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Not KPTJ but perhaps of interest as we reflect on Chapter 6 of the new
Constitution. From the GWS of the AGI, UCT.
-------- Original Message --------
http://www.agi.ac.za/content/alice-walker-inspired-and-saddened-south-africa
or read below, Download the podcast
<http://www.uct.ac.za/news/multimedia/sound/> of the lecture.
http://www.uct.ac.za/news/multimedia/sound/
*Alice Walker inspired and saddened by South Africa*
Professor Alice Walker/Professor Alice Walker delivered the 11th Annual
Steve Biko Memorial Lecture, hosted by UCT and the Steve Biko Foundation. /
"Steve Biko was an inspiration because he fully understood that the
foundation of any true liberation was self love."
Delivering the 11th Steve Biko Memorial Lecture to a packed Jameson Hall
on 9 September, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Professor Alice Walker
drew on her poetry, personal history and the inspirational role of the
South African liberation struggle to disenfranchised people around the
world.
The title of Walker's lecture, /Coming to See You Since I was Five Years
Old: An American poet's connection to the South African soul/, refers to
her memory of learning the future South African national anthem from her
eldest sister, a college student at the time.
"We were the only children who were taught this song in our highly
segregated, deep Southern town in Georgia," said Walker, "and /Nkosi
Sikelel' iAfrika/ has stayed with me for the last 60 years.
"I have taken you, your spirit, the spirit of Steve Biko, of Winnie
Mandela, of Nelson Mandela, of the children of Sharpeville, completely,
into the very marrow of my bones. In our own struggles to end American
apartheid, you have been with us."
But Walker's tone was angry and cheerless when she spoke about
present-day South Africa, its corruption, crime, violence and
specifically, its president.
"It is with so much sadness that one reads about South Africa in recent
news. I am unable to comprehend how you now have a president who has
three wives and 20-odd children. A president who has been accused of
atrocious acts, and who seems to have little of the restraint in his
personal life that would mean dignity and respect accorded to his people.
"Was Mandela's decades of incarceration and Biko's torture and death for
this?"
People have forgotten their interconnectedness and worth, said Walker,
and South Africa's leaders have shown themselves to be obsolete.
Walker argued that we must therefore learn to lead ourselves, re-embrace
conscience-raising poetry, and lose our attachments to gadgets that
drown out our inner voice.
"About this, Biko was right," said Walker. "Once your consciousness
changes, so does your existence."
Introducing Walker was vice-chancellor Dr Max Price, who apologised to
those celebrating Eid ul-Fitr and Rosh Hashanah for the lecture's timing.
"We try to hold the lecture very close to the anniversary of the death
of Steve Biko (12 September). I ask your apology, but I also want to
take the opportunity to wish our colleagues a healthy and successful
year ahead," said Price.
View more photos on Flickr
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/44590630@N06/sets/72157624798424865/>.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44590630@N06/sets/72157624798424865/
--
L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Executive Director
Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC)
P O Box 41079
Nairobi 00100
Kenya
Tel:(254) 20.3874998/9
Fax: (254) 20.3874997
Email: lwanyeki@khrc.or.ke
URL: www.khrc.or.ke
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Zain Kenya
-----Original Message-----
From: "L. Muthoni Wanyeki" <wanyeki@iconnect.co.ke>
Sender: kptj-communications-bounces@fahamu.org
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:13:27
To: kptj-communications<KPTJ-communications@fahamu.org>
Reply-To: wanyeki@iconnect.co.ke
Subject: [Kptj-communications] Alice Walker inspired and saddened by South
Africa
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