Kondo Speaks to the AFRIKAN BLOOD STUDENT

This is the task now before you, AFRIKAN BLOOD student. Put your people before yourself. Forsake individualism for peoplehood, me for us, individual aspirations for community aspirations. Make the sacrifices necessary to struggle for your people.

You owe your education to the masses of your people, no matter which field of study you choose. Doors open to you today are cracked only because AFRIKAN BLOOD people sweated, bled and died yesterday. Do not betray your history by failing to acknowledge this debt...

To put your people before yourself is only the beginning of your responsibilities as a serious AFRIKAN BLOOD student. You must learn to define, determine and represent AFRIKAN BLOOD interests as well.

To perform these tasks properly, you must liberate or free your mind from its mental slavery and develop an Africentric consciousness. By Africentric consciousness, I mean the world view that recognizes the legitimacy and validity of Afrikan interests, goals, objectives, values and culture and utilizes an AFRIKAN frame of referrence.

Developing an Africentric consciousness is no easy task, but a task that must be done if our students are to be assets rather than liabilities."

By: Zak A. Kondo

An excerpt from "The Black Student's Guide to Positive Education"

The Business Incubator Workshop: FNB Business Banking

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a workshop on FNB Business Banking to be held in Ginsberg.

Facilitator: Representative from FNB

Date: February 28, 2013

Time: 10:00 – 12:00

Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, King William's Town, Eastern Cape

Cost: Free



NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro MBA Workshop.

For more information please call Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

One last moment in the Eastern Cape

Read Dom Coyotes’s reflection on the last days of his visit to the Steve Biko Centre in the Ginsberg Township of King William’s Town at http://www.domcoyote.net/2013/02/one-last-moment-on-eastern-cape.html


The blog also shares Dom Coyotes's performance with the Centre's Abelusi.

The First Crucial Steps to Starting and Running a Business

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a workshop on the first crucial steps to starting and running a business.


Facilitator: Lungile Sululu from the Steve Biko Centre


Date: February 26, 2013


Time: 10:00 – 12:00


Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape


Cost: R20

The Business Incubator to Host a Costing and Pricing Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Costing and Pricing Workshop to be hosted in Ginsberg

Facilitator: Lungile Sululu from the Steve Biko Foundation

Date: February 25, 2013

Time: 10:00 – 12:00

Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape

Cost: R20


For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za


NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro-MBA Workshop.

Modibo Keita and the Independence of Mali

"Our continent has not benefited from universal evolution. In the middle of the twentieth century, when thanks to technology and science men have found all the means necessary for an easy life, at the moment when, having exhausted all the means of investigation on earth, they seek now, as a diversion, to fly in space, Africa must resolve problems of subsistence, of living conditions, of the struggle against illiteracy, and especially of giving back to African man his confidence in himself, and forever ridding him of the inferiority complex which colonialism and created in him."


Speech by Modibo Keïta in Bouaké, Ivory Coast, 27 August 1962. Modibo Keïta , as quoted in Francis G. Snyder's 'The Political Thought of Modibo Keita', The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, May, 1967.


Independence for Mali

During the 1958 referendum in French West Africa, Modibo Keïta campaigned for French Sudan to become an autonomous state within the French Community. He also championed a federation (of French Sudan with Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, and French Upper Volta) within French West Africa -- which caused a rift with Félix Houphouët-Boigny who was worried that Léopold Sédar Senghor of Senegal would gain dominance.

The République Soudanaise (Sudanese Republic) gained internal autonomy within the French Community on 25 November 1958. Keïta became France's first African vice-president. The Federation of Mali, a joining of French Sudan and Senegal (Félix Houphouët-Boigny was successful in keeping Côte d'Ivoire, and French Upper Volta out of the federation) was created on 4 April 1959, with Keïta as prime minister.

The Federation of Mali disintegrated on 20 August 1960, due to disagreements between Modibo Keïta and Léopold Sédar Senghor -- as well as various political parties in the two territories. The ruling US-RDA in French Sudan proclaimed a republic on 22 September 1960 and Modibo Keïta became the county's first president.

President of Mali

Modibo Keïta was an outspoken Marxist and implemented a string of socialist policies during his rule of Mali. He quickly severed relations with France and the West, and received very marginal support from Europe and the US during his rule. Although he had political backing from the Soviets, encouraging him to nationalize banks and other sectors of the economy (including creation of village co-operatives), he received only minor financial aid from the USSR.

In October 1960 Keïta created the Societe Malienne d'Importation et d'Exportation (SOMIEX, Malian Import and Export Company) which was granted a monopoly over exports of Malian cash crops and manufactured goods, as well as the import of foods and their distribution. Mali suffered economically as a consequence, and was considered one of the least developed countries amongst the newly independent nations of West Africa. Keïta pulled Mali out of theCommunauté Financière Africaine (CFA) franc zone and established the Malian franc in 1962; a move which lead to rapid inflation and social unrest. Modibo Keïta's regime was repressive: he created the milice populaire, a militant youth organization which was used to repress popular local opposition -- opposition parties were effectively banned.

Keïta as a Statesman

In early September 1961Keïta attended the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Belgrade, and met with President Gamal Abdul Nasser of the United Arab Republic and Benyoussef Ben Khedda President of Algeria (as well as several other notable African statesmen). He then flew to the US where he met President John F Kennedy (who he always regarded as a friend). In 1963 invited the king of Morocco and president of Algeria to Bamako for discussions in the hope of ending the Sand War (Morocco was claiming the Tindouf region that France had allocated to Algeria on independence). A ceasefire, eventually negotiated by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) under the leadership of Haile Selassie, resulted in the Bamako Accords of 20 February 1964. Keïta never gave up his belief in Pan-Africanism and Unity, and he attempted several more unions with other west African states, none of which developed.

Road to Removal

By 1967 Mali was experiencing growing economic and financial problems. Keïta tried to enlist help from France for the Malian currency -- a move which aroused discontent within his party. In the end the Malian franc was devalued, causing civil unrest, and Mali rejoined the CFA.

In August Keïta launched a cultural revolution, the Révolution Active, inspired by Mao Zedong's revolution in China -- but his purges and authoritarian tactics estranged most of the population. On 19 November 1968, in response to an intended purge of military and government leadership, he was removed by a bloodless coup, led by General Moussa Traoré. Modibo Keïta spent all but the last few weeks of his life in detention in the northern Malian town of Kidal. He died on 16 May 1977.


This Biography was Retrieved from About African History at http://africanhistory.about.com/od/mali/a/Modibo-Keita-Biography.htm

Biography of the Week: Modibo Keita

Modibo Keïta was a dedicated Pan-Africanist, an African-nationalist, African-socialist, and first president of the Republic of Mali. His rule of Mali was increasingly repressive, and he was removed from power by a coup d'état after only eight years.

Date of birth: 4 June 1915, Bamako, Soudan Français (French Sudan, now Mali)

Date of death: 16 May 1977, Bamako, Mali

An Early Life

Modibo Keïta was born to a Mandinka/Mulsim family in Bamako, then capital of Soudan Français(French Sudan, part of French West Africa). He initially attended school in Bamako before boarding at École Normale Supérieure William Ponty in Dakar, Senegal. Keïta trained as teacher in Dakar, began teaching in Bamako and later in Tombouctou (Timbuktu) 1936.

A Life in Politics

Modibo Keïta entered the political sphere in the early 1940s, helping to organize a union of African teachers in French West Africa (Syndicat des Instituteurs de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, SIAOF). In 1945 he was presented as a candidate for the Constituent Assembly of the French Fourth Republic with the support of the French Groupes d'Etudes Communistes (GEC, Communist Study Groups) and the short lived local political group, Parti Démocratique Soudanais (PDS, Sudanese Democratic Party). In the same year Modibo Keïta and Mamdou Konaté (who Keïta had met through SIAOF) co-founded the Bloc Soudanaise (BS, Sudanese Party) -- it was quickly renamed the Union Soudanaise (US, Sudanese Union). Keïta became secretary-general of the new party. He also became close friends withFélix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire.

In October 1946 Keïta attended the conference in Bamako which led to the creation of theRassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA, African Democratic Rally). The RDA was a trans-national party, stretching across the whole of French West Africa, and the US became itsSoudan Français affiliate -- US-RDA. Keïta continued to act as secretary-general of the affiliated party. In 1946 Keïta also came to the attention of the French authorities and was briefly imprisoned for his part in the publication of a political magazine (L'oeil de Kénédougou, 'The Kénédougou Eye') which was critical of French rule in the region.

In 1948 Modibo Keïta won a seat in the Soudan Français territorial assembly. After France's suppression of the RDA in the early 1950s, Keïta was placed in internal exile in the Sahara region of French Sudan, teaching nomads near Tombouctou. In 1956, when French views on the RDA had softened, Keïta returned to Paris and was elected to the French Chambre des Députés (Chamber of Deputies, part of the National Assembly) as the delegate from French Sudan. He went on to serve as secretary of state in 1957 (for governments of Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury and Félix Gaillard). Keïta also became president of the US-RDA and mayor of Bamako -- in the 1957 French Sudan elections, the US-RDA won overwhelming victory.

With the Algiers crisis in 1958 and decolonization a major issue, France's fourth republic came to an end. Charles de Gaulle who had been prime minister was elected president of France. Modibo Keïta was re-elected as a deputy in the French National Assembly.


This Biograohy was retrieved from About African History at http://africanhistory.about.com/od/mali/a/Modibo-Keita-Biography.htm

The Business Incubator: Tendering Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Tendering Workshop in Ginsberg.

Facilitator: Lungile Sululu from the Steve Biko Foundation
Date: February 21, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape
Cost: R20
For more information please contact Mr. Sululu on 043 642 1177 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

Incubator host a Basic Financial Management Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, in collaboration with Old Mutual, invites you to a Workshop on Basic Financial Management.

Facilitator: Representative from Old Mutual
Date: February 20 , 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape
Cost: Free

For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043-6421177 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro MBA Workshop

The Business Incubator and SARS to host a Provisional Tax Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of The Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Provisional Tax Workshop to be hosted in Ginsberg.

Facilitator: SARS Representative
Date: February 19, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape
Cost: Free

NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the MICRO-MBA Workshop.

For more information contact Mr. Sululu on 043 642 1177 or via email at lungiles@sbf.org.za

Sobukwe on Our Ultimate Goal

We aim, politically, at a government of the Africans by the Africans for Africans, with everybody who owes his only loyalty to Africa and who is prepared to accept the democratic rule of an African majority being regarded as an African. We guarantee no minority rights, because we think in terms of individuals, not groups.

Economically, we aim at the rapid extension of industrial development in order to alleviate pressure on the land which is what progress means in terms of modern society. We stand committed to a policy guaranteeing the most equitable distribution of wealth.
Socially, we aim at the full development of the human personality and a ruthless uprooting and outlawing of all forms or manifestations of the racial myth. To sum it up, we stand for an Africanist Socialist Democracy.

Here is a tree rooted in African soil, nourished with waters from the rivers of Africa. Come and sit under its shade and become, with us, leaves of the same branch and branches of the same tree.

Then Sons and Daughters of Africa, I declare this inaugural convention of the Africanists open! IZWE LETHU!!



This is an excerpt from Sobukwe’s inaugural Speech in April, 1959. Retrieved from South African History Online at http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/robert-sobukwe-inaugural-speech-april-1959

Sobukwe: Remember AFRIKA

AN EXCERPT FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON BEHALF OF THE GRADUATING CLASS AT FORT HARE COLLEGE DELIVERED AT THE "COMPLETERS' SOCIAL" BY MR. SOBUKWE, OCTOBER 21, 1949

Let me plead with you, lovers of my Africa, to carry with you into the world the vision of a new Africa, an Africa reborn, an Africa rejuvenated, an Africa re-created, young AFRICA. We are the first glimmers of a new dawn. And if we are persecuted for our views, we should remember, as the African saying goes, that it is darkest before dawn, and that the dying beast kicks most violently when it is giving up the ghost, so-to-speak. The fellows who clamped Nehru into jail are today his servants. And we have it from the Bible that those who crucified Christ will appear before him on the judgment day. We are what we are because the God of Africa made us so. We dare not compromise, nor dare we use moderate language in the course of freedom. As Zik puts it:
"Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell a man moderately to rescue his wife from the arms of a ravisher; tell a mother to extricate gradually her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but do not ask me to use moderation in a cause like the present."
These things shall be, says the Psalmist: Africa will be free. The wheel of progress revolves relentlessly. And all the nations of the world take their turn at the field-glass of human destiny. Africa will not retreat! Africa will not compromise! Africa will not relent! Africa will not equivocate! And she will be heard! REMEMBER AFRICA!

FrankTalk Radio Dialogue: The Legacy of Robert Sobukwe

SBF and YFM Present: The FrankTalk Radio Dialogue

On February 19, 2013, the Steve Biko Foundation, in collaboration with YFM, will host the fifth session of the FrankTalk Radio Dialogues. Titled after the pseudonym under which Biko wrote, FrankTalk is designed to engage young people in discussion on salient issues impacting South Africa’s political, economic and social development.

As February 2013 marks the 35th anniversary of the death of South African freedom fighter and pan-africanist Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the upcoming FrankTalk will explore The Legacy of Robert Sobukwe.

Panellists include:

Professor Kwandiwe Kondlo, Political Analyst, Academic and Author
Mr. Thami ka Plaatjie, Director of the Pan African Foundation
DJ Warras, YFM DJ
Sol Phenduka, YFM DJ

Please join us as part of the Live Studio Audience.

DATE: Tuesday 19 February, 2013
VENUE: YFM studio, 4 Albury Road, Dunkeld Crescent,
South West Blocks, Dunkeld West, Ext 8, Sandton
TIME: 18:30 for 19:00

Limited Space!

Please RSVP to Dibuseng Kolisang via email: dibuseng@sbf.org.za or call on 011 403 0310 to indicate your attendance

Biography of the Week: Sekou Toure

Ahmed Sékou Touré was one of the foremost figures in the struggle for West African independence, the first President of Guinea, and a leading Pan-African.

Date of Birth: 9 January 1922, Faranah, Central French Guinea
Date of Death:26 March 1984, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

"We ask you therefore, not to judge us or think of us in terms of what we were -- or even of what we are -- but rather to think of us in terms of history and what we will be tomorrow." Ahmed Sékou Touré

An Early Life

Ahmed Sékou Touré's was born in Faranah, central Guinée Française (French Guinea, now the Republic of Guinea), near the source of the River Niger. His parents were poor, uneducated peasant farmers -- though he claimed to be a direct descendant of Samory Touré (aka Samori Ture), the region's 19th century anti-colonialist military leader, who had been based in Faranah for a while.

Touré's family were Muslim, and he was initially educated at the Koranic School in Faranah, before transferring to a school in Kissidougou. In 1936 he moved on to a French technical college, the Ecole Georges Poiret, in Conakry, but was expelled after less than a year for initiating a food strike.

Over the next few years Sékou Touré passed through a series of menial jobs, whilst attempting to complete his education through correspondence courses. His lack of formal education was an issue throughout his life, and his lack of qualifications left him suspicious of anyone who had attended tertiary education.

Entering Politics

"To take part in the African revolution it is not enough to write a revolutionary song: you must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people, the songs will come by themselves."

-Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Osei Amoah's A Political Dictionary of Black Quotations, published in London, 1989.

In 1940 Ahmed Sékou Touré obtained a post as clerk for the Compagnie du Niger Français while also working to complete an examination course which would allow him to join the Post and Telecommunications Department (Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones) of colony's French administration. In 1941 he joined the post office and started to take an interest in labor movements -- encouraging his fellow workers to hold a successful two-month long strike (the first in French West Africa). In 1945 Sékou Touré formed French Guinea's first trade union, the Post and Telecommunications Workers' Union, becoming its general-secretary the following year. He affiliated the postal workers' union to the French labor federation, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT, General Confederation of Labor) -- which was in turn affiliated to the French Communist party -- and also set up French Guniea's first trade union center: the Federation of Workers' Unions of Guinea.

In 1946 Sékou Touré attended a CGT congress in Paris, before moving to the Treasury Department -- where he became the general-secretary of the Treasury Workers' Union. In October that year he attended a West African congress in Bamako, Mali, where he became one of the founding members of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA, African Democratic Rally) along with Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire. The RDA was a Pan-Africanist party which looked towards independence for French colonies in West Africa. He founded the Parti Démocratique de Guinée (PDG, Democratic Party of Guinea), the local affiliate of the RDA in Guinea.

Trade Unions in West Africa

Ahmed Sékou Touré was dismissed from the treasury department for his political activities, and in 1947 was briefly sent to prison by the French colonial administration -- he decided to devote his time to developing workers' movements in Guinea and to campaign for independence. In 1948 he became the secretary-general of the CGT for French West Africa, and in 1952 Sékou Touré became secretary-general of the PDG.

In 1953 Sékou Touré called a general strike which lasted for two months, the government capitulated -- he campaigned during the strike for unity between ethnic groups (opposing the 'tribalism' which the French authorities were promulgating) and was explicitly anti-colonial in his approach.

Sékou Touré was elected to the territorial assembly in 1953 but failed to win the election for the seat in the Assemblée Constituante, the French National Assembly, after conspicuous vote-tampering by the French administration in Guinea. Two years later he became mayor of Conakry, Guinea's capital. With such a high political profile, Sékou Touré was finally elected as the Guinean delegate to the French National Assembly in 1956.

Furthering his political credentials, Sékou Touré led a break by Guinea's trade unions from the CGT, and formed the Confédération Générale du Travail Africaine (CGTA, General Confederation of African Labor). A renewed relationship between the leadership of the CGTA and CGT the following year led to the creation of the Union Générale des Travailleurs d'Afrique Noire (UGTAN, General Union of Black African Laborers), a pan-African movement which became an important player in the struggle for West African independence.

"At sunset when you pray to God, say over and over that each man is a brother and that all men are equal."

Ahmed Sékou Touré, as quoted in Robin Hallett's, Africa Since 1875, University of Michigan Press, 1974.


Biography retrieved from
http://africanhistory.about.com/od/panafricanists/a/Bio-SekouToure.htm .

I Want To Speak To My Children

Poem by Vangi Gantsho


I want to speak to my children
Those who have been forced out of their homes in the middle of the night
and those who remain sleeping, warm, in comfortable beds
Those who walk barefoot towards uncertain futures
Those who have been swept under Exile’s carpet
I want to speak to the youth of 76
the children of Sierra Leone

the Lost Boys of Sudan
I want to hold each one of them in my arms
Whisper courage into their ears
Tell them that they will spark revolutions
Stand as a constant reminder of our need to repent
I want to assure them that God has not grown tired of them
That their homes, though broken, are not beyond repair

Come to me my little ones
My beautiful ones, come to me
Ours is the bond of mother and child
Deeply rooted in the Cradle of Humankind
Creation flows through our blood reaching far beyond the Sahara and the Kalahari
You, little Anathi’s and Adewale’s
Need to be told of the Nubian truth
of how the Kush decorated our homes
filled them with art and knowledge and architecture
and walls that were books
You need to know that you come from a people who spoke with stars
long before they were sold astrology

Bring me my children
Let them come and sit at my feet. Ndizakubabalisela iintsomi
I want to tell them tales of magnificent battles where their fathers were heroes
Paint them a portrait of Isandlwana
Then take them to El Obeid and Sheykan
Then I want to journey with them to the beautiful forgotten land of Adwa
Where Menelik and Taitu won a colossal victory
against the dark forces of colonialism
I need my children to know that we have our own epic stories
That Ghandor is in Africa
That they are the lions’ historians
Lions who have left many scars of the face of the audacious hunt

And when my children sleep

I want my children to dream
I want them to dream of the courageous Yaa Asantewa
and the beautiful Queen Makeda
Dream of Kemet and Songhay and Timbuktu
of Nkruma and Nyerere and Lumumba
Then I want them to awake!
And to write!
I want my children to write for Gaddafi and the South Sudan
For Zimbabwe and the DRC
For the African Union and about the International Criminal Court
I want my children to tell our tales through fresh discerning eyes
To imagine and dream on our behalves.
Dream for yourselves then tell us what is to be
my young lion scribes

Call all my children to me
Tell them to come home
Tell them youth is purpose
Tell them to learn and to remember
That although history has already been told
They are the authors of our tomorrow
Rooted
Triumphant
Beautiful

The Business Incubator to host a Workshop on FNB Business Banking

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a workshop on FNB Business Banking to be held in Ginsberg.

Facilitator: Representative from FNB
Date: February 11, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, King William's Town, Eastern Cape
Cost: Free

For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro MBA Workshop.

The Business Incubator to Host a Costing and Pricing Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a Costing and Pricing Workshop to be hosted in Ginsberg

Facilitator: Mr. Lungile Sululu from the Steve Biko Foundation
Date: February 07, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape
Cost: R20

For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

NB: Clients are urged to book in advance for the Micro-MBA Workshop.

SARS and The Business Incubator to Host VAT Basics Workshop

The Business Incubator, an initiative of the Steve Biko Centre, invites you to a workshop on VAT Basics to be held in Ginsberg.

Facilitator: Representative from SARS
Date: February 05, 2013
Time: 10:00 – 12:00
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, King William's Town, Eastern Cape
Cost: Free


For more information contact Mr. Lungile Sululu on 0436056700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za