“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
The Healers (PER ANKH, 2016)
The Story: African history turns on a tension between divisive forces, exploiting ethnic and class differences for quick profits, and unifiers, sacrificing narrow sectional advantages for the greater good. Over the centuries, the divisive forces have ruined Africa by helping foreign invaders pillage our resources - from people in the past, to industrial metals and energy today.
Less visible is the regenerative work of unifiers following an ancient vision of unity as source of social prosperity. In Kemet, such a group was the Shemsw Maât. In medieval Mali, a similar group framed the Union Charter. In the 19th century, when Europeans and collaborators devised the poverty machine now camouflaged as independent states, one such group led resistance by reminding the population of our past unity, and advocating a rebirth of that unity. These were The Healers. This is their story.