AZANIA is an integral part of Afrika. Azania is the name of our country for which Black people bled and died in their thousands so that Azania would be proudly sounded in calling the land of our forebears. If anybody wanted a referendum to check the “acceptability” of the name Azania, we must remind them about the June 16 Uprisings. We must ask them to count the body bags of Azanians who died defiantly embracing the name Azania.

In 1969, Khosi Ranwedzi Gilbert Tshikalange was deposed, imprisoned for three months and eventually banished together with his wife who was pregnant at the time, to Kuruman in the Northern Cape.

This month marks the 34th anniversary of the murder of the West Papuan musician, anthropologist and cultural activist, Arnold Ap, by the anti-black- murderous- colonial- Indonesian regime.

After being expelled from Jamaica, Rodney returned to Tanzania. There he lectured and continued to support the liberation struggle of the people of Tanzania and other parts of Afrika. His stay in Afrika played a big part in his decision to publish his seminal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

I decided to write this letter to you to share my thoughts with you about where I think we find ourselves as Afrikan people. We learn from the older generation of activists about your glorious deeds and the immeasurable sacrifices you and your peers made, in defence of our natural right as Afrikans to be human beings worthy of dignity and respect, in the land of our Ancestors.

Like many Black consciousness activists of my generation, the name Malcolm X occupies a profoundly special place in my heart. I remember during our student activist days how Warrior Mendo Ramncwana and I used to dedicate hours and hours to watching VHS recordings of his speeches.