Sotho

Lawyer, born into a prominent Afrikaans family. He studied law in South Africa and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He became an active member of the Communist Party, while also reaching the heights of the legal profession. He defended those charged in the prolonged Treason Trial of the 1950s, and led the defence team at the 1964 Rivonia trial. In 1964, he was arrested and charged with membership of the then underground Communist Party, and in 1966 was sentenced to life imprisonment.
www.biography.com

Bram Fischer stood up for what he believed, and what he believed was that the former system in his home country (South Africa) was grossly unfair toward the larger part of the population. He went to prison for that thought. He was born on 23 April 1908. Happy birthday to him.

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Here is a comment to one of my posts. I decided to turn it into a full-blown post because of its length. So here it is. Khotso to all.

Reply:
‘Dear Tim,

“We” can’t freely move anywhere, to Darfur or elsewhere, if any survival attempt on the African’s part is clouded with taunts and suspicions of incompetence and stupidity. “We” can truly start moving when the African has got the respect (s)he deserves.

History is never over as it always has a bearing on the present. It stands to reason that what happened yesterday influences what happens today and what will happen tomorrow. America is a gun-wielding, trigger-happy nation because the Far-west happened. Many African nations are poor today because their people were stolen, their economic and political structures destroyed, their land occupied, and so on.

Tim, of course people, not peoples, do things. People enslaved the African, colonised the African, Jim-crowed the heck out of the black person. But you must admit that very few, if any, American Indians did these things. Few Canadians, few Peruvians, few Inuits, few Mexicans. Perhaps they did other ills, I don’t know. The question here is not that.

It is interesting that you might say, ‘…most of us do not want to know about the slavery, the French in the North, the English in the south,the Boer’s, The Belgians in the Congo or Germans in Southwest Africa, where the phrase ‘final solution’ was first used.‘

Why in Heaven’s name would you want to zap that? In that case, zap Lincoln, and his four-score speech. Zap Franklin and his kite. Zap the Pilgrims and that rock they landed on. The Wright brothers, the American’s struggle of independence against England, and in a few years, zap Vietnam, too, the atom bombs in Japan, zap Iraq, zap Michael Jackson and his best-selling album. Zap the hostage-taking crisis in Iran when Carter was president, Elvis and Martin Luther king Jr (?) and Malcolm X (?) and Monica Lewinsky and Reaganomics and 9/11 and all the history of the blooming world. Let’s zap the big bang, too, while we’re at it. I went to prison in South Africa for pass laws. Let’s zap that. Zap slavery and colonisation and Apartheid, as you suggest.

China. China is another question. It is messing up in Tibet and has messed up in Darfur. Does that give me the right to say, ‘Don’t talk about the fact that I pounded your face into the ground yesterday. Chun-Lee here is pounding it into the ground now.’ Perhaps Chun-Lee is doing it because I got away with it. Learning from history isn’t just a cliché, it’s something we must do. We must all be accountable. You, me, them, everybody. If we’re all equal on this planet, then no one gets away with pounding another’s face into the ground. China is beginning to have the sort of fiduciary influence on Africa that leads straight to dependence, and the notion that the money-lender can do whatever they want. That’s very bad, and Africans should not let it happen. Why they might is beyond the scope of this post.

Still, I think your comment of ‘the ignorant’ concerning the Chinese is not fair. Nowhere in your comment do you say that Caucasian people are ignorant, although they’re the ones that have done a lot of atrocities against the African (and the Australian Aborigine and the American Indian)

I’m not sure I know what you mean by the following, Tim: ‘So … why do I suppose it is that I sit here in front of a shelf full of books on African History yet I remain astounded at the ignorance about it?‘ But let me take a jab at it: What I say and other Africans say isn’t in your history books? Or, you haven’t actually read the history books on your book-shelf? In either case, what happened in the past still happened. Give you the South African example. History books never mentioned the African hero, of the African good deed, or the African innovation, or the African suffering. That was until some African scholars decided to write real history books that told it all, good and bad, and across the spectrum of southern African life.

Get back to me if you’d like, Tim. If you’d rather not post openly (and not anonymously), my e-mail address is retjoun/gmail/com. And if it is your wish, I’ll keep such correspondence private.
Cheers.
Rethabile’

Facebook | Message: Satire Poems - Prompt Writing

SPEED WRITING Call for Satire: deadline March 15th! Let your talent speak for many. We urge you to write a satirical poem—poke fun at the leader of your choice to flaunt your freedom of speech and your own government’s respect for that human right! This isn’t about politics. It is about supporting the rights of all to write what they want - despite politics. On February 4th the satirist Hédi Ouled Baballah was arrested—behind bars, Baballah can’t continue to speak his mind. Please use your talent and add your voice to protest this infringement on the human right of free speech. More information can be found at www. protestpoems. org (don’t feel sorry for colleagues abroad. do something) All poems will be considered for inclusion in Babel Fruit.

Ed: The deadline has been moved back to the 18th of March. Please participate.
(Rethabile)

Tags:
Malcolm X
Malcolm Little
Shabbazz
Black History Month

Sowetan:

A few years ago we had a young kwaito sensation aptly named Lekgoa [sic] because he was white and lekgoa [sic] is Sesotho for white person.

But never have I read anywhere that this young musician was the first white artist to choose kwaito. Neither were many eyebrows raised when Johnny Clegg and PJ Powers branched out.

Are we wittingly going back to the days when we read about “Two men and three blacks killed in a car accident”?

Themba Molefe here touches on a subject I’ve harped on for a long while, as have other people. He talks about black people always being labelled “the first African to…” or “the first black female to…” and so on. While white people who do firsts are not (Themba mentions Johnny Clegg, PJ Powers and a “young kwaito sensation.”).

My interpretation is that people don’t expect blacks to do something, which, when they do, comes as a surprise that warrants “the first black man to…”. But they expect whites to do any and everything, hence no surprise and no firsts there.

Themba also mentions the Senegalese singer Ismael Lo, whose music I admire. Apparently when asked if he was the Bob Dylan of Africa, he replied that perhaps Bob Dylan was the Ismael Lo of America. My sentiments exactly about my country, Lesotho, being named The Switzerland of Africa, but Switzerland not being named the Lesotho of Europe.

I have been told before, whenever I’ve brought this up, that of course Switzerland is famous and well-known, so it’s normal to compare Lesotho to it. But that’s just due to whose standards are being used, and therefore doesn’t work for me.

Question: is a colourless society impossible? I think it is. Here you are, walking down the street, and this white guy is in front of you. You can’t not see that the person is white. And if you’re black, they can’t not see that you are. We can’t achieve a colourless society.

What we can achieve is enough maturity to understand why our outsides are different. Understand that there is occurence of albinism and melanism in America,  in Africa, in Asia, everywhere. That when people are afflicted with these ailments, their characters and what is contained therein do not change. That nurture plays a bigger role than nature in differences among us. And that’s just for starters. There is a long way to go before we mature enough to pretend to live in a colourless society. Even then, the colour will have been ignored only by the force of the spirit, and not by anything else.

So, Themba, the kind of reaction you lament here is gonna go on a lot longer than we’d like it to. Unfortunately. I googled “the first black” and got 3 400 000 ghits (1). Some of these were about Bill Clinton as the first black President of the United States. Then I did “the first white” and got 744 000 ghits (2). Draw your conclusions. First black woman and first white woman get you 157 000 and 21 200 respectively, while the guys get you 82 100 and 67 200 respectively.

Public Enemy’s Chuck D mentions Elvis and Eminem (3) in the same breath, and I add that they haven’t and aren’t being called “the first white men to…”

South African theologian and university administrator to lead February Meetings:

Karen B. Eldridge, Director of News and Public Information
865.981.8207 — karen.eldridge@maryvillecollege.edu

Dr. Russel Botman, rector of Stellenbosch University in South Africa and president of the South African Council of Churches, will be the speaker for Maryville College’s 2008 February Meetings, scheduled for Feb. 4-5. Held annually at the College since 1877, February Meetings have offered the College and local community an opportunity to reflect on authentic Christian faith and action in the contemporary world.

In years past, guest speakers and special music have been highlights of the condensed lecture series, which is open to all members of the College community, people in the area and visitors, including the College’s Board of Church Visitors.
[more…]

2 January 2008

Press Freedom Round-up 2007
86 journalists killed in 2007 - up 244% over five years

In 2007:
  86 journalists and 20 media assistants were killed
  887 arrested
  1,511 physically attacked or threatened
  67 journalists kidnapped
  528 media outlets censored

Online:
  37 bloggers were arrested
  21 physically attacked
  2,676 websites shut down or suspended

In 2006
  85 journalists and 32 media assistants were killed
  871 arrested
  1,472 physically attacked or threatened
  56 journalists kidnapped
  912 media outlets censored

[more…]

“The American scientist at the center of a media storm over comments suggesting that black people were not as intelligent as whites said Thursday he never meant to imply that the African continent was genetically inferior, adding that he was mortified over the attention his words had drawn.”
[source]

Mr Watson, who should be whacked on the head, has reportedly said that:

1. “tests showed Africans did not have the same level of intelligence as whites.”
2. “he was ‘inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa’ because ‘all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really’.”
3. “he was ‘mortified by what had happened’.”
4. he couldn’t “understand how [he] could have said what [he is] quoted as having said.”
5. “to all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
6. “there are many people of color who are very talented.”
7. while he hopes that everyone is equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”
8. “a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.”
9. there is a link between skin colour and sex drive: black people have higher libidos

He should be whacked on the head because a scientist who’s famous for his work on genetics, who’s credited with working out the double-helixed genetic information, should know better. Or perhaps he’s already fallen and knocked his head.

Read more:

1. telegraph.co.uk
2. gnxp.com/blog
3. dailymail.co.uk
4. huffingtonpost.com
5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki

‘President George W. Bush strongly urged lawmakers Wednesday to reject a resolution that describes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tension over northern Iraq.

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Bush said in a brief statement. “But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror.”’
[more…]

UPDATE:
The bill passed anyway. Aznavour will be happy.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
~Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born on 7 October 1931. Happy birthday to him. In the photo he is reacting to testimony on Apartheid presented during a Truth and Reconciliation session in his native South Africa. He chaired the committee and in 1999 was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for his work there.

He has recently drawn fire for criticising some of Israel’s actions against Palestinians.

UPDATE: Read Mike’s American Sacrifices post

“I am Jewish, and stifling debate and dissent [and] criticism of Israel is a disservice to all Jews, the state of Israel and the American people,” [Marv Davidov] said.
[source]

Mr Davidov was referring to the decision by St Thomas University in Minnesota not to invite Desmond Tutu. The reason the school gave was that Bishop Tutu “compares Jews in Israel to Hitler [and] in another section he questions Jewish faithfulness to God. (1)”

It is indeed a pity that those who made the decision to bar him from speaking at the school feel Israel cannot be criticised, or that people’s faith cannot be questioned.

A professor at the university who was pushing for the invitation to be accepted by the school has been “removed as director [of] the university’s justice and peace studies program. (2)” Someone was very strongly against inviting Tutu to the school, which says that Tutu “has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he’s said. (3)”

Please visit The Jewish Voice for Peace (4) and join the campaign to write to St Thomas’s president, Father Dease, about the injustice of this act, and demand the reinstatement of Professor Toffolo as head of the university’s justice and peace studies program.

The Jewish Voice for Peace further says that “the rumor of Tutu’s alleged ‘anti-Semitism’ is based entirely on a propaganda campaign waged by the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America. Though he is outspoken in his criticism of Israel’s occupation regime, sometimes even bellicose, Tutu has never displayed anything other than deep concern for all peoples and his sympathy for Palestinians suffering under the yoke of occupation.”

See Tutu’s CV (5)

A few minutes ago I visited one of my favourite blogs, Le Chamois, and the title of a post (reproduced here for this post) was what happened to me this morning, and just about every day, or quotidiennement. I walk my two kids to school, and they always want to take the subway — not the tube but the little tunnel that allows people to cross a busy street.

At the other end, more often than not, is a Caucasian man who hands out leaflets about a phone subscription, or something. For those who don’t know me, I’m Negroid. The man gives out his circular/round advert only to white people. I made it a point to observe him, and he will not extend his hand when it’s a black person going by. This morning he gave his advert to a white woman before us, didn’t give it to me, and gave it to the white couple behind us. I waited at a distance and watched. A black woman went by. The man didn’t offer her the circular/round handout.

I live in France where liberté, fraternité and égalité are supposed to be the norm. But in fact, no. They petered out long ago. My nephew in South Africa is trying to visit us for a week, but the procedure is so long and discouraging (read about it here, hat tip to Le Chamois for the link), I’m beginning to think my sister has given up. On the other hand, I went home for the summer. My French wife and my French children didn’t have to ask for a visa, and they could stay in South Africa and Lesotho for 90 days, just like that. L’exclusion quotidienne. No payslips to produce, no electricity bills, no birth certificates, no letters from the chief of their village. Just a valid passport at the airport.

It doesn’t stop there. Now Africans and other immigrants have to undergo blood tests to prove parental relations with family members already in France. Please visit Le Chamois for more commentary and more links.

“President Bush, in a confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children’s health insurance.”
[Read more…]

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
© John Milton

John Milton is the guy who wrote Paradise Lost. This sonnet was written as a result of the massacre of the Waldensians by the Duke of Savoy in 1655. The Waldensians are a small Christian (Protestant) church that has existed since before the Reformation. Why did the Duke of Savoy want them dead? As early as 1211, more than 80 Waldensians were burned as heretics in Strasbourg (1). In fact all of this began much earlier when the Pope refused Waldensians the right to preach without the green light of the clergy. They went ahead and preached, and started going against the Catholic church. For centuries persecution against them continued, on and on through the ages.

The Inquisition sought them out like common criminals, and they were often depicted in images as witches (at that time if you wanted someone burned at the stake, you called them a witch.) But all of it matters little today because we’re in the 21st century, and we know better. Right?

Wrong. Le Chamois reports of Waldensian persecution in Italy in 2007, and Christian conservatives are the persecutors. “Les membres de l’Eglise vaudoise du Piémont en Italie ont été insultés le week-end du 22-23 septembre dernier par un mouvement extrémiste (2).” Or, Members of the Waldensian church in Piedmont, Italy, were insulted on the weekend of 22-23 September by an extremist movement. September this year, yes!

Le Chamois further tells us that phrases such as, “To the stakes with Waldensians!” have appeared on walls of San Germano Chisone and Turin churches. That is a serious threat that evokes what previously happened. Slain by the bloody Piemontese, Milton says in his sonnet. Today it’s: threatened by a politico-Christian minority. What next?

17 September 2007

ERITREA

Democratic governments urged to summon Eritrean ambassadors on anniversary of 18 September 2001 crackdown

Reporters Without Borders calls on the foreign ministries of the leading democracies to mark tomorrow’s sixth anniversary of the start of a wave of arrests in Asmara by summoning Eritrea’s ambassadors to express disapproval for a crackdown that led to the suppression of all freedoms and the imprisonment of more than 10 journalists in unknown locations.

Governments that believe in press freedom should make a formal protest about the complete secrecy surrounding Eritrea’s political prisoners and the threats and extortion to which the Eritrean diaspora and exiles and the families of political prisoners are subjected, the organisation said.

“Eritreans need the support of the democracies in order to get President Issaias Afeworki’s regime to loosen its grip on them and their families,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This anniversary must be used to show that press freedom and human rights are not a luxury reserved for a few prosperous nations but a universal right.”

The organisation added: “It would be inconceivable if this anniversary were to pass without any sign of solidarity with Eritrea’s detainees from governments that should make at least some, minimal demands on the countries that have embassies in their capitals.”

On 18 September 2001, the Eritrean government suddenly ordered the closure of all the privately-owned media and began throwing their executives and editors one by one into prison. For several weeks, the political police waged a manhunt in the capital of Africa’s youngest country.

Hundreds of government opponents have been held in unknown locations ever since then. They include at least 12 journalists – Dawit Isaac, Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes, Yusuf Mohamed Ali, Mattewos Habteab, Dawit Habtemichael, Medhanie Haile, Temesgen Gebreyesus, Emanuel Asrat, Said Abdulkader, Seyoum Tsehaye, Hamid Mohamed Said and Saleh Al Jezaeeri.

According to the information available to Reporters Without Borders, four of these journalists have already died in the 314 prison centres scattered throughout the country. The few Eritreans who have managed to escape or have been released say conditions in the prisons are appalling.

Those who have not been arrested or who have not managed to flee the country are forced to live under the yoke of an all-powerful government. After the defection of several leading state media journalists, the authorities began last November to arrest other journalists suspected of staying in contact with the fugitives or of planning to flee themselves.

One of the suspect journalists arrested at the end of last year, Paulos Kidane of the Amharic-language service of state-owned Eri-TV and radio Dimtsi Hafash (Voice of the Broad Masses), told Reporters Without Borders after his release: “We were beaten and tortured in prison for refusing to give the passwords to our e-mail accounts. In the end we cracked because the pain was too much.” Kidane died a few months later, in June, while trying to flee on foot across the border into Sudan.

Daniel Mussie of Radio Dimtsi Hafash’s Oromo-language service has not been released since last November’s crackdown. Eyob Kessete, a journalist with the Amharic-language service of Dimtsi Hafash, and Eri-TV editor Johnny Hisabu were arrested while trying to leave the country clandestinely across the border earlier this year and are still being held somewhere.

Even those Eritreans who manage to get out of the country continue to have to submit to the government’s dictates. All members of the diaspora are obliged to keep paying 2 per cent of their income to the Eritrean embassy in the country where they reside. If they do not comply, they are banned from ever returning home, owning any property there or even sending packages back to Eritrea.

The families of journalists and others who flee abroad are exposed to reprisals and there have been cases in which close relatives – brothers, sisters or parents – have been imprisoned indefinitely and denied contact with the outside world.

—————–

ERYTHRÉE

Sixième anniversaire du 18 septembre 2001 : Reporters sans frontières demande aux gouvernements démocratiques de convoquer leur ambassadeur d’Erythrée pour lui signifier leur réprobation

Reporters sans frontières appelle les ministères des Affaires étrangères des grandes démocraties à convoquer l’ambassadeur érythréen de leur pays respectif, en commémoration des grandes rafles qui ont démarré le 18 septembre 2001 en Erythrée, conduit à la fermeture totale du territoire et à mené à l’incarcération au secret de plus d’une dizaine de journalistes.

L’organisation demande aux gouvernements attachés à la liberté de la presse de protester ainsi, officiellement, contre le secret absolu imposé sur la situation des détenus politiques en Erythrée et le chantage organisé envers la diaspora, les fugitifs et les familles des prisonniers.

“Les Erythréens ont besoin du soutien des démocraties pour que le régime de fer d’Issaias Afeworki desserre l’emprise qu’il maintient sur eux et leurs familles. Cette date symbolique doit être utilisée pour montrer que la liberté de la presse et les droits de l’homme ne sont pas un luxe réservé à quelques peuples prospères, mais un droit universel. Il serait incompréhensible que ce sixième anniversaire se déroule sans qu’aucun signe de solidarité avec les prisonniers érythréens soit donné par les Etats qui ont un minimum d’exigence envers les pays qui disposent d’ambassades sur leur territoire”, a déclaré Reporters sans frontières.

Le 18 septembre 2001, tous les médias privés ont été soudainement fermés sur ordre du gouvernement et leurs responsables ont commencé à être jetés en prison, un par un. La capitale du plus jeune pays d’Afrique s’est transformée en terrain de chasse pour la police politique pendant plusieurs semaines. Depuis, en plus de centaines d’opposants, une quinzaine de journalistes ont disparu dans les geôles du pays. Ils s’appellent Dawit Isaac, Fessehaye Yohannes, dit “Joshua”, Yusuf Mohamed Ali, Mattewos Habteab, Dawit Habtemichael, Medhanie Haile, Temesgen Gebreyesus, Emanuel Asrat, Said Abdulkader, Seyoum Tsehaye, Hamid Mohamed Said et Saleh Al Jezaeeri. Selon les informations de Reporters sans frontières, quatre d’entre eux ont d’ores et déjà trouvé la mort dans l’un des 314 centres pénitentiaires qui parsèment le pays. Les quelques Erythréens qui ont pu fuir après avoir été libérés de prison font état de conditions de détention effroyables.

Ceux qui n’ont pas pu fuir ou que la police n’a pas arrêtés ont été contraints de vivre sous la férule d’un gouvernement tout-puissant. En novembre 2006, suite aux défections de plusieurs journalistes célèbres des médias publics, les autorités ont arrêté ceux qui étaient suspectés d’être restés en contact avec les fugitifs ou de chercher à fuir eux-mêmes. Selon le récit qu’il avait fait après sa libération à Reporters sans frontières, l’un d’eux a été “battu et torturé en prison, après avoir refusé de divulger les mots de passe de [leurs] adresses électroniques”. “Finalement, nous avons craqué parce que la douleur était trop forte”, avait-il ajouté. Paulos Kidane, journaliste du service en amharique de la chaîne publique érythréenne Eri-TV et de la station publique Dimtsi Hafash (Voix des larges masses), est mort quelques mois plus tard, en juin 2007, alors qu’il tentait de fuir à pied vers le Soudan. Daniel Mussie, journaliste du service en oromo de Radio Dimtsi Hafash, n’est quant à lui jamais sorti de prison. Eyob Kessete et Johnny Hisabu, respectivement journaliste du service en amharique de la radio publique et monteur de la chaîne de télévision publique Eri-TV, ont été arrêtés alors qu’ils tentaient de passer clandestinement les frontières du pays et sont toujours détenus quelque part.

Même lorsqu’ils sont parvenus à quitter le territoire, les Erythréens continuent de subir le diktat du gouvernement d’Issaias Afeworki. Tous ceux qui vivent en diaspora sont ainsi contraints de verser 2% de leurs revenus à l’ambassade d’Erythrée de leur pays, faute de quoi il leur est interdit de retourner sur leur terre natale, d’y posséder un bien quelconque ou d’y envoyer des colis. Des représailles sont exercées contre les familles de ceux, notamment les journalistes, qui sont parvenus à s’exiler. Des membres de leur entourage proche, des frères, des soeurs ou des parents sont incarcérés indéfiniment, sans contact avec l’extérieur.

__________________________________________

Leonard VINCENT
Bureau Afrique / Africa desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 76
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : afrique@rsf.org / africa@rsf.org
Web : www.rsf.org

The 11th of September, dubbed 9/11 by many, was a horrendous day that I think I will remember for the rest of my days. Here are the reasons why. (1) Many innocent people lost their lives, quite unnecessarily and in quite a cruel manner; (2) Most of those who flew the planes or helped hijack them had a future, family, prospects, and they chucked it out the window. I don’t understand; (3) The tragedy was spectacular, and I keep seeing the second plane slamming into a tower; (4) The amount of hate that goes into planning and executing something like this is beyond my comprehension; and (5) I’ve already seen a few films and documentaries on the subject, and I’m sure there’s more to come.

How can we forget, and why should we? How can we forget tragedy? Loss of life? Cruelty? La bêtise humaine? How can we forget 11 September 2001? How? How can we forget the Shoah? How can we forget slavery? How can we forget the dying populations of Iraq? How can we forget Rwanda? How can we forget New Orleans and Katrina? How can we forget Darfur? How? And more important, why should we? How can we forget Apartheid?

Google the phrase “we will never forget” and see how many links you come up with. I hit 946 000. If half of them talk about something other than the 11th of September, there’s still 473 000 people on-line who will never forget. Plus three quarters of the off-line population of the world. Now google 9/11. My point?

This is a long way of saying, I’m glad we aren’t forgetting this, my way of saying we must never forget those, either. No tragedy should be forgotten, and the perpetrator(s) need to be punished. I needed to go this long way to assure my reader that I do refer to all human tragedies. All of them.

I also needed to say this after the day of 11 September (out of respect), but close enough to the day for my little “diatribe” to hold some meaning. Some time ago I read a poem that may perhaps illustrate my feeling more clearly. Poems always do, don’t they? If you want to comment on my opinion here, please do so (agree, disagree with me). If you want to comment on the poem, please do so (poetics of the poem). Here it is:

A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM

Before I start this poem, I’d like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing…
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives’ bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war … ssssshhhhh….
Say nothing … we don’t want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador …
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua …
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos …
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west…

100 years of silence…
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand
Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness …

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won’t be. Not like it always has
been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison,
New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and
Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton’s 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all…Don’t cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing…For our dead.

© Emmanuel Ortiz (published on 11 September 2002)
* Listen to the poem (1)
* Other poems against human tragedy (2)

Zoe, my brother, says “On this day, the 4th of September, in 1981, our home was attacked in the middle of the night by armed soldiers. The target was our father, Benjamin Masilonyane Masilo, who escaped the shooting by the skin of his teeth. It is truly a miracle that he survived the attack. Motlatsi however, his three-year old grandson and our nephew, was not so lucky. He died, presumably in his sleep because he was still in his position on the bed, when the bullets ripped his stomach open.

Lest we forget, and so that such things may not continue to happen to other people, we need to tell this story and those of others similar to ours, over and over and over again.” I say amen to that. I’d hate for what happened to us to happen to someone else. That’s because I know first hand the horror of it, and how much it can destroy a life, lives, not of the killed only, but of the survivors as well. Lest we forget, our job, all of us, is to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again. We must remind our leaders day and night, and we must be prepared to affront them with guts and integrity.

I refuse to wish anyone a happy 4th of September…

AGENDA #74 – Rape

Poems will be considered for publication in Agenda 74, which will be published in the beginning of December 2007.

Poetry can be but does not have to be on the theme of rape.

Length of contributions: Poems have to fit a full page of Agenda (slightly bigger than A5)

Submission deadline: 14 September 2007

Submission requirements:

1. All submissions must be emailed to editor@agenda.org.za.
2. All submitted poems must come with a short bio and contact details of the author.
3. If you would like to publish anonymously please state so clearly in your submission.

Please feel free to forward this poetry call to anyone you think might be interested.

I have seen many documentaries on genocide and human atrocities. Movies too. Hotel Rwanda? Killing Fields? Roots? Schindler’s List? Been there, done that, and after each time I incredulously asked: “how did all the ‘good people’ allow this to happen?”
[Continue…]

AND I WATCH IT IN MANDELA (by John Matshikiza)

It is not for the safety of silence
That this man has opened his arms to lead.
The strength of his words hangs in the air
As the strength in his eyes remains on the sky;
And the years of impatient waiting draw on
While this man burns to clear the smoke in the air.
There is fire here,
Which no prison
Can kill in this man;
And I watch it in Mandela.
© John Matshikiza

Nelson Mandela was born today in 1918. Happy birthday to him. I won’t bother you with the details of who he is and what he’s done. I’ll bother you by telling you what he means to me. It is immeasurable and it stifles me, prevents me from writing a poem about him, even if that very idea remains one of the aims of my writing life.

When Nelson Mandela was released, I was on a sofa in a small French village called Lamorlaye, staring at the telly. We waited quite a long time because something wasn’t right or wasn’t ready, and we waited. I was excited. “What does he look like?” I’d only ever seen two or three photos of him, and they were 27 year-old photos (or older).

When I was in high school in the late 70s, Soweto happened, and young, black South-Africans poured into Lesotho to escape persecution and death in their homeland. Some were supporters of the ANC, while others were of the PAC, and still others of the BPC. All were after one thing, however: free South Africa from Apartheid. I learned a sort of discipline from some of them. We would gather and sing South African freedom songs into the night. They were in Zulu, Sesotho, Xhosa and English. One of my favourites was, “Nantsi indoda emnyama, Vorster! Pasopa, nantsi indoda emnyama, Vorster” (Here comes the black man, Vorster! Watch out, here comes the black man, Vorster).

Through my new friends we discovered the Freedom Charter, which started off by declaring that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it.” In the early evening after supper we’d huddle around a small transistor set and try to catch Radio Freedom, an ANC station broadcasting out of Tanzania.

Nelson with wife, Graca

I had memorised a chunk of ntate Mandela’s defense speech (Rivonia trial), and eventually threw in ntate Sobukwe’s statements and my own into it. A pot-pourri of freedom words. I was moved every time I recited it, privately or publicly. One of my friends told me to remove the word Azania from the speech and replace it with South Africa. I saw no reason why not.

When he emerged, fist up, Winnie by his side, I immediately broke down and fell, sobbing, into my wife’s arms. I was moved beyond any expectation. Later on we listened to his first words after 27 years. He said that he wasn’t a prophet, but “a servant of you, the people.” Something like that. But I’ve got to find an exact quote:

Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans.
I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.
I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today.
I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.
[source]

That’s how he began. I have been permanently touched by this man. I have also been permanently touched by other events that occurred in southern Africa, especially in Lesotho. I would like to wish Nelson Mandela a happy birthday, and to thank him for being the person who he is. South Africa is a better place because of people like him. Sobukwe. Biko. Sisulu. Fischer. Motsoaledi. Tambo. Mxenge. Mbeki (the father). Tutu. The list is long. One day when I get to write that poem about him, it’ll most probably be what will happen after he goes, or what happened after he left. A portion of what i had memorised in high school says,

Above all, we want equal political rights, because without them our disabilities will be permanent. I know this sounds revolutionary to the whites in this country, because the majority of voters will be Africans. This makes the white man fear democracy.

But this fear cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the only solution which will guarantee racial harmony and freedom for all. It is not true that the enfranchisement of all will result in racial domination. Political division, based on colour, is entirely artificial and, when it disappears, so will the domination of one colour group by another. The ANC has spent half a century fighting against racialism. When it triumphs it will not change that policy.

This then is what the ANC is fighting. Their struggle is a truly national one. It is a struggle of the African people, inspired by their own suffering and their own experience. It is a struggle for the right to live.

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
[source]

My link in Lesotho says, “Hooray!!! Judge ‘Maseforo Mahase of the Lesotho High Court has ordered that Makotoko Lerotholi (a former soldier), the first man to be abducted by the masked men, be released to his family immediately.

Last evening Advocate Haae Phoofolo, a human rights lawyer based in Maseru, lodged an application before the High Court for an order demanding the immediate release of Lerotholi, pointing out that he was unlawfully arrested and has not been charged since. This came after the army had attempted to dump Lerotholi and Motlomelo, another abductee, into the hands of the police. The police agreed to take Motlomelo in (I’m not clear on the grounds yet), but refused to take Lerotholi into their custody citing the horrible condition of his health and self as their reason.

The respondents in the application were as follows: the Army Commander, the Minister of Defence (who happens to be the Prime Minister), the Commissioner of Police, the Superintendent at the Makoanyane Army Hospital and the Attorney General.

Visibly shaken and unstable, Lerotholi arrived at the High Court at around 21:00 hours led by members of the Lesotho Defence Force. He, through his lawyer, recited his story since the abduction at the entrance to Lakeside Hotel on the 22 of June 2007. He was taken by about ten heavily armed men, blindfolded and driven somewhere into the mountains. Along the way he was repeatedly gunbutted and kicked.

His abductors demanded that he tell the whereabouts of the armoury where the guns taken from ministers’ bodyguards was. His torture was systematically directed to the kidneys and genitals, and this has rendered his urinary system malfunctional.

The judge ordered that he be released immediately to his family and after condemning the whole saga, prayed to God that she never in her whole life presides over a similar case. We are continuously encouraged by such judgements and look at them as a good sign of sanity amidst the madness we live in.

The questions remain: why did the army deny any knowledge of the whereabouts of these men? Why did the government spokesman, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, deny any knowledge by the government of the whereabouts and condition of these men? If any wrong was done, why were the men not arrested by the police and charged, instead of being abducted by the army and tortured? Why? Why? Why?”

Monyane Moleleki

Thabo Thantsi, the abductee who was hospitalised at Makoanyane Army Hospital, has escaped and resurfaced somewhere in South Africa. He came on air on Harvest FM’s “Rise and Shine” morning show and gave a thorough detail of his ordeal at the hands of the army. He is a former soldier himself.

The details of his ordeal are gory and I shudder at the mere recollection. He says he was in the hands of the army and he has divulged the names of the officers who were interrogating him, demanding that he produce the guns taken from ministers’ bodyguards recently. He says another question was why he had resigned from the army (in 2003) and why he is now a bodyguard to Motsoahae Thabane, the ABC leader.

He has named the Minister of Natural Resources, Monyane Moleleki, as the mastermind behind these abductions. According to Thabo, his feet were chained and padlocked, his hands cuffed behind and to the chain around his feet. When his folks came to see him he was uncuffed and unchained and asked not to reveal his condition to them. He further reveals that many of the abducted men, some still actively employed in the army, are at the army hospital in varying conditions of torture.

From what he says he heard while his abductors were talking, the Minister has already paid up and the elite group has two weeks to finish off all members of the ABC who are perceived to be active and dangerous.

I tried to find the name Thabo Thantsi on the Internet, and actually found two links, his voter details (if it’s the same Thabo Thantsi): here, and mention of him in the Lesotho Forum: here. I looked up the minister allegedly involved, and found a Wikipedia mention, an article about the 2006 attack on him, a speech in Iran Daily (scroll down a bit), and a short interview.

This is in response to a blog post I came across. The writer was wondering whether Tutu was a Christian or not. Since I think he’s one of the better public people on this planet, I decided to put my two-cents’ worth. I modified the original comment slightly to turn it into a blog post.

“Elie, No problem for the belated response. I understand what you’re saying, and still I disagree. But it’s a free country, and you can believe what you wish. Ditto for me. I’m not gay. I’m married to a beautiful woman and I have two children. I’m attracted by women, yes. None of your business, true, but I’m trying to convince you of something important.

But that doesn’t mean I have anything to say against gay people. I know gay folks who are godly, and who are most probably going to heaven. I know so-called straight folks who are shits. Pardon my French. Sex orientation has very little to do with anything.I’m a Christian, raised in a Christian family. I’m saying this only to assure you that I do know 1 Corinthians 9:1-12. But do you?

What language do you read it in? French? English? Jesus didn’t speak any of those languages. Man translated the Bible into French and English. Do you know what the word for homosexual in Greek is? In Latin? In Aramaic, the native language of Jesus? If you don’t know, then either you dig and find out, or you ponder who Jesus was/is, and ask yourself if he wasn’t/isn’t all-encompassing in his love and in his understanding, like Tutu says. If you don’t know, how can you be so sure that Jesus “was/is against homosexuality”? Are you just repeating things that are said by other people?

I looked around your blog and didn’t see anything on the war in Iraq. Nothing on Darfur, either. Start there, I say.

That is all I have say. Please keep speaking out on your blog, because it’s important to speak out. But make sure you choose wisely who you speak out against. Don’t shoot the good guys. By the way, you speak out against the parents of little Maddie, as having lost the little girl “because of their strong uncontrollable desire for pleasure.” They left the kids in the flat and went to a restaurant.

But they should be able to do that! The fault is not with the parents but with the criminal who took their child. I and many others have plastered photos of Maddie on our blogs. We’re doing something. Are the people who took Maddie Christians? If not, speak out against them, not against innocent people.

By the way, I have a very good friend in Sucy-en-Brie, which I know is attached to Bonneuil. I had another friend in Bonneuil who worked for the Port Autonome de Paris. But I don’t know where he is, now. Cheers.”

News from Lesotho is disturbing. Democracy and the rule of law are advancing backwards. Recently, a curfew was put up, after attacks were carried out on prominent politicians’ homes. That rings a bell. If you can link to this, or reproduce it on your blog, I would be most grateful. Or tell a friend over coffee. Or just read it and sympathise with us in spirit (or whatever deed). I know I sound desperate — I am. This needs to be talked about and shared. I have just received news from home that:

Thabo Thakalekoala of Seapoint in Maseru, a vocal and prominent freelancing investigative journalist, was arrested on Friday morning (22 June 2007) and charged with high treason. He is appearing in court today (25 June 2007) to be formally charged.

On the day of his arrest he had just read a letter over the air on his popular morning programme “Rise and Shine” on Harvest FM. The letter was supposedly given to him by a group of army men and requested to read it on his show. The soldiers vehemently denounced the rule of one Mosikili in Lesotho who they say is a foreigner and therefore is not elligible to hold such office. This comes after it was discovered that the PM holds a South African identity document (a fact he has publicly admitted), no wonder the rampant looting of state coffers by way of the 84% salary increments and the M4000.00 Kompressors and the M2000.00 Camrys.

We look back in sadness at the deaths of Mahlomola Motuba and Mike Pitso, two jo