Conference to Build the ASI

8/14/2019 Conference to Build the ASI

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Africa, we are now left with 6,000. Fourteen thousand have been laid-off,suspended, expelled and literally chased out of the National Defense Force.Our people have been court-martialed for very petty criminal offenses. Oneperson was brought before a military tribunal for wearing a necklace. The armyhas been won back by the Afrikaaners.

Notwithstanding all these changes in South Africa, we can safely say it is not yetUhuru. In South Africa we have replaced white faces with black faces. The black

faces turn out to be more aggressive, more brutal than white faces.There is talk about a "better life for all." This is what Mbeki committed himself to

when he came into power. When Mandela was released from prison, he indicatedthat his concern was to balance white fears with black expectations. He saw his

role as a balancing act. The people who put him in jail for all of these yearswanted to balance their fears with the expectations of the people who have beenoppressed for more than 300 years. I submit that if you find a thief in yourhouse, you do not want to balance the thiefs fears!

You dont even care to know what the thief expects. You dont even have to go

into entertaining what is it that they expect, and what is it that they fear, andhow you can you come together and reconcile. These are irreconcilable entities.But let us be reminded of the fact that when Mandela was in the African NationalCongress (ANC) and went to prison, he never sought to fight to destroy whitedomination. He said in the 1960s that he fought against "black domination"which never existed! Blacks have never oppressed and colonized white people.But this is what he fought for all of his life, to ensure that black people do notrise up.

There is a tacit commitment to underdevelopment from the ANC. If you look attheir budgetary allocations on paper, it all looks fine, but insofar as delivery isconcerned, this is where real contradictions become clear. For instance, the

region where Mandela comes from is the poorest of all the nine provinces orregions in the country.

In this region monies are allocated but monies are not spent. The money does

not go for its intended purposes. For instance, last year the provincialgovernment underspent by 188 million Rand. This is in a province where people

die of starvation.

The health department under-spent by 228 million Rand, which was rolled overbecause it was not used for the people it was intended for. In education, 254million Rand went unspent. This is a province where half of the schools are shedsduring daylight. At night those schools are used to keep livestock. So, literally,

when children come to the schools in the morning they have to clean thembecause pigs, cattle, goats and sheep have been staying at the school the nightbefore. This is where money is not being spent.

The government is not doing anything to make sure that they intervenestrategically to ensure that there is indeed, in the words of comrade Mbeki, abetter life for all.


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The other thing is the question of land. I grew up in the Eastern Cape. Myancestors were forcibly removed from that part of the country. In return for theirremoval, as a form of compensation, each one was given a bag of oranges. Abag of oranges! You are forcibly removed from your ancestral land and all of yourcattle are taken away from you. In compensation for that, you are each given abag of oranges.

Now, when we went to go back to our ancestral land, we were told by the

farmers who are now occupying that land, that in light of the governmentsposition of "Willing seller, willing buyer," the government has to buy them out.

And that land that they got for nothing, that land that they paid for with a bag oforanges, they are prepared to give that land to the government and indirectly to

us for a sum of 60 million Rand.

So, most of these white farmers are getting rich. They are going to thegovernment and saying, "Here is my land. Pay me off and take this land to thepoor people." This is a racket! They are using the system to extort as muchmoney as possible. So, with our families and extended families, we have decided

to invade this land.

We have decided that around December of this year we will all organize oneanother and forcibly take ownership of this land and property. We have ourancestral graves as proof that it belongs to us. Sometimes when some of ourrelatives want to access the graves, the white farmers say, "You needpermission, you must apply within seven days." Some people wrote letters withinseven days and there was no reply. So people cannot access their ancestralshrines and graves.

Last year, we were involved in a huge land campaign in South Africa. Some ofyou must have seen it on CNN and a number of international media stations. We

did some research and found out that this land was not owned by anybody. Wecalled a huge press conference and announced that the next day at such and

such a time we were going to occupy so many acres of land.

Indeed, the next day there were plus-or-minus 3,000 families occupying theland. Throughout the week, even at night, twenty-four hours a day, people were

moving in. We realized it could have been a mistake because the governmentcame crashing down. They wanted to fight; they wanted to take us to court. Itwas a huge battle and we had to be forcibly removed. It was a very painfulexercise, but we thought it was worth it. We thought our involvement with it hashelped to create the consciousness of our people in respect to the owners of theland.

Twenty-five percent of our people in South Africa are living in squatter camps.Squatters are shed houses, made of corrugated iron. In this environment, theresno running water. People have to go to the streams. If there is a tub, itscommunal, serving five or ten families.


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Theres no proper healthcare for the people in the squatter camps. There is noelectricity. There are no roads. There are no toilets! People relieve themselves inthe ferns.

Under the heavy rains, its chaotic, its a crisis situation. Kids do not haveschools. Prostitution becomes rife. The spread of HIV/AIDS finds common

ground, and our people are condemned to death, notwithstanding Mbekis "betterlife for all" statement.

Almost 10,000 African youths are released from prison monthly. Out of these,

about forty percent of them come out HIV positive. Reports show thatgangsterism takes place in our prison system. People are inducted by being

raped. HIV/AIDS is literally and deliberately spread to our young people. Most ofthe productive young people who are supposed to be the future of Azania, do notreach maturity because of HIV/AIDS. This is notwithstanding that there shouldbe a "better life for all."

Forty thousand white farmers are responsible for 86 percent of all agricultural

production in South Africa. It is criminal. There isnt anything that we consumewhich we produce ourselves. We are at the mercy of white people insofar as foodproduction is concerned. The same thing is happening in Zimbabwe. Whitepeople are hoarding food, as a result of the rising prices of food in the market,because they occupy our land, they occupy our labor and they design ourdestiny. Where is Mbekis promise of a better life for all?

Fourteen percent of African people own land in South Africa. The land that theyown is inhospitable. It cannot be ploughed. It is mountainous. It is notproductive. Eighty-six percent of all arable land in South Africa is firmly in thehands of whites.

Twenty-five percent of all of our people in South Africa are infected withHIV/AIDS, a very serious situation. But it is not a crisis as far as government is

concerned. Mbeki still maintains that HIV does not cause AIDS, notwithstandingthat our people are dying. There is no day when people are not burying their

beloved ones. There is no week that passes without someone that you knoweither directly or indirectly dying of HIV/AIDS. Yet the government does not

provide anti-retroviral drugs.

Thirty-two percent of people in South Africa are unemployed. Some of them haveno means whatsoever.

Hospitals have been privatized. Prisons have been privatized. People from Britain

bought some prisons, and the government pays that private company to run andto coordinate prison activities.

Water is being privatized. The poorest of the poor cannot even access naturalwater, which is necessary for life. The British company called Biowater is nowcontrolling our water. Our people have to buy water.


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Unemployment is rising. People are being laid off. They dont have money to buyfood, let alone to access and buy water. This is what is happening,notwithstanding Mbekis promises.

Another very tragic consequence of this post-apartheid situation is the collapseof universities. From 26 universities we will have only 21. We have all this talk

about the importance of education, but most of the black universities are goingto be closed. White and English institutions are left alone. I work for a black

university that is being taken over by the Afrikaaners. So, we are going to be ledby the intellectual leadership of the people that we have been fighting all of

these years.

People like Winnie Mandela have been singled out and isolated on charges thatare very flimsy, because she held the fort and continued to struggle while NelsonMandela was in prison. Even the courts have ruled that she had no materialbenefit from her case. She didnt take a cent. But she was arrested andcondemned.

Contrast this to the case of Wouter Basson, known as Dr. Death, who killed ourpeople. He infected them with AIDS. He was involved with chemical warfare. Hespread anthrax. He worked with the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia. This guy had 95charges that were reduced to 35 charges. From 35 charges, he walked scott-free. He wasnt found guilty even on one charge! Hes now a happy man. Hewalks the streets of Johannesburg. Hes used by the ANC as a consultant! Hegoes on TV and appears to speak about the chemical warfare in Iraq.

The long and short is that we have not received what we fought for. Its as ifsomebody steals your bicycle and then he says "Im prepared to reconcile withyou, lets be friends. But there is one condition. I am not going to give yourbicycle back." Were saying this is what is happening in South Africa. We have

reconciled with white people. We embrace them. But, where is the bicycle? Tothis day, they are holding onto the bicycle. Mandela doesnt want us to talk about

the bicycle. Mbeki doesnt want us to talk about the bicycle, and the bicycle isthe land.

Our people are beginning to see the contradictions, to see the ANC for what it is,

to see Mandela for what he is. This reminds me of the story of a remote ruralarea where it is said that people feared the horse. They had never seen a horse,but they feared the horse. One day a donkey arrived, and all of them went to thedonkey and they bowed down and worshipped, because they thought that thedonkey was a horse.

It was only a matter of time before the real horse came, and they came to seethe difference. They saw that they had been worshipping a donkey, instead of ahorse. So we say that the horse has come. The horse is a horse and a donkey isa donkey. It cannot be the other way around.

People are saying and writing, especially the young people that we would ratherdie on our feet than live on our knees. This is a response that we are beginningto see, where people are saying "It is enough."


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This is a time when we are presented with untold possibilities, both for good andbad. In African culture, there is a proverb that says if a cow is about to givebirth, no power on earth can stop it. Our people are pregnant. They are about togive birth, and no power on earth can stand in place of an idea whose time hascome. We think our time has come. We will win. We must win. Uhuru!

http://burningspearuhuru.com

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