Abdullah Ibrahim: A Baobab of Sound I first encountered Abdullah Ibrahim in New York in the late 1980s, before Nelson Mandela walked free. I was there with comrades from the ANC. I remember Max Coleman, Aziz Pahad, and others. We listened to Abdullah play and afterwards spent time together talking about South Africa, about home, about longing, about a future we could sense but had not yet touched. That evening has stayed with me all my life. Abdullah was not merely a musician. He was a custodian of spirit. If you attended one of his concerts, you quickly understood that he demanded something rare from his audience: presence. If people spoke, if they distracted themselves, he would stop playing. Music was not entertainment. It was prayer. It was discipline. It was listening. He played from a place so deep that words often seemed unnecessary. His music accompanied many of us through decades of struggle and transition. It soothed us, challenged us, reminded us of home, and sometimes took us somewhere beyond home. Whether he was playing in Cape Town, New York, Europe, or anywhere else in the world, he carried with him something unmistakably African, yet profoundly universal. I have just returned from a pilgrimage of silence. I sat with elephants and lionesses. I watched eagles rise on thermals above ancient mountains. I spent time beneath baobabs that stand like sentinels of memory, holding centuries within their trunks. I sat around fires listening to stories older than nations. As I heard of Abdullah’s passing, it struck me that he was like one of those baobabs. Rooted deeply in Africa. Reaching far beyond Africa. A living ancestor while he walked among us. And now an ancestor in another form. His music carried the same quality I encountered on this journey. The same stillness. The same spaciousness. The same invitation to listen more deeply. When I listened to Abdullah, I often felt that I was hearing more than jazz. I was hearing prayer. I was hearing dervishes turning. I was hearing a Venda snake dance moving through the dust. I was hearing Bharatanatyam rhythms carried across oceans. I was hearing the heartbeat of people searching for meaning. He understood that music is a language older than words. A language that speaks directly to the soul. The body of Abdullah Ibrahim has completed its journey. But the music remains. Like the mountain. Like the baobab. Like the embers of an ancient fire passed from one generation to the next. For those of us whose lives were touched by his music, he has not gone away. He has simply joined the great orchestra of ancestors whose songs continue to guide us from beyond the horizon. Go well, Abdullah. Thank you for the music. Thank you for the silence between the notes. Thank you for teaching us how to listen. “ You were a living ancestor while you walked among us, and now an ancestor in another form.” 🙏🏾❤️🎶

An Elder’s Reflection: The Wounded Squirrel Yesterday morning at Calabash, Tara and Handsome did what dogs do. They chased and injured a young squirrel. I found the tiny creature trembling on the ground. Its small body rested in the palm of my hand. Though wounded, it clung tightly to a small twig, refusing to let go. For a moment, time slowed. The squirrel. The dog. The Elder. Three expressions of life meeting in a single moment. One of the great misunderstandings of our age is that we impose human morality onto nature. The squirrel was not a victim. The dog was not evil. Nature is neither cruel nor sentimental. It simply follows laws far older than our judgments. Yet something changed when the squirrel fell into human hands. Unlike the dog, we can choose. We can walk away. We can nurture. We can comfort. We can witness. Our humanity is not measured by our power. It is measured by our capacity for compassion. What struck me most was the squirrel’s grip on that tiny twig. Even injured, it would not let go. Perhaps it was holding onto its tree. Its home. Its belonging. Its life. How often do we do the same? Families do this. Communities do this. Nations do this. Even when wounded, we hold onto what matters most. At Calabash we teach that regeneration is not only about restoring landscapes. It is about restoring relationships: between people and nature, between strength and tenderness, between life and death. This small squirrel became a teacher. It reminded me that fragility and courage often live together. That compassion matters even when outcomes are uncertain. The task of the Elder is not to stop the dance of life. The task of the Elder is to witness it with reverence. Sometimes the mountain speaks through an eagle. Sometimes through a kingfisher. Sometimes through a heron crossing the sky. And sometimes through a wounded squirrel resting quietly in the palm of your hand. Nature is always teaching. The question is whether we are listening. 🙏🏾❤️ #CalabashIRC #Ecoversity #NatureIsTheTeacher #EldersReflection #Ubuntu #Regeneration #LivingEarth #Magaliesberg

An Elder’s Reflection: The Field Is The Faculty This evening, our dinner did not come from a supermarket shelf. It came from the red earth. A few moments before sunset, we walked into the garden and gently lifted sweet potatoes from the soil. Beside them were red peppers ripened by the sun, nourished by rain, microbes, insects, birds, and the mysterious intelligence of life itself. As I watched these beautiful sweet potatoes emerge from the earth, I was reminded once again that we have forgotten our greatest teacher. Nature. At Calabash Ecoversity, we often say that the field is the faculty and Nature is the professor. Every harvest is a lesson. The sweet potato teaches patience. Months of unseen growth beneath the soil before revealing its abundance. The pepper teaches resilience. Standing through heat, wind, cold, and rain to produce nourishment. The soil teaches cooperation. Billions of organisms working together without hierarchy, without competition, without seeking recognition. And Mother Earth teaches generosity. She asks for so little and gives so much. In a world obsessed with artificial intelligence, perhaps we should spend more time learning from Earth’s intelligence. The seed knows how to become food. The tree knows how to become a forest. The river knows how to find the ocean. Nature carries wisdom accumulated over billions of years. This is the miracle before us. Not simply that food grows from the ground. But that life continuously offers itself to sustain life. Tonight, as we share sweet potatoes and peppers harvested a few steps from our table, we give thanks. To the soil. To the rain. To the sun. To the insects and birds. To the unseen worlds beneath our feet. And above all, to Mother Earth, who continues to feed her children despite all that we do to her. This is Ecoversity. This is abundance. This is remembering.🙏🏾❤️

An Elder’s Reflection: The Shadow We All Share The world did not suddenly fracture on the 28th February 2026, with the apartheid Zionist state of Israel and it weaponised Christian Zionist faction that controls the government of the USA launched an illegal war against Iran And the revolting scene of jubilation in Washington and Tel Aviv when news of of the brutal murderous “décapitation”of the Ayatollah Khameni and his closest family members. Can you imagine the political and spiritual head of hundreds of millions of Shia Muslims in a world where there are two billion Muslims. This is akin to murdering a Pope or the Dalai Lama and the western media propaganda justifies this. What we are witnessing is the unveiling of fractures long in the making. There is a sharp truth in this moment. Whether the old empires of United Kingdom, United States, and Israel, or new and emerging powers, build their authority on myths of exceptionalism, the pattern remains the same: The belief that some nations are chosen. Entitled. Above consequences. Empires rise not only through force, but through stories they tell themselves that their violence is necessary, their dominance justified, their insecurity a mandate for control. Today, that story is colliding with an older truth: No civilisation, no matter how ancient or how young, exists outside the web of humanity. From the Gulf to Africa, from the West to the East, we are bound together by forces we did not create: •shared ecology •shared vulnerability •shared destiny The idea of “exceptionalism” has always been seductive for states that rise quickly. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, or other Gulf State, the narrative of stability, innovation, and strategic agility has been carefully cultivated. The phrase “Little Sparta,” popularised during the era of James Mattis, reflects admiration for discipline and military capability. But power especially in a volatile region like the Gulf is never exercised in isolation. What this moment is revealing is something deeper: No state escapes interdependence. The Gulf is a shared ecosystem of: •energy flows •trade routes •water scarcity •geopolitical tension •and increasing climate stress You can build the tallest towers in Dubai or the most advanced systems in Abu Dhabi, but you cannot firewall yourself from: •regional war •ecological collapse •or the consequences of decisions made far beyond your borders So when we say “all Gulf states live under the same shadow,” this is not poetry. It is structural reality. And this truth does not stop in the Gulf. It applies equally to South Africa. We, too, once carried a narrative the moral authority of liberation, the global symbolism of Madiba. But exceptionalism, even of virtue, is fragile when it is not renewed through justice. The liberation movement gave us political freedom. But it did not complete the work of human dignity. Today, inequality deepens. Social cohesion fractures. And the promise of 1994 feels distant is a deferred dream As the liberation movement eats its children we realise that no nation can live off its past story indefinitely. The question before all of us now is not who is right because history shows us: Regions under pressure do one of two things: •fragment into rivalry and destruction •or move toward cooperation and shared security We are standing between those two futures. From exceptionalism → to interdependence → to responsibility. Not security defined only by military strength, but security rooted in: •ecological balance •social justice •humility in power •and respect for the dignity of all life In the end, no nation no matter how powerful can outbuild the consequences of a shared destiny. And perhaps this is the deeper lesson of this moment: Security in the 21st century is no longer about standing apart. It is about learning how to stand together without domination.🙏🏾❤️

The Bergamo convoy. Military trucks moving through a small Italian town in early 2020, the world watching, everyone told those trucks were carrying the coffins of COVID dead. That image is part of why people accepted what came next. It has only recently been confirmed that each of those trucks held one coffin. It was staged. A research group of Italian doctors is compiling data showing that countries with the highest vaccination rates are also seeing the highest all-cause mortality rates. Nurses and medical staff are now openly saying that elderly patients were being classified as COVID regardless of their actual diagnosis, because hospitals received five times the reimbursement for a COVID admission. The people dying were elderly, already carrying multiple conditions, and the act of hospitalizing them was itself part of what killed them. Scientists call that a syndemic. Not a pandemic. The difference matters. Italy was the image used to frighten the world into compliance. I am still finding out what was actually happening here.

Celebrating Africa Day The Covenant and the Becoming Habari. Salaam. Sanibonani. Dumelang. We greet in many tongues… but we are one people. I stand before you not to celebrate with myths… but to speak truth. A few days ago, I walked along the Jukskei River in Yeoville, where I once lived. What I saw was not freedom. A river that once gave life now choked and polluted. A city abandoned. A collapse of dignity. But what shook me most… was not the broken infrastructure. It was us. I listened to people living in fear. Africans stopping Africans. Demanding identity documents. Threatening violence. On Africa Day… And I asked myself: What have we become? Xenophobia is not just violence. It is the betrayal of Pan Africanism. We did not win our freedom alone. Workers from Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and beyond built our mines, our unions, our struggle. We stood as one working class. Not as foreigners. Not as enemies. So what happened? Frantz Fanon warned us: If political freedom is not followed by economic justice, liberation becomes an empty shell. We have the flag. We have the anthem. But millions have no work. No land. No dignity. And in that vacuum… we turn on each other. So I must ask… honestly… as an Elder: Was our freedom real? Because I have dedicated my life to human rights to social justice to the dignity of every human being But today… I am forced to question that journey. Because the system we built does not deliver the better life we promised our people in 1994. Instead, it produces inequality division and violence among the poor While those in power benefit. Who gains when the poor fight the poor? Not the street trader. Not the migrant worker. The system is the problem. And while we fight each other… our land is dying. Our rivers are poisoned. Our water is disappearing. This is a civilisational crisis. We abandoned Ubuntu. We embraced extraction. But we can choose differently. We can reject hatred. Reject division. And rebuild Pan African solidarity. Because without unity… there is no Africa. So on this Africa Day, I ask: Can we liberate ourselves again? From fear. From division. From systems that no longer serve us. Because the children are watching. And the ancestors are watching. Africa will not be saved by slogans. Africa will be rebuilt… by those who remember who we are. I thank you. 🙏🏾❤️

There are moments in life when a journey becomes more than personal. This was one of them. As I approached my 60th year in 2014, I carried a deep desire to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to stand on the roof of Africa at Uhuru Peak. Uhuru. Freedom. It was not just a climb. It was a pilgrimage. Every step tested the body. The air thinned. The mountain demanded humility. There were moments I wondered if I would make it. Moments I thought I might not come down. But I carried something more than my own ambition. I carried a flag. A reminder of a commitment deeply rooted in our struggle as South Africans. A commitment echoed by Nelson Mandela, who reminded us that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of others. At the summit, I stood not only for myself, but for all those whose struggle continues. Today, the Palestinian flag has come to represent something far beyond a single place. It speaks to sacrifice. To resilience. To dignity under unimaginable pressure. It has become a symbol that calls the conscience of the world. For many of us in South Africa, this is not abstract. We know what it means to fight for self determination. We know what it means to stand against systems of oppression. And we know that solidarity is not a slogan. It is a responsibility. This image is not about a mountain conquered. It is about a reminder. That freedom must be defended everywhere. That justice must be pursued without fear. That the human spirit, even under the harshest conditions, does not surrender. As I stood on Uhuru Peak, I realised: The climb is never just upward. It is inward. And it always brings us back to one question: What do we stand for? Today the world stands with Palestine. It always stood with the oppressed. Not governments or capital. But people in solidarity with the oppressed. That what we experienced fighting apatheid SA That we see becoming a tsunami of rejection of apartheid Israel today 🙏🏾❤️

At Calabash we are remembering something simple, something ancient, something we were never meant to forget. The sun belongs to all. The sky belongs to all. The mountains, the water, the wind… belong to all. And we belong to them. Not as owners. But as participants in a living, breathing field of life. Here, we feed the Earth first. Because the Earth is not beneath us. She is within us. And in feeding her, we begin to remember ourselves. Look… Tara the Malenois protector and her faithful companion. two dogs sit by the water’s edge, not restless, not searching, just present. They do not question their place in the world. They do not measure their worth. They do not carry the weight of yesterday or the fear of tomorrow. They sit in the rhythm of life. This is the teaching. The sun rises each morning with quiet certainty. Even when hidden behind clouds, even when storms gather, it remains. So too within you. No matter your story, no matter your pain, no matter the divisions we have created between rich and poor, black and white, this culture or that culture… you carry that same light. Nothing can take away your birthright to life. Nothing can remove your place in this great web of being. But we have forgotten how to be still. We move too fast. We think too much. We hold too tightly to our wounds. So the invitation is simple. Sit. Sit with the sun on your skin. Sit with the earth beneath your feet. Sit with the water reflecting the sky. Breathe. Let the noise dissolve. Let the stories soften. Let the tension leave your body. Because what you are seeking is not somewhere else. It is here. In the stillness. In the quiet presence of life unfolding without effort. Learn from the trees. Learn from the animals. Learn from the mountains that stand without fear. Drop into that space within you that has never been broken. And there… you will find the peace you have been searching for. Not as an idea. Not as something to achieve. But as something you remember. 🙏🏾❤️

Elder’s Reflection: The Sacred Life Harvesting lemons from trees a hundred metres from home, watching Kami and his team plant winter crops in the seedling greenhouse, seeing Kana pull carrots from the soil, I am reminded of a simple truth. Life is sacred. Not as an idea. Not as a slogan. But as a daily experience. When we eat fruit and vegetables directly from the plant, we are not only feeding the body. We are receiving sunlight, rain, soil, minerals, microbes, and the invisible intelligence of life itself. A lemon picked from the tree carries a different energy from food that has travelled through cold chains, chemicals, and distance. A carrot lifted from the earth still carries the memory of the soil. It nourishes our physical body, but also our energetic being. This is the circular economy. The seed becomes food. The food becomes strength. The waste returns to compost. The compost feeds the soil. The soil feeds the seed again. Nothing is separate. Nothing is wasted. Everything belongs to the sacred cycle. This is how our ancestors lived. Close to the land. Close to the seasons. Close to the mystery of life. Modern civilization has taught us to forget. It has separated us from soil, from food, from our bodies, from one another, and from our soul. It has made us consumers instead of custodians. It has made food a commodity, when food is really a carrier of life force. Our evolution now depends on remembering. We are not machines. We are sacred beings having a human experience. The purpose of life is to unravel this mystery: to understand who we are, why we are here, and how we rise from instinct to awareness, from greed to gratitude, from separation to unity. This is the story of our ascension. But there is also a warning. If we forget the sacredness of life, we move towards annihilation. If we poison the soil, we poison ourselves. If we destroy nature, we destroy the temple of our own becoming. So today, these lemons, these seedlings, these carrots, this child harvesting from the earth, are not small things. They are teachings. They remind us that humanity still has a choice. To return to the land. To honour food. To protect life. To awaken the soul. And to remember that our ascent begins with gratitude. 🙏🏾❤️

THE WARS OF WHIMS. THE DEATH OF EMPIRE We are witnessing, in real time, the unravelling of an old story. What is unfolding before us in the USA and old imperial power is not strategy in its highest form. It is impulse dressed as policy. Power acting without wisdom. A belief that force can still dictate outcomes in a world that has fundamentally shifted. The assumption was familiar. Swift victory. Precision strikes. Control through dominance. Instead, what has emerged is stalemate and a yawning defeat for the most powerful armies in human history. The costs are already becoming unsustainable. Financially, militarily, politically. The machinery of war stretches itself beyond reason, consuming resources, attention, and moral legitimacy. These are the dead throes of a brutal forever war culture. These people of the United States have an opportunity to redeem themselves from this dystopian past that has unleashed so much violence in the world. At the same time, the illusion of invulnerability is fading. We are entering an era where asymmetry defines conflict. Where smaller actors can challenge larger powers. Where the old rules of superiority no longer apply in the same way. And beyond the battlefield lies an even greater danger. The global system itself is fragile. Energy routes, trade flows, ecological stability, social cohesion. All are interconnected. A prolonged conflict in one region now has consequences everywhere. The world cannot absorb endless shocks without consequence. What we are witnessing is not simply another war. It is the exposure of limits. The limits of hegemony. The limits of coercion. The limits of a worldview that confuses dominance with leadership. Empire, by its nature, struggles to recognise its own ending. It continues to act as though it still commands the world, even as the ground beneath it shifts. This is why this moment is so deeply important. Because it reveals something we can no longer ignore. That the belief in superiority: of race, faith, economy, civilization, or military might is not only false, it is dangerous. It leads humanity repeatedly into cycles of violence, each one more destructive than the last. Now we see new arms races emerging as old alliances fracture. We see technology, including artificial intelligence, being drawn into the logic of war rather than the service of life. We see a world at a threshold. The wound of humanity is no longer hidden. And so the question is no longer about who wins. The question is whether we, as a species, are ready to evolve. We stand on a twin trajectory. One path leads upward towards consciousness, cooperation, and a deeper alignment with life. The other leads downward into fragmentation, destruction, and possible extinction. This is why this moment matters. Because for the first time in history, our power to destroy has outpaced our wisdom to restrain it. As Albert Einstein once warned, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking… and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The choice before us is no longer distant. It is here. And it will define whether this is remembered as the death of empire… Or the awakening of humanity. 🙏🏾❤️

"Soy judío y estuve en Gaza como médico humanitario, lo que hacía antes Israel era un genocidio lento, ahora es total. Los israelíes son excelentes torturando, lo hacen a todas horas y han matado a médicos violándolos hasta la muerte". Médicos humanitarios judíos denuncian el genocidio sionista en Gaza y las brutales torturas a las que someten a los médicos palestinos, como al doctor Adnan al-Bursh, jefe del departamento de ortopedia del Hospital Al Shifa, que fue violado hasta la muerte. Sin embargo, esto no es ningún escándalo en Occidente... ningún crimen, por horrendo que sea, importa si quién lo hace es EEUU e "Israel2.

These images should haunt the conscience of humanity. Children without limbs. Young men running marathons on crutches. Human beings pushing themselves forward through devastation that no people should ever have to endure. The tragedy of Palestine is not only a humanitarian catastrophe. It is one of the greatest moral failures of the modern world. For decades, Palestinians have lived under occupation, dispossession, siege, bombardment, and systematic dehumanisation. Since 1947 NAKBA, the forced expulsion of 750000 Palestinians, generation after generation has carried the trauma of displacement, violence, humiliation, and loss. Yet the powerful nations that speak endlessly about “human rights” and “international law” have armed, funded, protected, and politically shielded this destruction. The bombs, missiles, bullets, and machinery of war did not fall from the sky by themselves. They were supplied, financed, defended, and justified. This is the most explicit example of western hypocrisy and complicity. And it part of a broader plan to destabilise the Middle East, keep in power family dictatorships of the Gulf States that are proxies of the USA and obliterate any country that stands in the way of US imperialism and their primary proxy, Israel. Thankfully this agenda has been defeated by the resilience and determination of Iran, the only country to stand by Palestinians in the ME. History will remember this. It will also remember those who chose silence while children were buried under rubble and hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and civilian infrastructure were turned into battlefields. Also South Africa, carrying the memory of apartheid and the moral lessons of our own liberation struggle, stood before the International Court of Justice because we recognised something painfully familiar in the suffering of Palestinians. Others too have begun to speak with courage as global civil society rises in outrage against what many increasingly recognise as ethnic cleansing and collective punishment. Even now, we are witnessing Israeli soldiers themselves speaking publicly about the psychological trauma and moral injury of participating in atrocities and cold blooded violence. No people emerge untouched from systems built on domination and dehumanisation. Violence eventually destroys the humanity of both the oppressed and the oppressor. And yet, despite everything, Palestinians continue to run, sing, study, pray, resist, rebuild, and affirm life itself. Perhaps that is what these images truly represent. Not only suffering. But the indestructible dignity of the human spirit. The world is waking up. Too slowly. But it is waking up. 🙏🏾❤️

Xenophobia Is a Betrayal of Our Freedom Last week’s marches in Johannesburg should trouble all of us. Yes, the anger is real. Unemployment is high. Crime is rising. Public services are failing. But we must ask honestly: Are we directing our anger at the right target? Because xenophobia is not a solution. It is a betrayal. I come from a generation that understood solidarity. The South African economy was built on migrant labour—from Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi, Zimbabwe and beyond. Within Congress of South African Trade Unions, we organised across nationality because exploitation did not discriminate. And when apartheid forced many into exile, it was Africa that carried us. The Frontline States opened their borders, sheltered our leaders, and paid a heavy price for our freedom. They did not ask for documents. They acted in solidarity. At the centre of our democracy stood Nelson Mandela. Mandela was unequivocal: xenophobia has no place in a just society. He valued the solidarity of the Frontline States as priceless. He understood that a nation that forgets those who stood with it in its darkest hour loses its moral compass. So we must ask: What are we becoming? Let us be clear. The crisis we face is not immigration. It is governance. Millions of South Africans still do not have identity documents. They are locked out of the economy and denied opportunity. Institutions are weakened. Corruption has eroded trust. These are the real failures. Not the presence of migrants Yet instead of confronting these realities, we are offered a dangerous distraction: Blame the foreigner. This is not leadership. It is political opportunism. Xenophobia does not organise itself. It is mobilised. So we must ask: Who benefits when communities are divided? Because while the poor fight each other, the real structure of inequality remains untouched. Our economy is still shaped by a corporatist system rooted in the gold rush, an alliance between capital and political power that concentrates wealth and excludes the majority. So instead of confronting power, we are encouraged to attack the powerless. Migrants are not the cause of our crisis. They contribute to our economy. They build businesses. They create livelihoods. But facts do not matter when fear becomes a political tool. As an elder, I say this clearly: Xenophobia is a betrayal of our struggle. A betrayal of worker solidarity. A betrayal of the Frontline States. A betrayal of Mandela’s legacy. We stand at a crossroads. We can choose division or we can return to the values that gave us freedom: dignity, solidarity, and our shared humanity. If we get this wrong, we will not only lose our standing in Africa. We will lose ourselves.🙏🏾❤️

An Elder’s Reflection: Africa at the Crossroads of War and Power This is Africa’s moment, but it is also a dangerous one. The world is no longer at peace. What we are witnessing today is not a single war. It is a convergence of conflicts economic, military, technological stretching from the Middle East to Europe, from Asia to our own shores. At the centre of this storm lies a widening contest. On one side, the United States and its allies. On the other, a growing alignment, loose, but real between China, Russia, and Iran. The current war involving Iran is not isolated. It is part of a larger struggle over energy, trade routes, technology, and global influence. China imports 90 % of Iranian oil. A threat to energy security is an implied a direct threat to China’s interests. And they are not going to bend over backwards to USA imperialism. The illegal war by USA/Israel has already disrupted oil flows, shaken economies, and raised global costs effects that are being felt across Africa. And the rest of the world is exhausted by this unpredictable and roguish behaviour that impacts on all our lives. At the same time, major powers are repositioning: • China is strengthening industrial and energy resilience and international cooperation around its developmental One belt, One road initiative is something that connects Africa to large markets. • Russia is benefiting from rising energy prices and wanting a multipolar world. • The United States is projecting military power while managing multiple theatres of conflict and deep disillusionment in its armed forces and an illegal war that is now deeply unpopular even amongst the majority of Americans. And increasingly, they are not confronting each other directly.They are shaping outcomes through regions like ours. Africa is not on the sidelines of this story. We are at its centre. We are the source of critical minerals. We are the future of energy transition. We are the fastest-growing population on Earth. And yet, we risk becoming once again an amphitheatre for the ambitions of other superpowers. We must not repeat this history. Africa must immunise itself. Not by withdrawing from the world, but by refusing to be captured by it. This is the time for strategic non-alignment. We engage all East and West, North and South, BRICS. EU and the rest of the developing world. but we align only with our own interests. We must deepen partnerships that help us beneficiate our resources, build industries, and create dignity for our people. At the same time, we must confront a difficult truth: A continent that hosts foreign military infrastructure cannot fully claim its sovereignty. Security cannot be outsourced indefinitely. Peace cannot be imported. Africa must build its own security, its own diplomacy, its own voice. This is not a rejection of global powers. It is an invitation to all of them to meet Africa as an equal. Because in this emerging world, the winners will not be those who dominate. They will be those who learn to collaborate. This is Africa’s moment to step out of history as an object and step into it as a force. We must not hesitate. And if our leaders refuse to listen to us as citizens then we must organise to make them listen. The future of Africa is not in the hands of our governments. It’s in the hands of its people 🙏🏾❤️

He Stayed True The passing of Denis Goldberg is not just the loss of a hero of our struggle it is the quiet fading of a generation that stood beside Nelson Mandela when freedom was still a dangerous word. He stood in the dock of the Rivonia Trial, ready, like the others, to pay with his life. Instead, he gave twenty-two years years that could not break him, only deepen him. When he returned, he did not confuse liberation with arrival. He spoke of poverty, inequality as the unfinished business of freedom a betrayal of the promise made to the people in whose name the struggle was waged. He did not spare the movement he loved. When corruption took root in the ANC, he raised his voice clear, unwavering calling for renewal, warning that greed would hollow out the moral centre of our liberation. He remained loyal, but never obedient to wrongdoing. Beyond our shores, his compass did not shift. On Palestine, he recognised the echoes of apartheid standing firmly in solidarity, supporting movements on boycott and divestment, and reminding the world that justice cannot be selective. On Cuba, he saw not ideology, but dignity under siege a small nation refusing to surrender its sovereignty to power and pressure. On war whether in Iran or elsewhere his instinct was simple and human: no nation has the right to impose its will through destruction. He knew too well what violence justified by power looks like. He stood, always, on the side of those who resist domination. And so he lived not as a symbol frozen in history, but as a conscience that refused to retire. In a time when many bend, he remained straight. In a time of noise, he remained clear. A revolutionary, not of slogans, but of integrity. And now, as he joins the ancestors, he leaves us not comfort, but a question: When it matters most will we stay true? Hamba Kahle Mkonto🙏🏾❤️

An Elder’s Reflection: Freedom, 32 Years On Today marks 32 years since 1994. A moment when South Africa chose peace over war. Dialogue over destruction. Humanity over hatred. At a time when the world is once again witnessing powerful nations turning to war, we must remember something deeply important. We ended one. Not because it was easy. Not because it was inevitable. But because leadership, courage, and the will of ordinary people made the impossible real. But today, our struggle has changed form. Our war is no longer against apartheid laws. It is against hunger. Against joblessness. Against inequality and poverty. Against the slow violence inflicted on our land, our water, and our future. And this war is just as urgent. But fought non-violence. We stand firm. We speak with courage against any abuse of power. In government. In business Especially in civic society, and faith. We must also be honest. We cannot wait for government to solve this. We cannot wait for parliament, premiers, or local authorities who too often do not listen deeply enough to the voices of citizens. While billions meant for the public good are lost to corruption, while trust in institutions weakens, we face a simple but uncomfortable truth: The responsibility now sits with all of us. Sixty five million South Africans. This is not a call to abandon democracy. It is a call to deepen it. To live it. To act within our communities, our farms, our streets, our schools. Because real change does not begin in parliament. It begins where people take responsibility for one another. I live on a farm where we are training young people to grow food. Not as charity, but as dignity. Not as survival, but as empowerment. Food is life. Land is healing. Work is purpose. Imagine if every community took one step. One garden. One cooperative. One act of shared responsibility. This is today’s harvest to share with community. This is how nations rebuild themselves. On this Freedom Day, let us make a simple bow to one another. Not as divided citizens, but as co creators of a future we cannot outsource. Let us honour 1994 not with words, but with action. Because the next chapter of South Africa will not be written by politicians alone. It will be written by all of us. 🙏🏾❤️💕

She Stood: A Tribute to Francesca Albanese They thought they could silence her not with argument but with power. Freeze the pathways of money. Close the doors of entry. Turn systems into weapons and call it law. But they misread something fundamental. Francesca Albanese did not arrive here seeking comfort. She arrived with eyes open to a world that has learned to disguise violence as order. They said: Be careful. They said: Be balanced. They said: Do not name what is too dangerous to name. But she spoke. She spoke of the Nakba not as history That displaced 750000 Palestinians in 1947 but as a living wound even today In Gaza and Lebanon’s genocides. She spoke of homes taken as if memory could be erased by changing locks. She spoke of olive tree orchards older than the illegal states that uproot them, of children who learn the language of drones and bombs before they learn the language of dreams and innocence. And when power moved not to debate but to isolate, not to engage but to punish, not to listen but to silence she did not flinch. Because truth does not require permission. And conscience does not carry a passport. A lesson we all learnt when we fought apartheid. And somewhere in the long echo of history, a voice reminds us: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Nelson Mandela What frightens them is not her voice alone. It is what her voice awakens. The quiet recognition that beneath the noise of geopolitics there is a simple, unbearable truth: That a people cannot be erased without erasing something in ourselves. They will call her dangerous. They will say she has crossed a line. But the line she crossed was drawn by fear, not justice. In her stands a force older than empire. Not the power to dominate, but the power to witness. Not the will to conquer, but the refusal to forget. And in that refusal is a mirror. Held up to a world that must now decide: Will we look away as we always have? Or will we finally see what has been done in our name? She stood. Not because it was safe. Not because it was easy. But because there comes a moment in the life of humanity when silence becomes the greater crime. Viva Francesca. Aluta Continua. For reminding us that even now, in a world of systems and sanctions, a single voice anchored in truth can still shake the architecture of power. 🙏🏾❤️

An Elder’s Reflection: The Edge We Now Face The danger of escalation is no longer abstract. It is on the horizon. What is unfolding in Iran is not just a regional war. It is a flashpoint in a much larger struggle over the future of the global order. It raises serious questions of legality, legitimacy, and necessity. And it risks drawing the world into direct confrontation between nuclear armed powers. We must be clear. This war is unnecessary. It is avoidable. And it carries consequences far beyond the Middle East. At its core, this is not only about Iran. It is about power. Control over energy routes. Control over trade flows. Control over the economic lifelines that sustain nations. And this is where the China dimension becomes unavoidable. China’s economy depends heavily on energy flows from the Gulf. Disrupt those flows, and you are no longer dealing with a regional issue. You are directly impacting the stability of another major power. This is how local wars become global crises. China will not rush into military confrontation. Its strength lies in patience and long term positioning. But it will not allow its core interests to be undermined indefinitely. With Russia as an alternative energy partner and growing influence across the Global South, pressure will not isolate it. It will consolidate new alignments. Meanwhile, the Gulf states are cautious. Egypt is unwilling to be drawn in. Even Western alliances show discomfort. These are not signs of a world ready for escalation. They are signs of a world searching for an off ramp. As Sun Tzu warned: “ There is no instance of a country that has benefitted from prolonged warfare.” War that destroys infrastructure, cities, and the fabric of society creates a burden that does not disappear when the fighting ends. It returns. It sits at the negotiation table. It becomes the cost of rebuilding, the resentment of generations, the instability that follows. An invading army may win territory. But it inherits the responsibility to rebuild what it has broken, and to negotiate peace with those it has wounded. That is why the highest form of strategy is not destruction, but preservation. The United States now faces a defining choice. Continue down a path of escalation to preserve a fading model of dominance. Or step back and lead through restraint. And the world faces its own choice. We can drift into an arms race driven by nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, and a military industrial tech system that profits from permanent conflict. Or we can choose something more civilised. A multipolar world grounded in cooperation, not domination. A world that de escalates conflict and redirects human ingenuity toward life. We are standing at a threshold. The future is not yet written. But the time to choose is now. 🙏🏾❤️