Black Looks

• Laws that criminalise same sex intimacy are making a mockery of our democracies.

  Posted: May 31, 2010, 3:00 pm by Sokari

  Like many others around the world, I was elated when I heard that Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were to be released from their 14 year prison sentence following a pardon by Malawian President, wa Mutharika.   According to most reports, the President was finally persuaded to pardon the couple after a “conversation” with UN Secretary [...]

• Niger Delta: Oil spills in perspective

  Posted: May 30, 2010, 9:11 pm by Sokari

  Last week environmental activists from across the world including Nigeria, Ecuador and Burma were prevented by Chevron from entering the shareholders meeting despite having legal shareholding proxies. Below activist Niger Delta Emem Okon spoke to Democracy Now! on the actions of Chevron and other oil companies operating in Nigeria – Shell, Mobil, Elf [...]

• Tweets of the Week

  Posted: May 29, 2010, 11:00 pm by Sokari

  #Malawi gov releases Steven Monjeza, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, BRILLIANT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/10190653.stm # #Shut down deepwater platform #Atlantis #BPoilspill http://www.spillthetruth.org # Chad film ‘A Screaming Man’ scoops jury prize at Cannes http://bit.ly/ax9tW2 # #Resistance has consequences # #FF #Rights @sharifkouddous @writingrights @danwibg # #FF @liveunchained Black women in the Disapora @MalawiDave – #Malawi @avinunu #Palestine & #MidEast # #Haiti http://huff.to/98TnIN women [...]

• Steven and Tiwonge PARDONED

  Posted: May 29, 2010, 6:58 pm by Sokari

  In a massive turn around  the President of Malawi has pardoned Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20 and ordered their immediate release no doubt that he has submitted to pressure from within Africa and internationally.  A real snub to the likes of Obasanjo and Bahati etc. Mr Mutharika, speaking as UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited [...]

• Uganda promises not to support Anti-Homosexuality Bill

  Posted: May 29, 2010, 5:40 pm by Sokari

  The Ugandan government has promised Germany it will not support any  further expansion  of homosexuality laws including the Bahati led Anti-Homosexuality Bill.   The pledge was made in exchange for E120 million in aid from Germany.   This is the best news yet and now it seems very unlikely that the Bill will  suceed at least not under [...]

• Single story homophobia and gay imperialism revisted

  Posted: May 28, 2010, 1:31 pm by Sokari

  Two excellent articles by Keguro Macharia [Gukira]. The First was published on  Kenya Imagine and is a response to an article on homophobia in Africa by Madeline Bunting in which she attempts to explain “African Homophobia”.. Keguro’s criticism first points to her claim that the West should “rightly” be concerned and hugely angry [...]

• Zuma’s condemnation of Malawi – where is it?

  Posted: May 27, 2010, 9:37 pm by Sokari

  President Jacob Zuma responds to calls for him to condemn the sentencing of Malawian couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza.  Apparently we must have missed the SA government statement which cannot be located but was said!    He needs to do more than condemn the sentence and he knows this – this is shallow and unconvincing. South [...]

• Cleansing: One

  Posted: May 27, 2010, 6:04 pm by Sokari

  The last couple of weeks have been filled with so much chaos, hate and violence – on the continent and elsewhere. I am in the US at the moment and have been watching the Gulf oil spill and the reaction of the American people, the media and the overall outrage at BP, the regulators [...]

• Missionaries of Hate: US evangelicals in Uganda – recycled homophobia

  Posted: May 26, 2010, 12:11 am by Sokari

  Harvey Milk goes to Uganda is an hour length Current TV documentary which investigates the role of Christian fundamentalists in Uganda and the United States in the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill. What is interesting about the film are the similarities in the arguments put forward by Ugandans and those put forward in the [...]

• How can we speak about an African Renaissance when some people are being excluded from what it means to be an African

  Posted: May 25, 2010, 4:19 pm by Sokari

  The Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth League statement on AFRICA DAY includes a statement on the conviction and sentencing of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga for 14 years hard labour. So far Abahali baseMjondolo are the only non-LGBTI / HIV/AIDS specific movement / organisation to issue a solidarity statement against the conviction of [...]

• Khayelitsha: Moving beyond soccer & breaking down homophobia

  Posted: May 24, 2010, 9:03 pm by Sokari

  BEING a lesbian can be a death wish in Khayelitsha, where a gay woman is seen as an affront to masculinity – a way of telling a man she is not for the taking – and so it’s safest not to let it show. But when two lesbian soccer teams met in Khayelitsha on [...]

• Protest Against Conviction of Malawi “gay” couple

  Posted: May 24, 2010, 5:57 pm by Sokari

  Gender DynamiX activists join other protesters in Cape Town urging SA government to negotiate the release of Transgender Woman and her partner.

• Two GALZ staff members detained by Zimbabwe police

  Posted: May 23, 2010, 11:51 pm by Sokari

  Two employees of Gay and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)—Ellen Chademana and Ignatius Mhambi— have been detained since Friday evening. They were arrested after a raid of the GALZ office by the Central Intelligence Department. The officers came with a search warrant looking for evidence that GALZ was dealing in hard drugs and/or were [...]

• Botswana makes positive moves towards LGBTI and Sexworkers

  Posted: May 22, 2010, 7:45 pm by Sokari

  Amidst the awful news from Malawi a small light of positiveness from Botswana as the government makes an unprecedented move to meet with activists from the LGBTI movement and sexworkers which might lead to the “offical acceptance of the existence of these groups” In a coup for NACA and the advocacy group [...]

• Homophobia divides, working class solidarity unites: SAMWU statement of solidarity with Malawian LGBTI

  Posted: May 22, 2010, 7:27 pm by Sokari

  Homophobia divides, working class solidarity unites -South African Municipal Workers Union calls on SADC to act. STILL why the silence from academics, womens movements, landrights movements particularly those in the SADC region? This is a disgrace on their behalf – people who call themseloves progressives and feminists but remain silent on the verdict and sentencing [...]

• A T-shirt for Freedom

  Posted: May 21, 2010, 6:59 pm by Sokari

  HT Mark Weinberg – Amandla

• The closet maybe safer but its dark and claustrophobic & not the way to have to live a life

  Posted: May 21, 2010, 5:45 pm by Sokari

  Plus News published a country by country list of human rights violations against African LGBTI over the past three years. Malawi – On 28 December 2009, soon after a traditional engagement ceremony, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were arrested and charged with “unnatural offenses”, which carries a maximum prison term of 14 [...]

• Act against the conviction of Malawian gay couple, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga

  Posted: May 21, 2010, 4:59 am by Sokari

  On Tuesday, 18th of May 2010, a court in Blantyre, Malawi Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts. The couple were arrested in December 2009 after celebrating their engagement and had their bail applications denied. They have been in jail ever since and have been [...]

• My Son & Malcolm – a good day to be born

  Posted: May 19, 2010, 5:42 pm by Sokari

  Today is Malcolm X’s birthday. It’s an easy day for me to remember as it’s also my son’s birthday and since this year I am far away it’s also a little sad. But I give thanks and praises for the wonderful son he is and in knowing, in his consciousness, [...]

• Happy birthday, Malcolm X!

  Posted: May 19, 2010, 8:40 am by Rethabile

  For Malcolm X All you violated ones with gentle hearts; You violent dreamers whose cries shout heartbreak; Whose voices echo clamors of our cool capers, And whose black faces have hollowed pits for eyes. All you gambling sons and hooked children and bowery bums Hating white devils and black bourgeoisie, Thumbing your noses at your burning red suns, Gather round this coffin and [...]

• Occupation of Haiti consolidated

  Posted: May 17, 2010, 6:06 pm by Sokari

  Beverley Bell explains that in “ceding it’s independence”, the Haitian government and the US led [re]construction has allowed the Haitian earthquake to be used to consolidate the foreign occupation of Haiti which is led by the “Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH). The CIRH’s mandate is to direct the post-earthquake reconstruction of [...]

• At Labour’s End

  Posted: May 16, 2010, 9:54 am by Rethabile

  The era of creation has come to be our travelling matte, blue on a backdrop at the beginning of us, trees piled, rock-shells cracked and spilling yolk onto the sand, the darkness of our father cover from light, overwhelming with welcome, colouring morning, evening, night with negritude. When our eyes meet we break clear of everything, like a child at labour’s end. It is [...]

• Soweto Blues –

  Posted: May 15, 2010, 9:23 pm by Sokari

  Sometimes you miss home and your stomach gets twisted in nostalgia so much so it hurts but its never the same in reality – thats how home is in the heart in the stomach but in the head there is exile.

• Badilisha Poetry Xchange

  Posted: May 14, 2010, 10:24 pm by Sokari

  Badilisha Radio was launched at the beginning of May as a home to a collection of live recordings of poets from Africa and the Diaspora. The site launches with 25 podcasts of astounding calibre, including: Zena Edwards (UK), Michael Mabwe (Zim), Mojisola Adeyabo (UK), Omekongo Wa Dibinga (USA/DRC), Gabeba Baderoon (SA), Breyten Breytenbach [...]

• Remembering Khewzi: No always means NO NO NO

  Posted: May 11, 2010, 1:15 am by Sokari

  ONE IN NINE campaign Showing solidarity with Khwezi – The campaign, established in 2006 at the start of the Zuma rape trial, organised a picket outside the high court on Tuesday as a sign of solidarity with Khwezi, and other women who have reported rape. Dressed in purple T-shirts, with the words “Stop the war [...]

• In /humanitarian aid

  Posted: May 10, 2010, 4:57 pm by Sokari

  This afternoon I got soaked in a  torrential down pour in South Florida.  First thing I thought about was all the people living outside or in tents in Haiti.  After I got myself nicely showered and dry I sat down and read this post from Carole DeVilliers on her second trip to Haiti in which [...]

• Womanist words

  Posted: May 8, 2010, 5:00 pm by Sokari

  Words: Heterocetera Used in a sentence. “I sat with the three other African women and we exchanged chitchat for 5 1/2 hours about our respective children, about our ex-old men, all very, very heterocetera.” –Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider Via Gukira I am not a feminist and there is no BUT Womanist Musings on why she turned from feminism to [...]

• Uganda: Cabinet committee wants the Anti-Homosexuality Bill reviewed

  Posted: May 8, 2010, 3:00 am by Sokari

  The Cabinet Committee reviewing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is to make recommendations to the Ugandan Parliament saying the  Bill had “technical defects in form and content”. The result left the draft legislation almost bare, as nearly all of the clauses were found either redundant, repetitive of existing laws, or even useless. In fact, the [...]

• Bati o bati! Special issue on women’s writings from Liberia

  Posted: May 7, 2010, 6:56 pm by Sokari

  This month’s Sea Breeze is a Women’s special issue with interviews, short stories, essays and poems from Liberian women.  This really is an inspiring collection of work edited by  Liberian feminist and poet, Korto Williams - Bati o bati! We are the Ones! Creative Agency and Activism for Women’s Rights in Liberia! I lost the fire [...]

• The man died – R.I.P Yar’Adua

  Posted: May 6, 2010, 3:09 pm by Sokari

  It almost feels like an anti-climax.  The disappeared President finally disappears for real.  I feel like I am writing this out of “duty” rather than any real sense of sadness, loss but we are not supposed to speak ill of the dead unless they were seriously wicked.      So RIP Umaru Yar”Adua. But it isnt over [...]

• Free movement of Jah people

  Posted: May 5, 2010, 5:18 pm by Sokari

  Sometimes I cross post on Flip Flopping Joy written by BFP.  I’ve known BFP in Blogland for years now and we met in person during the 2007 US Social Forum in Atlanta. BFP’s work is phenomenal and though she has changed her blog a number of times and in a sense re-invented herself her [...]

• Reports from The Call rally Uganda

  Posted: May 4, 2010, 3:22 pm by Sokari

  Various sources have published reports on the Call Uganda prayer meetings held in Kampala on Sunday.  The rhetoric was as expected and The Call founder, Lou Engles’  press release last week that he was not  anti-homosexual were simply untrue.  Behind the Mask reported on  Engle’s  who claimed the West were using “Ugandan NGO’s to promote [...]

• World Press Freedom Day, Nigeria: 3 journalists murdered

  Posted: May 3, 2010, 4:33 pm by Sokari

  Over the past 15 years 1,500 journalists have been killed whilst working.  Some of these have been Nigerians and though more than 24 years ago we should still remember  Dele Giwa who was killed by a parcel bomb in October 1986. The three latest journalist murdered are : Edo Ugbagwu, Nathan Dabak and [...]

• US figures on aid to Haiti dont add up

  Posted: May 2, 2010, 5:27 pm by Sokari

  I made a serious error on the title of this post – it should read UN and not US. The UN’s claim that three months after the earthquake it has reached most of the one and half million displaced is misleading…..

• The Viewing

  Posted: May 1, 2010, 4:58 pm by Rethabile

  We all think they never leave, the strong ones, you may be thinking it even now. But we are wrong. They go, too, as surely as the weak. You just don’t see them on the motorway angels ride out of this world, you’re blinded by their light breaking through photons, which Einstein did predict because he wasn’t blinded by it at the atom [...]

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes