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GARVEY LIVES! MOSIAH LIVES!
The Olympics, that have dominated our screens for two strongs are now over, with International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach declaring:
“These were a marvellous Olympics, in a marvellous city. Over the last 16 days a united Brazil inspired the world, in difficult times for all of us, with its irresistible joy for life.” (1)
Yet behind all the marvelousness and unitedness, there is a genocide going on with “the crisis of fatal violence against Afro-descendents in Brazil that sees one Black youth killed every 23 minutes.”:
“The shocking amount of killings of young Black people in Brazil revealed in a new report shows that Black lives don’t matter in the South American country. The crisis of fatal violence against Afro-descendents in Brazil that sees one Black youth killed every 23 minutes in what some have called an “undeclared civil war,” according to a new Senate committee report announced on Monday, is leading experts to raise alarm over a “genocide” suffered by young Black people in the South American country.”(2)
Lamentably, it is a scenario highlighted forty year ago by renowned Brazillian Warrior Scholar, the late Abidas Do Nascimento:
“The political, economic, social and cultural repression experienced by the Black peoples of Brazil is deplorable. Its ultimate objective is the obliteration of the Black as a cultural, physical or ethnic entity. In the face of the racist, genocidal character of the ideology of so-called ‘racial democracy,’ it would be irresponsible to fail to expose and roundly denounce the social structure supposedly based on it.”. (3)
So while Brazil has taken centre stage for two glitzy showcases in two year (the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and now the Olympic Games) Afrikans there are in an ongoing fight for survival.
Brazil’s already creaking economy is unlikely to be assisted by its accommodating these events given the academic studies indicating that “it seems clear that the actual costs of hosting the Olympics far outweigh its perceived tangible benefits.” (4) Thus, the experience of “downward socio-economic mobility” for Afrikans is unlikely to be stemmed in the entrenched racialized climate. (5)
Azania (South Africa) could also tell a similar story after the hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Any dubious economic benefits, if they existed at all, were unlikely to trickle down to Afrikan masses. In fact since those games Afrikans have experienced more hardship and repression as evidenced by the Marikana Massacre in 2012 up to the activist Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe earlier this year.
Such is the level of palpable discontent that the ruling ANC is under electoral threat for the first time since taking office 22 years ago. As James Macharia reporting for Reuters news agency revealed:
“The African National Congress lost its grip on local government in Tshwane, home of the South African capital Pretoria, as results on Saturday gave the opposition Democratic Alliance a second big win in the ANC’s worst election since the end of apartheid.”(6)
The electoral result opens the way for other parties like Julius Malema’s fledgling Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), who garnered 10% of the vote in the recent poll and perhaps even the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) to become power brokers.
With reparations firmly on the agenda among Afrikans in the UK, the international Reparations Conference taking place on the 23rdof Mosiah at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, organised by black trade unionist members in the UK, provides an opportunity to share experiences and strategies across geographical boundaries.
(1) (22/08/2016) Rio Olympics 2016: Spectacular closing ceremony as Olympic flag goes to Tokyo. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/37150572(2) (07/06/2016) Brazil ‘Genocide’ of Black Youth Kills 1 Every 23 Minutes. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazil-Genocide-of-Black-Youth-Kills-1-Every-23-Minutes–20160607-0005.html(3) Do Nascimento, Abidas (1976) Genocide: The Social Lynching of Africans and their descendants in Brazil, from speech delivered at: Seminar for African World Alternatives, February 4-6, 1976 Dakar, Senegal and collected in Abidas Do Nascimento, Brazil: Mixture or Massacre – Essays in the Genocide of a Black people (1989) The Majority Press. p. 90(4) Rosenblum, Steven (2009) The Impact of the Summer Olympics on its Host City: The Costs Outweigh the Tangible Benefits. The Honors Program Senior Capstone Project. http://digitalcommons.bryant.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=honors_history(5) Minority Rights Group International (2016) Brazil – Afro-Brazilians. http://minorityrights.org/minorities/afro-brazilians/.(6) Macharia, James (07/08/2016) South African’s ANC suffers worst election since taking power. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-safrica-election-idUSKCN10G2GA (9) http://www.usliftingus.com/#!ulu-homepage/mainPage
So tonight we ask the question:
WORLD SPORTS vs BLACK LIFE:
WILL WE EVER ESTABLISH A GLOBAL REPARATIONS AGENDA?
1. Do Afrikan people benefit from global sporting spectacles like the Olympics and World Cup?
2. Is there really an “undeclared civil war” in Brazil Do we need a mass organization to have any chance of attaining economic power?
3. Will disaffection with the ANC see a resurgence of the PAC?
4. What is the status of the reparations movement in Azania and Brazil?
5. How unified is the reparations movement in the UK?
Our very special guests:
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 Affirmationsand Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.
Bro. Glenroy Watson: is the secretary of the Global Afrikan Congress UK branch. He is a veteran activist and trade unionist of international repute. Bro. Glenroy has been a stalwart of the TUC Black workers conferences for 20 years.
Sis. Tamiris Pereira Rizzo: she is a lecturer on Public Health at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). She is member of the Black and feminist movement militant at CSP-Conlutas (Popular and Labour Union -National Struggles Coordination). Sista Tamiris began her activism at a young age as a student. In 2012 elections she stood as a candidate for councilor for the PSTU in Santos. She was the organiser of the 2013 and 2014 Marches Against Black People’s Genocide.
Bro. Sbusiso Xaba: is the Deputy President of Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of Azania a position he has held 2014. He was previously president of Pan Africanist Youth Congress of Azania (PAYCO) from 2005-2007. His other student affiliations include the student chapter of the Black Management Forum, Pan Africanist Student Organisation and Pan Africanist Student Movement (PASMA) of Azania. Bro. Sibusiso has been deeply involved in the struggle for broad transformation of pedagogy and epistemology in institutions of learning in order for them to be accessible to the African working class, improve quality of content, endorse socialist values and espouse African oriented curriculum.
Sis Tamiris and Bro. Sbusiso are in the country for the Reparations Conference taking place on the 23rd of Mosiah at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, organised by black trade unionist members in the UK.
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