So Over The Rainbow, Rugby & Reconciliation

By Fezokuhle Mthonti and Ntombizikhona Valela, The Con\

There is a popular refrain that can be heard in the recent student movements across the country: “Sixole kanjani?” It is an invocation of words that were said all too often by black people during apartheid. “How can we possibly forgive this?” “How can we possibly move past this point?” Except this time, we had to project it into the future tense: where will black people find the supposedly endless repositories of forgiveness that will help us deal with this exact moment?

Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation: #FeesMustFall

The Rhodes to Perdition: Why Rhodes was never ready for the BSM

Ntombizikhona Valela, The Daily Maverick

In the past couple of weeks university students from Wits, UCT and Rhodes have been making a call for the transformation of the institutional cultures at the abovementioned universities. Wits students from the Political Studies Department issued a demand for the change in the curriculum in order to include African and global South thinkers from Frantz Fanon, to Lewis Gordon, to Angela Davis. UCT students are currently engaged in a campaign to have the statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed and Rhodes University students, in particular those belonging to the Black Students Movement, have made a call for the change of the University’s name as part of getting the ball rolling on achieving meaningful transformation.

BSM member Lihle Ngcobozi addresses Dr Stephen Fourie on behalf of the movement demanding to know why BSM has been prevented from entering the Admin Building. (Kate Janse Van Rensburg)

Response to Ato Sekyi-Otu's 'Fanon's Dialectic of Experience'

Ntombizikhona Valela

Ato Sekyi-Otu's Fanon's Dialectic of Experience is an attempt by the author to reread Frantz Fanon in a post-colonial/post-apartheid context. Sekyi-Otu invites us to piece together the puzzle of Fanon's thoughts in order to work out concepts for the kind of society Fanon envisioned. I think one of the most striking things about Fanon's work from Black Skin, White Masks to The Wretched of the Earth is the sense that he is writing the history of post-colonial Africa before it happens, especially in The Wretched of the Earth.

A reflection on Michael Neocosmos's 'From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners: Explaining Xenophobia in Post-Apartheid South Africa'

Ntombizikhona Valela

Michael Neocosmos' From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners traces the prevalence of Xenophobia which has become commonplace in post-apartheid South Africa from colonialism and the apartheid era. This book also debunks the theory that South Africa is an exceptional state by showing that xenophobia is a phenomenon that is an African and international problem.

A reflection on T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting's 'Fanon: Conflicts and Feminisms'

Ntombizikhona Valela      

After reading Frantz Fanon's three books (Black Skin, White Masks, A Dying Colonialism, The Wretched of the Earth) it is clear that he acknowledges the importance of the role women in the realization of freedom for colonized people. It is especially emphasized in A Dying Colonialism where we see women active in the liberation struggle in Algeria. I think Fanon is one of the first writers that acknowledges women and for a man writing at that point in history I view it as quite profound because he's not mentioning women at those moments in history where women's roles are undeniable, but he describes women's roles in such a way as to place them in the everyday moments of the struggle for liberation. I contrast his writing with the South African anti-apartheid history that seems to make the role of women an extraordinary event that pops up here and there such as the famous 1956 women's march to the Union Buildings and the less mentioned 1913 anti-pass protest led by Charlotte Maxeke. So I found it shocking that Fanon would face heavy criticism as anti-feminist or anti-black woman by some feminists that Sharpley-Whiting cites in this book. Sharpley-Whiting, without seeming biased offers clarity that clears Fanon's name.

A reflection on Frantz Fanon's 'Black Skin, White Masks'

by Ntombizikhona Valela

Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks is a book that analyses relations between white people and black people and their way of being within these categories. He is writing of his experiences and those of people of the Antilles in relation to France. He looks at people's behaviour within a society where the distinctions between black and white are clear. There is the sense that in this society one ought to learn the rules and stay in one's lane.

A reflection on Alice Cherki's Frantz Fanon: A Portrait

by Ntombizikhona Valela

Alice Cherki's Frantz Fanon: A Portrait is a biography on Frantz Fanon that focusses on his work as a psychiatrist, his writing and his activism, and contribution to Algeria's independence. It also documents Fanon's interest in Africa's independence and Africa's future going forward.

This biography started off as quite challenging for me because it is a departure from the conventional structure of biographies I have read such as Xolela Mangcu's Biko: A Biography and Winnie Mandela: A life by Anné Marié du Preez Bezdrop. Such biographies tend to go deep into the personal life of the subject while Cherki's biography does not focus on this with Cherki explaining that Fanon was a deeply private man. What I enjoy about biographies is their ability to break down the larger-than-life image that is associated with the subject of the biography to show a more human and thus relatable character. This is something that I find ironic about this book because Fanon's work was devoted to humanizing the oppressed people of the colonized world, while not much about his personal life is revealed. On the other side of the coin, though, I find that his concern for the colonized brought out his humaneness. As I was reading this and comparing the biographies I have read while also reflecting on the death of Nelson Mandela and the documentaries that were broadcast on television during the days leading to his funeral, I found that Alice Cherki writes so simply about Fanon revealing how ordinary he was. The reason this struck me so much was because biographies of people like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela create this idea that in order to achieve something great or to be regarded as a revolutionary one ought to be extraordinary from birth. For example Winnie Mandela: A life opens with a tracing of Madikizela-Mandela's ancestry to the Mpondo royal family; Mandela is known to be born out of Thembu royalty. There's this idea that is created (whether deliberately or not, I do not know) that it takes some sort of anointing to make history and I think this closes the space for participation in revolution. However what I find in Cherki's book is that Fanon was an ordinary man born from an ordinary family, yet became one of the greatest thinkers of his generation. For me this book, in a way (whether intentional or not) acted as a response to the way some biographers write and thus create the impression that revolution, political thought and activism is reserved for the chosen few.

A reflection of C.L.R James’ Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

Ntombizikhona Valela

C.L.R James' The Black Jacobins documents the events leading to the Haitian Revolution and the revolution itself. In the Prologue of this book, James explains that one of his intentions of writing about this history is to not only point out the fact that African slaves could organize in the same way that the Americans and French did for their revolutions, but that this book would hopefully serve as a blueprint for African countries that were at the brink of independence from colonization. Through the story of Toussaint L'Ouverture, potential African leaders would draw some sort of ''inspiration'' to the kind of leadership that is required to get an independent state on its feet. In light of the time in which James as writing I would say that this book is a way of getting its reader to be hopeful about the where Africa could be after the post-colonial moment if quality leadership and political will are put to good use.