As Rethabile writes, today is the birthday of an exceptional Black woman, Maya Angelou. It is also the deathday of one of the most exceptional Black leaders - Martin Luther King Junior. I believe we can take this day as a celebration of both their lives for what they have given us in their service to the Black community in particular and the global community as a whole.

On April 4th, 1968 at 6.01pm, Martin Luther King was assassinated just as he stepped onto the balcony of the Motel Lorraine in Memphis, Tennesse. The world still does not know for sure who was behind the killing of MLK nor who pulled the trigger.

WE still wait awakening to Martin Luther King Jr’s dream as the excerpt from his “Where do we go from here” [August 1967] speech shows….

Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.

Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget’s Thesaurus there are some 120 synonyms for blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, such words as blot, soot, grim, devil, and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity, and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is the “black sheep.” Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child sixty ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority. The tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to American life and strip him of his personhood is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning’s newspaper.

Tags: Martin Luther King Jr

Today we said goodbye to Busi. What was fitting was that her funeral service was held at Soweto’s largest Catholic Church, Regina Mundi

When protesting students were fired at by police on their way to Orlando Stadium on June 16 1976, and Hector Pieterson and many others were killed, the students fled for sanctuary to Regina Mundi. With buckets of water at the ready, they managed to douse the teargas canisters thrown into the church by police. But then police stormed the church, firing live ammunition. Although no one was killed, many were injured and the church’s sacred symbols were damaged. The broken marble alter, the bullet holes in the ceilings and the damaged figure of Christ all bear testimony to the terrible lack of restraint shown by police that day.

Regina Mundi has always been a home to the community of Soweto and has functioned as a centre for important community events. Anti-apartheid stalwart Dr Nthato Motlana once described Regina Mundi as “not just a church - it is the people’s church, the church of the nation”.

Regina Mundi was Busi’s local church where she went every Sunday. She also was a fighter. She stood up and spoke out about all those things that most people do not want to hear. She was not afraid to stand up as say she was raped, declare her HIV status and that she was a woman who loved other women. I didn’t know her long but I have her face in my mind, her photos and most of all her words. On Friday, Breaking the Silence: positive Survivors - published by POWA as an annual writing competition, was launched and a piece by Busi was not only included but she received one of the prizes. She had everything going for her. I have not made many real friends here in South Africa - actually apart from V and M who are not even South Africans there are only two and Busi was one. I will REMEMBER YOU WHEN YOU ARE GONE.

REMEMBER ME WHEN I’M GONE FOR……I by Busi

Wrote stories for the nations to read
Stood without fear and told my story
I smiled and greeted without judging
I influenced positive living to the sick
I planted seeds of hope to the hopeless
I groomed and growed the younger ones whose parents died
I created artistic designes with my hands
I crafted and drew beautiful pictures
I installed educatioanl reasoning to some
I taught represented the minority to the majority
I made nations aware
I wronged some and made some happy
I survived against odds
I swallowed my medication even as hard as it was it was sometimes
I did so to remain strong and to llive my live regardless of my status
I fought for women to be taken into serious conideration by our government
I wrote and said “my” spoke word
I fought and showed many that there’s nothing wrong with being diabetic, epileptic and HIV
I represented many of the HIV infected lesbian sisters
I told the truth nevermind the judgements
I lived and I’m still living
I loved and prayed to my GOD
I prayed without hesitation , for , I believe/d
I was a big sister to my younger sisters
I listened to my mother’s teachings
I became friends with father
I’D DIE FOR MY FAMILY, I LOVED THEM SO!
I captured moments with my camera
I brought forth what was unseen to the nations through the power of image,pen and paper
I struggled to make it life
I was taken for a ride by some whom i thought were friends
I showed my rapist how strong i was regardless that he poisoned my blood with his HIV
I beieved and prayed
I stood low and respected all regardless of their age,colour and size
I say along with others
I had a unique voice
I had a message to deliver and a vision to see
I tried,i fell and i never succeeded sometimes
I was patient while to some i was strange
I was loved by some and was hated by some,STILL i did my thing
I loved and appreciated beautiful women
I loved her more than life itself
Some would say…
I am full shit! but spiritually i was full
I was fed with GOD’s glory that’s why I praised HIM
I praised HIM more than i praised friends
I am my mother’s daughter
I made history and marked historical books of this world
SO………
REMEMBER ME WHEN I’M GONE!
FOR..without no doubt i’ll and i am in peace with my maker and creator.

AMEN!

Thanks to all of you who acknowledged Busi’s life and sent her your blessings - it has helped a great deal.

The South African flag is flying at half mast this week and Mandela and Mbeki singing the praises of PW Botha. Reconciliation can mean a lot of things but this is not one of them. It sounds more like appeasement and is an insult to those who suffered, struggled and died under Botha’s rule. Kamellahwrites gives her take on his death and responses to it

shall i tell palestinians to give a high five to the IDF and the israeli government? should we go back in time and get slaves to lead a ceremony for slave owners and leaders of the confederate army? i mean damn.

botha died without ever apologizing or ever acknowledging his wrong. apparently, his wife barbara believes that her husband had been “terribly misunderstood” and that south africans would come to realize what they had lost. she says and i quote, “the man cared about everyone, irrespective of what politics said. he really cared. he wanted everyone to have a piece of the pie.” if apartheid was a manifestation of this ‘care,’ i’d hate to see what he would do if he didn’t ‘care’ about black south africans.

Icarus Redeemed has a different take on the death of Botha in a piece on “White South African Society”

First of all, white South African society is one which has largely been untouched by the Enlightenment. That may be seen as a good thing in many ways and in many quarters. But, it also means the white South African has been untouched by the reality check features of some Enlightenment concepts like “Utilitarianism”.

Second, the white South African appears (’appears’ being very much the operative word here) to be the carrier of those traits to which his Teutonic counterparts of an earlier era may justly have laid claim — of being at the cutting edge of Western or European civilisation.

My take - I cannot bring myself to say the words RIP and I believe my feelings are more representative than those of the likes of Mbeki. COSATU spokesperson speaks

PW Botha will be remembered with “hatred and disgust” as a brutal dictator who presided over a system that denied the majority all their basic human rights, the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Thursday.

“His hands were stained with the blood of hundreds who were murdered during the struggle for democracy and liberation under his presidency,” Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven said.

“The overwhelming majority of South Africans and the people of the world will remember PW Botha only with hatred and disgust.”

Reconciliation is one thing but I dont see that it means writing a revisionist history and to quote Kameelawrites once more

…….there is forgiveness, then there is praising your colonizers, slave owner and the man who put his foot in your neck.

Tags: South Africa PW Botha

Egypts most famous contemporary writer and the only Arab to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz passed away yesterday aged 94. Mahfouz wrote 50 novels the most famous of which are the exceptionally brilliant piece of work, The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk (1956) Palace of Desire (1957) and Sugar Street (1957) which brought Mahfouz global recognition and Children of Gebelawi (1959) an important work that challenged religious dogma. The book was banned in Egypt for blasphemy and led to an assassination attempt on Mahfouz’s life by Islamic fundamentalists.

Reading Mahfouz is like reading the underbelly of Cario life especially in the early part of the 20C. He takes you through the streets, the cafes, the world of male privilege and the oppression of women.

Links: Naguib Mahfouz, Arab Gateway. Freedom for Egyptians, Egyptian Chronicles.

Call me a Woman

Appearing before the TRC (Truth & Reconciliation Committee)  in November 1996, Khuzwayo said: "They ruined our children. They turned our children into animals. I will go to my grave with this pain in my heart."

She was one of the most qualified female black teachers in South Africa but left her profession in protest against the introduction of Bantu Education which she believed was meant to impoverish generations of black children.

"I can forgive them for what they did to us adults but I cannot forgive them for what they did to the children," she said at the TRC hearings in Soweto. Daily News

Links:  SABC, Biography,

Tags:  Ellen Kuzwayo  South Africa  Women’s Rights