A Letter to MaDlomo: Warrior Queen Zindziswa Mandela

Veli Mbele Black Salutations 2020-07-23 03:32:14

I am telling you all of this MaDlomo, to remind you of how many of your own 'comrades' would prefer that we don't openly talk about the fact that, as the Reverend Akhona Gxamza once remonstrated “We can’t be scrap metal collectors in the land of our birth”.

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Black World Salutations: Patrice Lumumba

Veli Mbele Black Salutations 2020-07-04 18:15:41

“[T]he only thing which we wanted for our country is the right to a worthy life, to dignity without pretence, to independence without restrictions. This was never the desire of the Belgian colonialists and their Western allies…” - Patrice Lumumba’s Letter from Thysville Prison to Mrs. Lumumba.

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June 16 Uprising & The Untold Story of Masabata Loate

Veli Mbele Black Salutations 2020-06-17 00:00:00

This year, the act of choosing to remember Masabata has been particularly emotional heavy. This is because I found myself drawing parallels between Masabata’s murder and that of two other Black women

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The Inherent Violence of “All Lives Matter”

Veli Mbele Culture 2020-06-04 22:06:15

At the heart of this retort is the belief that there is no such thing as “Black life” to start with and so how can Black people even dare to attach value to a non-existent category of the human species?

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The Genesis & Implications Behind the Name “South Africa”

Veli Mbele Culture 2020-05-17 02:36:36

When this tactic was eventually exhausted, Afrikaner Nationalist elements resorted to naked racism and violence to legitimise their claim to hold exclusive power within the South African state...On the 31st of May 1910, exactly eight years after the Boers had made peace with the English through the Treaty of Vereeniging, South Africa became a Union. Despite the mistrust in the Boer camp, the Afrikaners, as they now became known, had negotiated and achieved self-determination.

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Afrikan “Leaders” Maintain Berlin Conference Agenda

Veli Mbele Culture 2020-05-03 02:00:00

What was the agenda of the Berlin Conference (1884-85)? So, instead of waging imperialist wars among themselves, this Conference sought to coordinate the project of European capture of Afrika, her people and natural resources, and divide Afrika (like a birthday cake), among the various European nationalities.

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Black World Salutations: Brother Arnold Ap

Veli Mbele Black Salutations 2020-04-29 00:00:00

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.

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Black Middle Class Indifference to Covid-19

Veli Mbele Culture 2020-04-13 22:00:00

Just as in the case of the Marikana Uprising, one of the things that the outbreak of the Corona Virus has laid bare is the nauseating detachment, ignorance, cowardice and downright cruelty of Black people (like me), who are strangely classified as middle class. Something that some euphemistically describe as 'Black privilege'.

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