From the time white colonial expansionists landed on our shores, Black people placed their hopes on their Kings, Chiefs and warrior men and women of war to fight and resist land dispossession.
In the Eastern Cape alone, nine frontier wars were fought and ultimately lost at the turn of the century, (1779-1879). By now blacks had lost their land and cattle and were forced to accept their fate, and to carve themselves a new destiny inside the belly of the beast.
Many sent their children to mission stations and mission schools. Children who were deemed pliable enough to western ways were identified for further training and education in Europe.
Such was the beginning of the black intelligentsia, the first black priests, missionaries, poets and politicians. The hopes of our people now shifted from Kings and Chiefs to these new western educated leaders.
The ANC emerged out of such christianized Blacks, who, as their first call of duty to liberate their people, saw it fit to go beg the Queen in England for inclusion in the whites only legislation and governing system.
The last of these Christian lobbyist and coalitionists was Chief Albert Luthuli, the first black to be celebrated by imperialism and given the most coveted Nobel Peace Prize, an albatross which was later successfully tied around Tutu and Mandela alike.
It was not until Sobukhwe and his colleagues rejected the noose which had been around the neck of the ANC since its inception and vehemently opposed the document smuggled through the back door by white communists into the centre of the Black struggle, the Freedom Charter, which served to legalize land theft for which Kings, Chiefs and warrior men and women of war died fighting for.
A new day dawned with the launch of the PAC, but most of its leaders didn't see the light of day. Soon after, state brutality was unleashed in ways never seen before. The true colours of a racist regime were revealed when Blacks under Sobukhwe’s leadership rejected lobby politics and opted for a defiance campaign, burning their passes at Sharpville and in Langa.
A little candle flickering and about to be snuffed out was picked up by Steve Biko who ran with it from the University of Natal to Ginsberg outside of King William’s Town where the soil was still stained by the blood of black warriors who fell resisting land dispossession.
Black Consciousness lit up a flame so bright, that 39 years after Biko's brutal death in police custody, the flame still burns in the hearts of children, inspiring the birth of Fallism, a decolonial project that connects the Black struggle beyond the mediocre politics of the ANC, right into the spear of King Hintsa, King Moshoeshoe and King Shaka - the struggle for Land.
The hopes of our people no longer rest on Nobel laureates or western trained and christianized leaders who talk left and walk right, but on the children of Biko, the grandchildren of Sobukhwe whose message is clear as day instead of the double speak of paid politicians.
The children are saying bring back the land and all our stolen legacy or go to hell.
Land or Death!
