria - the first North Africans to be introduced to the Pan African community of LGBTI activists. The next session will be in November so hopefully they will find the time during that session!

On a positive note the Sexual Offences Bill was passed through the National Assembly in South Africa last week after nearly 7 years. For the LGBTI community, the Bill extends the meaning of rape making it more inclusive and non-gender specific. It is also supposed to provide for “follow up care” for survivors. As in other Constitutional safeguards in South Africa it remains to be seen whether there is a reduction in the gap between legislation and the reality on the street or whether as in the case of the LGBTI community, homophobia remains endemic putting people at risk of sexual violence assault and in some cases murder.

Nigerian Gay activist, Oludare Olutosin Toluwalase Odumuye popularly known as Erelu within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex (LGBTI) Community died on the 20th May 2007. It was reported that he was taken ill a few weeks prior to his death. Oludare was the Director of Alliance Right Nigeria, an organization which advocated for the rights of LGBTI people in Nigeria since 1999, provided Sexual health information, Advice, Seminars and Training programme.He was also one of the central activists and a lead member of the Coalition for the Defence of the Rights of Sexual Minorities and worked hard to defend the rights of sexual minorities in the various public hearings on LGBTI issues including the Same Sex Marriage Bill. The death of Oludare comes only weeks after Cameroonian Gay activst, Roger Nowokap was killed in the recent Kenya Airways crash in Cameroon on his way to the ILGA African conference in Joburg - the death of two gay activists in such a short space of time is indeed .a great loss to the LGBTI community when there are so few who are ready to risk their lives and openly campaign for the rights of everyone.
R.I.P. Oludare!

Tags: Nigeria; LGBTI; South Africa; ILGA Africa; Africa Commission on Human Rights

Cameroonian LGBTI activist, Roger William Nowokap, from Alternatives-Cameroon passed away in the Kenya Airways plane crash a few days ago on his way to the 1st ILGA Africa Conference in Johannesburg.

My thoughts and strengh to his partner Steave also from Alternatives, to all the members of Alternatives Cameroon and to all his family and friends.

May His Soul Rest in Peace

Tags: LGBTI; ILGA Africa;

Bubele Mahanjana, the young scholar and economics lecturer at Wits University was a rare type of a person in a world which values crass materialism over the life of ideas. Very few people of my generation are moved, inspired and troubled by ideas to the extent they affected Bubele. He so much loved ideas that he sacrificed a fledging career in an internationally renowned accounting firm for the lonely, modest life of a university student. His untimely death met him whilst completing his Masters Degree in Economics at Wits.

A group of us have known Bubele as a brilliant thinker, a persuasive conversationalist and humorous individual. A debate with Bubele always lingered on long after the encounter. He forced us to think. He was so moved by a good debate that he was wont to jumping to his feet, raising his voice without threatening as he systematically developed his argument. At times too patiently for the impatient generation characterised by instant gratification and cosmetic intellectualism.

Whilst he had the aura of the distant professor, he carried with him a capacity to make us laugh hard, at our selves and the follies of life. One of his well remembered jokes was when he asked someone whether she was a nurse, because she had been nursing her drink for the whole evening.

What made Bubele a potential giant, was the fact that he combined his love for ideas with deep commitment to finding solutions for the problems which affect Black people and the African continent itself. Towards the end of his life he was becoming radicalised in his analysis and began to display signs of impatience with Africa’s progress and the direction of South Africa’s transition. He reserved the most scathing analysis for the African intellectual, following Frantz Fanon. On post colonial Africa and liberation he agreed with the Nigerian radical writer Chinwezu that Africa is weak, hence her position of being a play ground for foreign countries through her local elites. Bubele wrote,

“It is dealing with weakness and powerlessness of the African that is key. Everything else is nonsense. Admit that you are weak. Understand how you are weak. Rectify your weakness. This is the only path to salvation”.

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On Wednesday, 28 March, 2007, Professor Archie Mafeje passed away in Pretoria. In his obituary, Adebayo Olukoshi, Executive Secretary CODESRIA describes him as

A great pan-African, an outstanding scientist, a first rate debater, a frontline partisan in the struggle for social justice, and a gentleman of great humanitarian principles. We will surely miss his thoughtful insights, his strident rebukes, his loyal friendship, his companionship, and – yes, his wit, humour and expert culinary skills that included an incomparable knowledge of foods and wines from all corners of the world.

Below are some notes I made from memory following a meeting with Professor Mafeje in 2005 and which is my own personal tribute to the great man.

_____________________________________

“The warning came a few weeks before the actual encounter, “He is difficult”, we were told. We were part of at least a hundred people who waited for His arrival for a sermon at the University of KwaZulu Natal. He didn’t show up for the sermon, nor did he send an apology, he just changed his mind, as all gods are wont to do. So we decided if he cannot come down from his heavens we shall go to him, after all we know too well the story of Mohamed and the mountain. The truth is that the warning just increased the intrigue, what kind of deity is this? He seems not to care to coax disciples and followers, to build a legion of worshippers. Does his doctrine manifest in his behaviour? With these questions in mind the writer and an intellectual friend went to visit the late Prof Archie Mafeje in Pretoria the year was 2005 .

He stood like Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. He looked down on us as we approached his shrine, which hangs high up on the hill. His tall frame engulfed in bright rays, we had to cover our eyes with the palms of our hands, as if in prayer to avoid direct eye contact with the one above. His whole demeanour suggest that he neither asks nor demands to be worshipped, however, human nature demands that we worship beings higher than ourselves. His voice beamed with the force of a hundred chariots:

“So you are one and half hours late”.

That’s how he welcomed us into his house.

We were startled. This was not the last time we were to be startled that afternoon.

We had earlier called to ask for directions and indicated that we would be late.

He continued;

“In other words you chose to bother me one and half hours before you got here”.

We gave each other awkward glances, both in self pity and with a what’s up with him, kind of gesture. It was going to be a very long afternoon indeed.

He went on to say with great disinterest.

“I’m just checking how your heads function”

He was visibly irritated by our earthly ways. He beckoned us to join him. We instinctively took off our shoes and followed him towards the lounge. He found this shoe taking off ritual slightly amusing, “The Swiss do that all the time”, and he was talking to himself really.

Everything is neat and even stylish. The color coordination is pleasant. He dictates the seating order. The result of it all is that we ended sitting directly opposite him, our backs against the wall and much further from the exit. Trapped. Yes that’s how it felt.

And we started;

“We came to see you because we believe you have made a great and original intellectual and academic contribution…”

“Yes indeed I have made a huge contribution not only on the African continent but the world over”.

He interrupted and completed our thoughts. We felt uneasy about this unabashed self congratulatory gesture. But, he was right, and even surer about it than we seemed to be. The AmaXhosa say “he who knows himself is king!”

We wanted to see Mafeje for a number of reasons, some linked to an intellectual journey we were beginning- a search for a progressive race narrative (PRN), we called our clarion call. What more apt a person to ask about intellectual battles than a seasoned warrior of the mind? We knew and were very impressed with Mafeje’s demolition of Anthropology as a discipline. Mafeje, a trained anthropologist himself had systematically exposed the deep colonial structure of inquiry and analysis which forms the basis of Anthropology. That was besides the known fact that Anthropologists had actively assisted the colonialists. His combative style of engagement is something we also found very attractive. Suffocated and reviled by an academy and knowledge production sight which is white dominated, we had developed a deep desire to connect with a Black intellectual of Prof Mafeje’s stature.

I then continued,
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