Children of Afrika - A Poem by Thando Sipuye

"Children of Afrika", more than just a poem by Thando Sipuye, is a war-horn, a sounding and warning call to Black Afrikan people the world over to remember their past and to never forget their historical experience of the Maafa (Black Holocaust) and to know who that European invaders are still their historical enemies. The poem/war-horn reminds Black people that all the experiences of their Ancestors who died under brutal and ruthless circumstances are encoded in their genetic memory and collective consciousness.

MANDELA & TAMBO ATTORNEYS: THE CONSPIRACY TO SILENCE SOBUKWE

By Thando Sipuye

Late last year we began having conversations about Prof. Mangaliso Sobukwe and the law and one day Sis Luleka Slu Flatela called me informing me she had located the offices of Mandela & Tambo Attorneys in Johannesburg CBD.

Ofcourse I was primarily interested in seeing the state of these law firm offices of the ANC leaders, as well as what was contained inside them, in contrast to the debilitated state of the R.M. Sobukwe Attorneys office in Galeshewe.

This was especially because of the many dominant distortions that tend to cast Sobukwe in the shadow of Mandela as had been done in 2017 by Professor Xolela Mangcu in one published article wherein he cast Sobukwe as a footnote to Mandela.

In a posture meant to undermine Sobukwe, Professor Mangcu had written that: “Nelson Mandela went to Wits University to become a successful lawyer, but he emerged out of that experience a great leader. Sobukwe too thought he might be a lawyer someday, but history had different plans”.

According to Professor Xolela Mangcu’s footnoting exercise, Sobukwe merely “thought he might be a lawyer someday”. But apparently, “history had different plans”.

So the day after Sis Lu informed me about the Mandela & Tambo Attorneys offices I grabbed my camera and met with Ras PrinceShoni Wa Ha Rabada and we went to meet up with her for a visit to the Mandela & Tambo Attorneys offices at Chancellor House.

When we arrived there we were all surprised to learn that we were not allowed entry inside, the security informed us that we could only peep through the windows from the outside and we complied.

Interestingly, the Mandela & Tambo Attorneys office at Chancellor House stands just a few metres away from the Magistrate's Court in central Johannesburg where Sobukwe was sentenced to three years in Prison in 1960.

Well, in comparison to the Sobukwe law firm office in Galeshewe the Mandela & Tambo offices are still standing in good shape. Peeping through the windows and across the walls of the building we could see some of the history related to Mandela and Tambo's days as attorneys.

We could also see some of the archival court documents of cases that Mandela and Tambo had been involved in, including some letters to their respective clients. There were even pictures of both Mandela and Tambo in their law firm offices chatting with clients and carrying some legal papers.

Mandela, Tambo and other ANC leaders are eternally memorialised and their legacies and heritage consistently celebrated.

One can go into the national archives as well as the archives of the Department of Justice and still find records of some cases related to Mandela, Tambo and others.

In fact, even the recordings of Mandela during the Rivonia Trail of 1963 (merely three years after Sobukwe's trail in 1960) can be accessed at these archives.

There is even a full transcript of Mandela's speech/testimony before the court at the Rivonia Trail in 1963.

Yet these people tell us there is not a shred of information on Sobukwe's Trial in 1960.

They have even gone to extent of expunging Sobukwe's transcribed testimony from the court records at the Department of Justice.

In Galeshewe or anywhere in this country there is not a shred of archival materials related to Sobukwe's law firm or his practise as a lawyer.

After Sobukwe had completed his articles he was barred from practising law or entering any courts of law except as an accused or witness, and he had to fight that racist law to be accepted as an attorney.

After the racist regime finally accepted Sobukwe as an attorney and granted him permission to enter their courts, nothing he said in court, nor any of the cases he handled, could ever be reported on publicly.

Sobukwe was an outlawed lawyer. In fact there is a newspaper report I have which reported on the arrest of a Cape Town man who was arrested for quoting Sobukwe.

But it is of great significance that South Africa's Black woman Judge in the Constitutional Court, Judge Yvonne Mokgoro, is just one of the many people Sobukwe helped as an attorney in Galeshewe.

Ofcourse, Sobukwe won the court case and Yvonne Mokgoro was released. She tells the story of how at that moment Sobukwe inspired her to study law as a woman to fight against apartheid.

It would be interesting to talk to her and interview her about Sobukwe.

The recordings and archival materials related to Sobukwe do exist. In fact, when Sobukwe was incarcerated indefinitely on Robben Island he also wrote a number of letters and books that were confiscated by the State.

He was considered enemy number one of the state so everything he wrote and communicated was intercepted and censored to ensure that he would never "incite" Afrikan people towards revolution again.

These materials were not destroyed as they would like us to believe.

They are kept in secret vaults of former State security agents and agencies, as well personal possessions of some practitioners of the law, including certain individuals who transcribed some of Sobukwe's numerous court cases.

The security cluster, led by the South African State Security Agency (previously National Intelligence Agency), are part of the vulturous conspiracy to silence Sobukwe.

Visiting the Mandela & Tambo Attorneys offices affirmed our conviction that there is a conspiracy to silence Sobukwe beyond the grave.

The forces of evil are determined to mute the Great Son of Man.

But Sobukwe shall never be silenced!

Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe Tribute Lecture

Speech Delivered by Mo'Afrika Ellen Mothopeng

Mo'Afrika Ellen Mothopeng, Former President of AWO

Below is the full speech delivered at the inaugural Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe Tribute Lecture held at the Mofolo Arts Centre in Soweto on the 12th August 2017. The Tribute Lecture was organized by the Blackhouse Kollective in partnership with the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Trust.

Read the full speech here:

Speech Delivered at the inaugural Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe Tribute Lecture

Erasing Black Women From Herstory: June 16 Students' Uprising & The Erasure Of Women

By Thando Sipuye

Last week Friday marked 41 years since the Soweto Students’ Uprising that took place on the 16^th June 1976, a day that ushered a decisive turning point in the liberation struggle in Azania (SA).

Today the day is a celebrated national holiday re-branded as ‘Youth Day’, a day in which contributions of young people in the liberation project are usually evoked and celebrated. In fact, the whole month of June has become christened as ‘Youth Month’.

But, there are serious distortions and misrepresentations of historical facts in the dominant public narratives around the 1976 Students’ Uprising. One of most critical of these distortions is the persistent subtle projection of that uprising as the somewhat exclusive initiative of young men, to the complete exclusion and erasure of the invaluable contributions and sacrifices of young women of that time.

Very often, when June 16 is discussed or commemorated, the painful experiences, sacrifices and contributions of the young Black women of the 1976 generation in the fight against the white supremacist education are largely downplayed (mentioned in passing), or completely erased and silenced.

It is as though June 16 was the sole initiative of the prominent male students like Tsietsi Mashinini and Khotso Sethloho only (and of course,  the first boy victim, Zolile Hector Peterson); as though no Black women were involved at all in the planning meetings and the subsequent protest on that fateful day and weeks after.

  

The names and identities of young women rarely appear even when victims of that June 16 massacre are evoked in public dialogues, intellectual discourse or media reports. These Black women are continuously rendered invisible by the entire system; they simply don’t exist, they are not regarded as worthy subjects of his-story.

For example, there are many female students who were shot and killed at various places around Chaiwelo when the Uprising began at Nghungunyane Secondary School, whose identities remain a mystery till this day. Other examples are two specific women from Dlamini whose involvement in the June 16 Uprising resulted in their lifetime confinement to wheelchairs.

On the 17^th June 1976 a young Black girl, Hermina Leroke, was shot dead in Diepkloof after she and her peers had seen a helicopter and ran. Her companions and friends witnessed her killing by the police. Her name, like many other young women who died, is unknown.

Even when pictures of the June 16 events are shown on any public platforms, the selective gendering of the images used is quite apparent. In the media, in academia and in political spaces the historic images used to tell the story are those with largely male students.

Images of the June 16 uprising with young Black women leading in front, carrying placards with revolutionary messages alongside the male students, defiant against military and police armoury, and leading in front during the marches, are rarely published or used.

Consequently, the only stories that are told are those of the brave young men of that generation; those of the many brave, but nameless, young women don’t matter much in our national consciousness and memory.

Take Sam Nzima’s famous image of Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying Zolile Peterson’s dead body for example. In the same frame on that image is a clearly emotional Antionnette Sithole. But she bears little significance, she is afforded no historic currency at all besides being known as the sister of the dead boy carried by Makhubu whose whereabouts are today unknown. She is cast either an ahistorical or unhistorical object in the enterprise of historical manufacture. Nothing is said about the fact that she was a young woman who had made a conscious decision, like many others, to protest on that day. We simply know her as ‘Hector’s sister’.

The subtle consensus constructed through this distorted version of and approach to history is that June 16 was, firstly, conceived by men and led by men only; secondly, an exclusive initiative by students only; and thirdly, a one day event which changed the course of history.

Stories and experiences of less known people, particularly women, involved in June 16 are generally disregarded and undermined. There are numerous Black women, little known of because they were not in leadership positions or did not appear on photographer’s frames, whose involvement, contributions and experiences during the Uprising were significantly profound.

Even the only woman who was an executive member of the Soweto Students’ Representative Council (SSRC) and General Secretary of the South African Student Movement (SASM) that planned and organized the June 16 Uprising, Sibongile Mkhabela, is least spoken about and less known. Her contributions to and sacrifices for the liberation project are unknown to today’s youth.

And she is not an exception.

Think of the silenced broader influences of women like Winnie Motlalepula Kgware who worked very closely with the students as a teacher and had an influential role in the launch of the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), later becoming the President of Black People’s Convention (BPC), an umbrella body of the Black Consciousness Movement. Mama Kgware’s name, the first woman to be elected as president of a political organization in South Africa, never appears on any public platforms in this country.

There are many Black women who were directly involved in the June 16 Uprising, like Dikeledi Motswene who was a grade 9 pupil at Ithute Senior Secondary in 1976, Priscilla Msesenyane who was a grade 4 pupil at St Matthews Roman Catholic School, Naledi Kedi Motsau who was a grade 12 pupil at Naledi High School and Martha Matthews who was a grade 12 pupil at Kelekitso Senior Secondary, whose stories never get registered on our collective national memory and consciousness.

Other residents and Black people of Soweto who were directly or indirectly involved and affected by the 1976 Students’ Uprising, like community activists, parents, officials, shop owners, nurses, doctors and teachers like Nozipho Joyce Mxakathi (now Diseko) also disappear completely from our memory when the story is narrated.

Another serious limitation of the way memory about June 16 is reconstructed today is the lack of detail about the subsequent arrests, tortures and killings that occurred days and months after that initial day; right up to the trial of the Soweto 11 who were accused of sedition for planning and organizing the student protest in 1976.

For days, weeks and months after June 16 the Black community was under siege and terrorized by blood-thirsty police whose mandate was to capture or kill student leaders. In the book, ‘Soweto 16 June 1976: Personal Accounts Of The Uprising’, Martha Matthews who took part in the June 16 protests is quoted as having said “the following day it was worse because these boers were now following people inside their yards. We could not go out. We could not go buy in shops… The boers’ cars were patrolling, and they were driving very slow, very slow. I am telling you, if you want to die just get outside the house… They could even shoot a toddler as young as six years”.

Then there are stories of those that died on June 16; none speaks for the dead as history is reconstructed and told. The contestations over the lifeless bodies of those killed that ensued between the State, their families and communities are muted and unknown.

One person who tells this story is Thomas Ntuli who was a grade 8 student in 1976. In the above-mentioned book he reveals that “the victims of June 16, and the days thereafter, would not be buried like the other dead. Their bodies did not belong to their families. They were contested between the State, the families and the community. Community members wanted to inscribe the bodies with messages for the ‘the struggle’. The State, however, demanded that the burial should not be political”.

This parochial approach to history also minimizes the scale of the viciousness, violence and brutality of the racist apartheid regime. The extent to which, not only the students, but the entire Black community and families were affected by the June 16 Uprising becomes obscured and blurred.

Stories of home invasions at night, police threats, beatings, sexual harassment, interrogations and torture of many women, mostly mothers, grandmothers and aunts of students, are downplayed and mentioned in passing at least, or completely erased at worst.

This obfuscates the stories and experiences of many ordinary Black people, women especially. It inscribes glorified men as the sole-supreme actors and only agents of history, projecting women as mere insignificant shadows, passive, without any agency. This is epistemic violence against Black women.

It is, in fact, the traditional modus operandi of the elite that record history to erase and silence the voices women and ordinary people. The euro-patriarchal elitist approach, not only to the writing of history but also in the honouring of struggle icons, erases the memories and experiences, and silences the stories and contributions of ordinary Black women, women activist and women intellectuals.

We must understand that this approach to history is fundamentally rooted in eurocentric ethos. Mohau Pheko writes somewhere that “almost every canonized western philosopher is on record as viewing women as inferior, incompetent, or disqualified epistemic or moral agents”. Indeed, European scholars and philosophers like Aristotle, upon whose ideas today’s democracy is built, were misogynist.

Aristotle believed women were inferior to men. For example, in his work ‘Politics’, Aristotle writes that “as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject”. And in ‘Xenophon’s Symposium’, Socrates also asserts that woman’s nature is not wise and inferior to men’s.

In his book, ‘Homosexuality & The Effeminization Of Afrikan Males’, Dr Mwalimu Baruti also reveals that “beginning with the fathers of stolen European philosophy, not only were women seen as unfit for the love of men, but they were also judged as innately inferior and of less social, political, economic, religious and, therefore, cultural significance and value”.

So ultimately, histories constructed in euro-patriarchal societies called ‘democracies’ today, shaped and informed by the dominant eurocentric culture that permeates every fabric of our being and social existence, must innately eliminate women. These histories must advertently erase, silence and debase women; her story does not qualify as history.

In this way, violence against women, misogyny and patriarchy are perpetually institutionalized through this erasure of the memory and contributions of women in socio-economic and political revolutions. Liberation struggles, we are made to believe, are the products and field of elite ‘great’ men only; as a result, history, therefore, must necessarily continue to be a male-dominated theatre.

So, as we honour the memory and commemorate the sacrifices of the youth on 1976, we must understand that the June 16 generation were heterogeneous and diverse in many respects. We must acknowledge the critical role played by young Black women in that Students’ Uprising. Their contributions must be equally remembered, evoked and celebrated. Otherwise, we continue to institutionalize violence against women through their erasure from national memory and our collective consciousness.

South African Society Fails (Black) Women

By Thando Sipuye

Ignorance against violence and abuse of women is as real as the air we breathe. To a great extent, I am evidence of that horrible reality.

Sometime last month I stumbled upon a picture on Facebook with the caption "please help me find my friend..." 

I paid little attention; to me this did not matter much, it seemed like some kind of silly joke. Honestly, I thought the beautiful woman on the captioned picture was some American celebrity and that someone was pulling one of those sick social media pranks. I was ignorant.

A week later, I got a shock of my life when I saw screen shot on Twitter which read: "Help find my daughter her name is Karabo Mokoena". It was a screenshot of a Facebook post by Ntate Tshepo Mokoena. I became uneasy with guilt. Upon searching Karabo Mokoena's name on Twitter, the picture I had ignored the past week on Facebook came up. 

I then searched for Tshepo Mokoena on Facebook, and to my shock, on his wall there a post read: "The boyfriend confession. He killed and burned my daughter".

At that very moment, my soul sank into an abyss. I realized how my ignorance of the picture I had seen a week earlier on Facebook implicated me in the scourge of violence against Black women in SA. 

Like thousands, if not millions, of other men out there, I was complicit in this crime; my ignorance meant consent.

Thereafter, perhaps out of a subconscious guilt, I searched for Karabo's profiles on facebook, twitter and instagram and took some of her pictures. I also came across powerful video clips on her instagram account where she was encouraging and speaking to women.

I then shared Karabo's story with her pictures and videos on my Facebook wall, really disturbed and pained. Her story left me cold with deep sadness, pain and guilt. But I never expected what followed my Facebook post. 

Lunga Gumede, boyfriend of Tinyiko Ngobeni
and her suspected killer.

Literally, thousands of people responded to the post, sharing it and commenting expressing outrage at the story. I also received numerous inboxes on my Facebook Messenger from strangers, people sending me condolences thinking I knew or was close to Karabo.

What hit and cut my soul most sharply was an inbox message that was followed by a telephone conversation with a lady whose younger sister, Tinyiko Ngobeni, suffered the same fate as Karabo in November last year.

The lady, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, told a painful tale of ruthless murder and injustice; her sister, Tinyiko Ngobeni who was a twin, left home for University with her boyfriend, Lunga Gumede, on November 13, 2016. 

She never reached the Vaal University of Technology where she was studying her first year in Medical Biotechnology, as she never called her father to report her arrival as per routine. Upon contacting her boyfriend, Lunga Gumede, to query Tinyiko's whereabouts, he allegedly said he left her at some highway for taxis. When questioned further, he got a lawyer, raising suspicions to the family of the missing 29 year old woman. 

Her family had already reported her missing at the Katlehong Police Station. When the Police investigated further and interrogated Gumede, he allegedly confessed and went to point out where he had buried Tinyiko's body. Her body was found, strangled and already decomposed, on November 19 buried in bushes in Kliprivier. Her boyfriend Lunga Gumede was arrested by the Vaal Police at the scene. 

But on the next Monday, Gumede, who stays in Midrand and comes from a rich affluent family, was released. When the family of the victim went to the Vaal to enquire from the prosecutors why Gumede had been released, they received dodgy answers.

Gumede’s case had disappeared and no clear reasons for his release were given to the family of his alleged victim. It is alleged that his family had stated at the crime scene that they were rich and that their son would never go to prison. 

Tinyiko Ngobeni's family has lost all hope in the criminal and justice system. The suspected

killer of their loved one, Lunga Gumede, is still out there enjoying his life. He is currently the Operations Manager of an organization called Graduate Network which claims to be a "listing of verified, high-calibre graduates from universities, technikons and colleges across South Africa".

The Ngobeni family contacted me after seeing my Facebook posts on Karabo Mokoena's story, in the hope that, since Karabo’s story has caught the nation's attention and brought the issue of violence against women to the fore of national discourse, they too might get justice for their loved one. 

So, as I reflected on the whole issue of violence against women and children in South Africa, it dawned on me that the entire criminal and justice system fails women in this country. More especially, poor Black women who are largely regarded as insignificant appendages in this largely Eurocentric, male dominated society.

Moreover, I realised the painful fact that the stories of Karabo and Tinyiko were actually stories of the daily existence and reality of many other (Black) women in this country. Violence in our communities, in our homes, in our families has become a normal feature of our existence.

Women in this sick nation are not only failed by those who inhibit ignorance about violence, and those who remain silent in the face of these injustices and atrocities; they are largely failed by the entire system. The whole socio-economic and political fabric of this country is designed to fail (Black) women.

South Africa is a sick and violent nation, a country in which violence has become a normal feature of social life, a place where violence and murder are normalised. After all, we are a nation in which the number one citizen, the State President, was accused of raping a young woman and acquitted by the courts.

The justice system is unjust and fails women. Whilst Karabo's boyfriend and alleged killer, Sandile Mantsoe, may be in Police custody for now, the courts may either release him, give him minimal sentence at least, or grant him one life sentence at most.

This is the reality of the South African criminal and justice system. It serves the interests of perpetrators of crime more than the victims. Criminals commit crimes knowing there will be no severe consequences for so doing. Indeed, what an impotent criminal and justice system it is.

Consequently, we must admit that South Africa is a nation founded upon misogynist paradigms and the debasement of women, regardless of constitutional decorations and bills of rights. With all strides achieved, women continue to be marginalised, oppressed and erased in various levels of society: from the home, to the church, to the parliament.

We ought to realize that there is, in fact, no sudden rise in violence against and killings of women in this country, these recent killings are no sudden crisis. This is the daily reality of majority of women, particularly Black women, whose lives are daily theatres of violent existence.

What is new here is that Karabo's story trended on social media and, as a result, got registered in our national consciousness and became public discourse.

Without excusing criminality, and definitely without condoning any violence against women and children, we must look deeper than the surface. Broken societies only bear, produce and rear dysfunctional people, broken men who then continue the cycle of destruction.

Whilst we condemn the individuals who commit these acts of violence against women, we ought to also condemn ourselves for our complicity and silence on the patriarchal siege against women and the entire normalization of violence in our society.

While also bearing in mind that the insanity within these men's reasoning is no excuse for their sick behaviour, we must analyse the physical abuse and killings of (Black) women by their mates as inextricably tied to the whole patriarchal fabric of South African society.

Although violence against women is particularly a male behavioural issue, it's roots are embedded in our accepted social and behavioural norms, as well as our acceptance of general malignment of and misogyny against women.

Whilst the trending #MenAreTrash may be seen by some as an extreme generalization, it is a correct and necessary cry that must be heard with sincere concern. But most importantly, there needs to be serious mutual dialogue and action from both men and women in our country to change old-age attitudes and stereotypes.

Serious attention also needs to be paid to the major challenges around building solid family structures in this country, owing to the history of its deliberate and systematic destruction by agents of white supremacy. Particular attention must be paid to the Black family structure. 

Above all, we need to imagine and work towards building a whole new society in which women's rights are ensured, a society in which women's bodies and lives are respected, a society in which victimized women like Tinyiko Ngobeni and Karabo Mokoena are protected through the justice system.

The Afrocentric scholar and community educator, Dr Mwalimu Baruti, says “no African man should ever touch an African woman except in love and, even then, only with her express permission”.

Indeed, we must imagine and birth anew a society that values and consecrates not only the worth of women, but all human life. When women and human life are threatened or violated in our society, we must respond swiftly, decisively and harshly.

PAC Stalwart Prof. Sipho Shabalala Speaks - On Zephania Mothopeng & #Fee...

This was a speech delivered by Professor Sipho Shabalala during the occasion of the renaming of Pela Street in Soweto after the former PAC President, Zephania Lekoana Mothopeng. The new street is called Zephania Mothopeng.

In this powerful speech Professor Shabalala talks about the historical role of Mothopeng in the Azanian liberation struggle, his contributions in education, substantive democracy versus electoral democracy and the recent #FeeSMustFall student protests.

Thando Sipuye - SABC Hair Interview - 22 November 2016

Thando Sipuye was interviewed by the SABC about his views on the recent incident where a student belonging to the Nazarine Baptist Church (Shembe Church) was forcefully shaven by the teachers. Conducted on the 22nd November 2016.