By Phorozza Dec 2, 2011

SAVE THE BLACK!

From 28 November to 9 December this year, the world will descend on our city of Durban for the UN climate change meeting called Cop 17. All will be there, from world leaders to Hollywood stars, national and international NGOS, together as one, polluters and victims, will converge to “save” the world! We would laugh if it wasn’t so serious. The September National Imbizo has a view; please listen to us, we don’t ask you to agree.

 

Black people, like Mother Earth are victims of more than 500 years of white supremacist violence; from slavery to colonialism, imperialism and apartheid.

 

We blacks are not responsible for the ecological disaster that threatens all; we have lived through ecological genocides as a result of capitalist white supremacy plunder. Together with other endangered species, blacks face total extinction, and because of anti-black racism we are the invisible victims of this violence bred by pogroms to serve the white world.

 

We recognize that global warming has a massive negative impact on life, but we say we have lived through this apocalypse that now threatens to consume its authors too. We also strongly rebuke any suggestion that we must take responsibility for the destruction of the ecosystem. We speak for ourselves and the destroyed earth and we demand reparations and healing for ourselves and the wounded Mother Earth. Capitalism is a vampire that drinks the blood of blacks and feeds on the flesh of our earth. Look at us, look at the earth - we are your victims.

 

When a candle tips over, or a prima stove bursts asunder, setting ablaze the lives of blacks in squatter camps, we know it is part of the assault of white supremacy on blacks. When carbon dioxide ricochets from the roof of a sealed off dwelling of the poor and comes back to claim the lives of children whose futures are already murdered, we know it’s the white hand of capitalism. We look at the empty stomachs of our people amidst the over-fed, the hopelessness brought by exclusion from the benefits of economies based on greed and violence.

 

The white world owes us an apology, but we would accept reparations more readily. No threats of collective death as a result of an ecological disaster will move us, because the social death of black people is hardly seen as a matter that needs to be addressed urgently. The South African government, the ever-eager pleaser of imperialist forces, is hosting COP17. We expect to benefit nothing from our government, the UN and all other global agencies. What we do expect are lies, scorn and violence! We expect massive wastage of resources on hotels, conferencing and public relations campaigns to try hide the stench of the anti-black neo-apartheid reality we blacks have lived under in the past 17 years!

 

We also expect civil society, the ever present partner of these monsters to perform its empty rituals of permitted but diluted protest.

 

What do we blacks want? We want life and liberty! We want reparations and the autonomy to control our lives and our environment. We are the custodians of nature. We laugh because now nature has become more important than people. We stand with the people of Chiapas in the jungle of Mexico who have been pushed to the margins and rendered landless in their own land. They speak for us when they say; “We don’t agree with the pre-occupation with the trees over the death of our people. We say we want trees, we want the mountains. But we also want a dignified life for our people”.

 

We know there can be no dignity, no freedom, no happiness or protection of the people or our earth under the current governments and democracies which assault the majorities. We blacks are owed our land and sovereignty of existence. You can’t kill us systematically on one hand, and promise us protection from and ecological crisis on the other. We come to COP17 with one message: BLACKS ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES!

 

In South Africa we call for a responsible government of the people as contained in The People’s Manifesto! This manifesto is our first step towards the realization of life and to stop the disaster we have come to know in the past 500 years.

 

The SNI will undertake pickets, discussions, demonstrations and distribute The People’s Manifesto during COP17 under the call: SAVE THE BLACK!

 

ISSUED BY SEPTEMBER NATIONAL IMBIZO

www.septembernationalimbizo.org

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