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Tonite we dedicate our show to Mama Afeni Shakur, Black Panther, Activist, Businesses Woman and mother of Tupac Shakur, who passed away Monday 2nd May 2016.
The theme of one of the Afrika Liberation Day events (organised by AAPRP and PASCF) is African Women & Youth on the front line; Revolutionary Pan-Africanism is the only solution. Afrika has a rich history of Afrikan women leaders and freedom fighters. Sobeknefru and Hatshepsut in dynastic Kemet, Dahia al-Kahina (c690), Queen Nzingha (1600s), Nanny and Cecile Fatiman (1700s), Yaa Asantewaa and Harriet Tubman (1800s) are a few of the many examples. In addition to this both Chiekh Anta Diop and Ifi Amadiume have written about the centrality of matriarchy on the continent. (1)
In more recent decades, women leaders have appeared to be less prominent, with seemingly few emerging out of the independence era. Many would struggle to go beyond Nomzamo (“Winnie”) Mandela or Josina Machel. (2) However, this is arguably more likely down to reporting than reality and evidence is now being brought to light. For example, Ghanaian political scientists Beatrix Allah Mensah asserted in 2005 that “There is ample evidence to substantiate the indispensable role women played in the prelude to independence and immediately after.” (3)
More recently Rhodes University lecturer Siphokazi Magadla revealed that women are said to have constituted 20% of the membership” of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Women combatants in Zimbabwe’s liberation are said to amount one third of the total guerrillas. (4) Interestingly, using the example of Azania (“South Africa”) Sis. Magadla also advocates a re-examination of what constitutes combat within the context of a liberation war:
“Fresh analyses on women’s combat roles in the national liberation movements need to reflect the contextual realities of their lives and the ways in which apartheid, as an unconventional war, blurred the distinctions between battlefront and home front, as well as combatant and civilian.” (5)
Although armed combat remains a key site of engagement, particularly on the Motherland, political organising and mobilisation is taking on increasing significance. Today, this is an arena where Afrikan Women are gaining increasing prominence. To be sure Sister Affiong L. Affiong of Moya Wa Taifa, the keynote AAPRP/PASCF ALD event on 21/05/16 is an activist and organiser of international renown.
Elsewhere, with reparations high on the political agenda undoubtedly the most prominent activist in this field is Sis. Esther Stanford-Xosei. There are also legions of sister warriors emphasising different aspects of the liberation in the UK alone, from the likes of veteran activist and author Queen Mamas Lindiwe Tsele and Nzingha Assata to organiser, broadcaster and UNIA-ACL UK Commissioner Sis Kai Oaugadou-Mbandaka. Uhuru Movement activist Pat Lumumba via the African National Women’s Organization is currently mobilising around the Meshach Boland case and demonstration on May 11th(http://anwouhuru.org/eventsactions/). Sis. Matilda MacAttram director of Black Mental Health UK tirelessly campaigns on a range of issues and often intersect with detention and deaths in custody. Similarly, in spearheading the campaign over the death of Sean Rigg, Sis. Marcia Rigg has pushed back legal boundaries. Sis. Emma Ako, who through Revolutionary Art raises awareness on conflict minerals and funds to assist those battling against the crisis in the Congo. Sis. Leah Salmon who through her www.AmunUniversity.com and Naturally You is providing resources and teaching self-reliance in Education & Health. Sis. Cheryl Phoenix’s Black Child Agenda ensures that we keep or eyes on the educational prize and through the Human Zoo campaign Sara Myers has shown herself to be an activist of international significance. In the field of academia there is Dr Majeena Lynch (PACM, iNAPP – speaker at PACM ALD event on May 29th/30th), Veronica Mason is undertaking some exciting work around youth culture while Dr Nicola Rollock is engaged in vital work deconstructing Whiteness. On the horizon we have the lionesses on the rise Nehanda Sankofa (ARM/Sankofa Rising), Tamar ‘Kush’ Francis (Organisation of Black Unity) and Toyah RBG (Reparations March Committee). The list is by no means exhaustive but gives an indication of some of the work being done in Afrika UK.
(1) Diop, Chiekh Anta (1989) The Cultural Unity of Black Africa, Karnak House. Amadiume, Ifi (1987) African Matriarchal Foundations: The Igbo Case, Karnak House.(2) Afrikan Mapambano (15/04/14) Josina Mutemba Machel was a revolutionary. http://afrikan-mapambano.tumblr.com/post/82790435404/josina-mutemba-machel-was-a-revolutionary.(3) Allah-Mensah, Beatrix (2005) Women In Politics And Public Life In Ghana. Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. p. 14. http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ghana/02989.pdf.(4) Groves, Adam (13/12/07) The Construction of a ‘Liberation’: Gender and the ‘National Liberation Movement’ in Zimbabwe. http://www.e-ir.info/2007/12/13/the-construction-of-a-%e2%80%98liberation%e2%80%99-gender-and-the-%e2%80%98national-liberation-movement%e2%80%99-in-zimbabwe/.(5) Siphokazi Magadla (2015) Women combatants and the liberation movements in South Africa, African Security Review, 24:4, 390-402, DOI: 10.1080/10246029.2015.1088645. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10246029.2015.1088645.
So we ask the question:
What is the role of women in Afrikan liberation?
1. Has women’s past contribution to the liberation fight been accurately represented?
2. Is it being accurately represented now?
3. Are you aware of the Meshach Boland case?
4. Do we still need Afrikan Women’s organizations?
5. How much of the listed UK based Afrikan Women activists work are you familiar with?
Our special guests are:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.
Sis. Pat Lumumba: is long standing activist with the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) and is also on the executive committee (Economic Development) of the African National Women’s Organization (ANWO) that has the vision of seeing African women embrace their place as leaders in the struggle to end colonial oppression of African people worldwide. ANWO is currently leading the campaign to get justice for Meshach Boland and have organised a protest on Wednesday May 11th 1:00pm – 2:00pm at Willesden Magistrate Court, 484 High Rd, The Unity Neighbourhood Forum for Church End and Roundwood, London NW10, UK (http://anwouhuru.org/london-african-mother-creates-petition-to-highlight-longstanding-social-services-neglect-of-her-son/).
Bro. Asari Sobukwe: joined the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) in 1988. He has travelled and organized extensively throughout the world. His travels and political work has taken him to Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean. In 2011 during an Anti-Imperialist March in Accra, Ghana condemning and bringing light on the Imperialist attacks on the Libyan Jamahiriya, Asari along with dozens of other activists from Africa, Europe and North America were arrested by the Ghanaian State Security Forces. This group became to be known as the ACCRA 25. He was one of the founding members of AJAMU (Pan-African Youth Focus Group for the A-APRP in Britain) in 2006. Asari regularly speaks on Pan-African, Socialist and Anti-imperialist platforms, including the radio and TV.
Hear weekly discussions and lively debate on all issues affecting the Afrikan community, at home and abroad. We talk it straight and make it plain!
ASwA Hosted by Sis Kai Ouagadou-Mbandaka and Bro. Omowale Kwaw
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