Africa has increasingly diverged from the Atlantic powers, more weary of Western militarisation, economic strangulation, and tepid diplomatic policies that give little room for sovereign development. We need new locomotives to represent and advance the collective aspirations of the people not only domestically but the shifting balance of forces globally. Through joint collaboration within our Network of African Research Institutes, we hope to build our capacity to support the leading social movements confronting the dilemmas of humanity on the continent.
This dossier focuses on the Black Community Programmes, a series of projects initiated in 1972 that served as the practical implementation of the Black Consciousness philosophy to give Black people the power to become self-reliant. In practice, these programmes included the foundation of publications and research, health centres, factories to employ the economically marginalised, and a trust fund to provide basic necessities for ex-prisoners as well as grants for yet other projects.
Since 1996, activists in Xolobeni, a coastal region in South Africa, have been fighting a foreign mining conglomerate that learned that their ancestral lands happen to be rich in titanium. The anti-mining activists of Xolobeni, who have lost many comrades to hit squads, continue to struggle against this foreign company and its partners in the South African government. Given that their land is located in a global biodiversity hotspot, their struggle is the struggle of us all: it is the fight for water, soil, food, and air.