“Three generations of white South African men were bound together at that table. Vermuelen was the first generation. He defined Africa, made it safe for Basson to defile. I was the last generation, the last to grow up in segregated neighborhoods. Between us was the silent photograph of Wouter Basson. Like a distant father, Basson was absent at the dining table.” – Henk Rossouw (Hole in the White ‘Hood). Also Mahmood Mamdani on Bantu Education at UCT, Gael Reagon on sisterhood, Binyavanga Wainaina on dis-covering Kenya, Gaston Zossou on African intellectuals and more…
Cover:
Strange Fruit by Lewis Allen
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.