Death by Memory [of Freedom]; Truth & Reconciliation
A tryptych in honour of Steve Biko. Firstly, Graeme Arendse, as his alter-ego Ramgee, presents In Memory of Freedom, Gail Smith then scrutinizes the remembrance of Biko in ‘post’ apartheid South Africa, before Ramgee returns with an alternative story, using words drawn from testimonies to the TRC on the death of BC leader. Twenty-five* years after four burly white supremacists pulverised Steve Biko’s brain, […]
Howl Marikana
Announcing his intentions with a howl that echoes Ginsberg, Aryan Kaganof offers a funeral march to fallen comrades. Is it possible, he asks, to find hope and beauty in the pain and injustice, the waste and the loss, the bones, cinders and blood? And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, […]
Who’s Free, Who’s Not, Who Was, Who Wasn’t, and Who’s Dead: And, Are You Sure You Know Which Way Is Up?
A Letter from Istanbul by Ed Pavlic Trayvon remains underground, to my knowledge he hasn’t arisen. No Ascension nor Assumption. He’ll never be a free man, again. True. Last week in Douala, Cameroon, on the other hand, a crowd spent four hours lynching a suspected criminal, waking him up, and apparently lynching him all over […]
Suspect Sammy
A Letter from Toronto by Andrea Meeson It’s another Monday morning after another weekend, and another young man is dead at the hands of the Toronto Police Service (TPS). Let’s start with his name, Sammy Yatim, give him the due respect before we tag him, like his peers, in our loaded language of ‘other’: brown; […]
Memento Mori
A Letter from Harlem by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. When I came home from abroad, death was in style. I don’t remember when I first noticed it; I remember only the moment when a few sightings could no longer be understood as a coincidence. I looked upon familiar scenes and noticed things that had previously escaped me, or perhaps were not there. I […]