Since the advent of South Africa’s democratic dispensation, discourse on gender, and particularly the role of women in society, has gained prominence. Enshrined in the Constitution are certain inalienable rights that guarantee girls and women equality under the law. The African National Congress, the governing party since 1994, has gone so far as to mandate that women comprise 50% of their leadership; and indeed, South Africa has one of the highest rates of female representation in its parliament globally. Yet, paradoxically, South Africa also has one of the highest incidences of reported rape anywhere in the world. Further, women in our country, as is the trend globally, are disproportionally poor and carry the greatest disease burden.

Confronted with this contradiction, there are moments on the national calendar in which South Africa pauses to consider the role of women in society: to celebrate their contributions and to examine their challenges. As South Africa concluded the 16 days of activism against the abuse of women and children and celebrated the 66th birthday of Steve Biko last month, we at the Steve Biko Foundation take a moment to consider Black Consciousness and Gender.

In this, the fifth edition of the FrankTalk Journal, we reflect on the ways in which the ideology of Black Consciousness (BC) historically contributed to the liberation of women, and the ways in which this philosophy continues to shape feminist thinking in the 21st century. With that said, we also explore the short-comings of BC and the Black Consciousness Movement in advancing gender equality. Our hope is that this issue of the FrankTalk journal will provide another framework through which to understand these topics—and make real notions of equality.

To lead us into this discussion, we are pleased to bring you contributions from four individuals who have reflected on Black Consciousness and Gender in their various capacities as feminist scholars, political analysts and activists.

We look forward to bringing you more perspectives on contemporary socio-economic and political issues in the coming editions of the journal and invite you to share your contributions with us via email: dibuseng@sbf.org.za or the FrankTalk Blog
www.sbffranktalk.blogspot.com. Continue the dialogue through Facebook
www.facebook.com/TheSteveBikoFoundation and Twitter
www.twitter.com/BikoFoundation .

To access the FrankTalk Journal, please visit http://www.sbf.org.za/Main_Site/frank-talk-journal .

Since the advent of South Africa’s democratic dispensation, discourse on gender, and particularly the role of women in society, has gained p...

The Steve Biko Centre,
in partnership with
the British Council Residency Programme;
Presents
Dom Coyote

The London-based artist, Dom Coyote, will give workshops and compose music with The Steve Biko Centre's Abelusi and four students from the University of Fort Hare.

Date: 04 until 23 February 2013
Venue: The Steve Biko Centre, One Zotshie Street, Ginsberg, Eastern Cape

Dom Coyote is a musician, performer and writer of stories and songs. He is an associate artist with Kneehigh Theatre and studied Performance writing at Dartington College of Arts as well as performing and composing for companies such as Kneehigh, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Art Angel, West Yorkshire Play House and Battersea Arts Centre. Dom is also a lead artist on two major projects - Folk in a Box, a One on One musical experience, currently being exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2012, and The Raun Tree, an apocalyptic fairytale told through ten songs, on tour throughout 2012. In 2009 Dom was awarded the BAC Jim Marcovitch Bursary for music and theatre, allowing him to develop his work as a lead artist. In February 2013, Dom will continue this development through an invitation and funding from The British Council to travel around South Africa and learn about indigenous music and song. There will be three performances at the end of the workshop.


For more information please contact Mr. Jongi Hoza on 043 605 6726.

The Steve Biko Centre, in partnership with the British Council Residency Programme; Presents Dom Coyote The London-based artist, Dom...

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 4, 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 043 605 6700 or email lungiles@sbf.org.za

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

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 1, 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.

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

Names: Plaatje, Solomon Tshekisho

Born: 9 October 1876, Boshof district, Orange Free State
Died: 19 June 1932, Johannesburg, South Africa
In summary: Teacher, court interpreter and clerk to the Mafeking administrator of Native Affairs, author, journalist, linguist, and first Secretary-General of the SANNC, member of the SANNC deputation that travelled to London to appeal to the British Government against the 1913 Land Act

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was born on 9 October 1876 in the Boshof district of the Orange Free State. His parents were Christians who belonged to the Setswana-speaking Barolong tribe. About the time he was born, his parents moved to the Pniel mission station of the Lutheran Berlin Mission Society, near Barkly West, and it was there that Plaatje received his only formal education, a few years in the elementary grades. He remained at Pniel for several years as an assistant teacher, studying further with the aid of the missionaries. In 1894 he went to Kimberley, where he found work as a postman, continued his private studies, and eventually distinguished himself on the civil service examinations. On the eve of the Boer War he was sent to Mafeking as an interpreter, and during the siege of Mafeking in 1899 - 1900 he acted as both court interpreter and clerk to the Mafeking administrator of Native affairs. He was proficient in at least eight languages, including German and Dutch, as well as English and all the major African vernaculars.

Advancement in the civil service being closed to him, Plaatje turned to journalism at the end of the war, and, with financial backing from Silas Molema, chief of the Barolong, he established the first Setswana-English weekly, Koranta ea Becoana (Newspaper of the Tswana) in 1901. This existed, under Plaatje's editorship, for six or seven years, after which he moved from Mafeking to Kimberley. There he established a new paper; Tsala ea Becoana, later renamed Tsala ea Batho (The Friend of the People). While producing these papers, Plaatje also contributed many articles to other papers, particularly to the Kimberley Diamond Fields Advertiser. When the South African Native National Congress (later called the African National Congress) was formed in 1912, Plaatje was chosen its first secretary-general. An articulate opponent of tribalism, he exemplified the new spirit of national unity among African intellectuals. (At a time when intertribal marriages were still uncommon, Plaatje had married a Fingo. His wife Elizabeth was a sister of H. I. Bud-Mbelle.)


The first major campaign of the SANNC was against the Land Act of 1913, a measure that drastically curtailed the right of Africans to own or occupy land throughout the Union. In 1914 Plaatje went to Britain as a member of the deputation charged with appealing to the British government against the Act. The mission proved futile, but Plaatje decided to stay behind after the departure of the rest of the deputation, and he remained in Britain until February 1917, when he returned to South Africa. During this time he lectured, worked as a language assistant at London University, and produced three books, including a detailed and moving appeal against the Land Act, Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion (1916). The other two works, Sechuana-Proverbs, With Literal Translations and Their English Equiv¬alents and A Sechuana Reader, written with Daniel Jones of London University, also appeared in 1916.

He is said to have attended the first pan-African conference in Paris in February 1919 and also the 1921 conference, but no evidence supports this. He did return to London in May 1919, a few months after the SANNC deputation to Versailles had left South Africa. Late in 1919 he took part in a meeting with British Prime Minister Lloyd George. In December 1920 he went to Canada and the United States, where he traveled widely. Meeting with leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he arranged for an American edition of his book. Native Life, to appear.

At the end of 1923 he returned to South Africa. He continued to write, and when Parliament was in session he traveled to Cape Town to cover the sessions and to lobby for African interests as a representative of the ANC. Influenced by his experiences in the United States, he became involved in the Joint Council movement. He also joined the African People's Organization of Abdul Abdurahman. He made a trip to the Congo to observe conditions there and was active in civic affairs in Kimberley. Although his relations with the ANC were sometimes uneasy, in December 1930 he accompanied an ANC deputation to the Native affairs department to register African complaints against the pass laws. He died of pneumonia while on a trip to Johannesburg on 19 June 1932.

In addition to the works already mentioned, his writings include a novel, Mhudi, An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago (1930), The Mote and the Beam: An Epic on Sex-Relationship 'Twixt White and Black in British South Africa (1921), and translations of four Shakespeare plays into Setswana.

In 1972 his Mafeking diary, discovered in 1969 and edited by John L. Comaroff, was published under the titleThe Boer War Diary of Sol T. Plaatje: An African at Mafeking.


Biography retrieved from South African History Online at
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/solomon-tshekisho-plaatje

Names: Plaatje, Solomon Tshekisho Born: 9 October 1876, Boshof district, Orange Free State Died: 19 June 1932, Johannesburg, South Africa...