Lisette Talate died the other day.  I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people’s resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, “Keep smiling girls!”

Read more on The World War on Democracy By John Pilger…

Congolese artist Emma Katya has won the Fair Play Anti Corruption Youth Voices Award with his track ‘How long’. The song talks about the current situation in the city of Goma and the hope for a better future while at the same time trying to deal with the pain from the past and the daily struggle for everybody to survive.

Read more on Hiphop Artist from DRC wins the Fair Play Anti Corruption Youth Voices Award…

In 2004 Lida wrote an art manifesto to express her vision in art. Since then there are artists from over 20 countries who have joint this manifesto as they share the same vision. They form today an international art movement.

Read more on Humanitarian Art Manifesto 2004-2010 By Lida Sherafatmand…

www.otabenga.org

A call to foes
who plug their ears hoping
not to hear their conscience’s call
for fidelity
solidarity
with Haiti

A call to friends
Wringing their hands
Waiting to follow the brave
Sufficiently outraged
To risk everything
To make humanity
one
healed
in Haiti

Read more on Haiti, Aristide, Fanmi Lavalass: Being a call to reclaim history, humanity, Africa, the commons By Jacques Depelchin…

By Henry Munene

When Ola Rotimi penned The Gods are not to Blame, which is loosely based on the Greek mythology-inspired play by Sophocles — Oedipus Rex — there was uproar among critics in Africa. The argument was that, Rotimi should have delved deep into our repertoire of myths for more relevant stuff than the Greek mythology. But looking at the world today, I think this debate needs to be looked at from more perspectives.

Read more on World literature must interact…

www.otabenga.org

A poem linking Israel’s December 2008 to January 2009 siege of Gaza to Haiti.

First , not quite, but we have to start somewhere,
There were the Arawaks, the Caribs and the Amerindians
Then their land became known as Hispaniola,
As Saint Domingue, as the economic jewel
Of French overseas possessions
Thanks to Africans kidnapped, chained, shipped
Processed, codified, stamped as property
While always knowing they belonged
To no one but humanity
And through fidelity to humanity
Turned Saint Domingue into Haiti
Fraternity, equality and liberty
Their only motto

Read more on Back and Forth from Africa to Haiti to Gaza: Fidelity to Humanity By Jacques Depelchin…

By Rene Wadlow*

Wise in using skilful means

In every corner of the world

She manifests her countless forms

Sri Lanka: After the final round of armed violence: a need for a vision of the future. Citizens of the World call for creative responses to the challenge of new government structures.

Read more on Sri Lanka reconciliation : Kuan Yin : She who harkens to the cries of the world…