[News] We Fight with Our Eyes. We Plant Seeds with Our Hands. We Will Watch the Wheat Fill the Valley

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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*We Fight with Our Eyes. We Plant Seeds with Our Hands. We Will Watch 
the Wheat Fill the Valley: The Fiftieth Newsletter (2023)*


Medu Art Ensemble (Botswana), /Shades of Change/, 1982. This two-man 
play, set in a prison cell, was written by Mongane Wally Serote. Credit: 
Medu Art Ensemble via Freedom Park

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research 
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=83316e5b52&e=d206d0a40d>.

In the ancient time of national liberation, when partisans walked among 
the people in rural hamlets or small towns, they carried their message 
forward in the palms of their hands, their rifles slung over their 
shoulders, newspapers and pamphlets in their bags. Given the prevalence 
of illiteracy in the colonised world, partisans often gathered people 
around small fires and read these texts aloud (it is fitting that the 
Latin word for ‘fire’ is /focus/). This literature of national 
liberation shared theories of exploitation and oppression that made 
sense to the people and encouraged them to join the struggle in their 
own way.

The newspapers and pamphlets shared not only information, but also 
important analyses of the ongoing struggle, with original poems, plays, 
stories, and drawings woven throughout. Such imaginative works were 
published alongside texts of didactic instruction in periodicals like 
/El Moudjahid/ (‘The Fighters’), the newspaper of the National 
Liberation Front of Algeria, /Cờ Giải Phóng /(‘Liberation Flag’), the 
newspaper of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, and /Al Hadaf/ 
(‘The Goal’), the magazine of the Popular Front for the Liberation of 
Palestine.

In /Al Hadaf/ and in his novel /Umm Sa’ad/ about a Palestinian woman who 
encourages her son to join the /fedayeen/ (‘guerrillas’), Ghassan 
Kanafani (1936–1972) showed that there can be no head without a heart. 
There can be no conceptualisation of the revolutionary tomorrow without 
a leap of the imagination to make the journey. Culture is the space not 
only to transmit the message, but also to visualise the future.

Medu members Lulu Emmig and Thami Mnyele (seated at the table in the 
front, from left to right), and others attend a Woman’s Day function at 
the Swedish Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana, 1981. Credit: Sergio-Albio 
Gonzalez via Freedom Park

Medu members Lulu Emmig and Thami Mnyele (seated at the table in the 
front, from left to right) attend a Woman’s Day function at the Swedish 
Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana, 1981. Credit: Sergio-Albio Gonzalez via 
Freedom Par

Culture is a vital centre of struggle. It is where people see who they 
are, learn what they are capable of, and dare to imagine what they would 
like to build in this world. Art itself does not change the world, but 
without bringing imagination to life through art, we would resign 
ourselves to the present. Radical artists allude to reality, trying to 
raise the consciousness of people who might otherwise not have 
considered this or that aspect of their relationship with others. It is 
the role of art to focus the people’s attention and build their 
confidence to struggle against the misery inflicted upon the global 
majority. Building this focus and confidence paves the path for people’s 
organisations to carry this new consciousness forward and build a better 
world. The nineteenth century slogan of ‘art for art’s sake’ is a cry of 
despair against the actual purpose of art in our society: to breathe in 
the ugliness that surrounds us and breathe out the beauty that inspires 
us to change that dreadfulness.

The latest dossier from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, 
/Culture as a Weapon of Struggle: The Medu Art Ensemble and Southern 
African Liberation/, adopts this stance toward art and culture. Medu 
(which means ‘roots’ in Sesotho) was a collective built by artists 
involved in the southern African liberation struggles from 1979 to 1985. 
Among the sixty or so artists who belonged to the Medu collective were 
the influential poets Keorapetse William Kgositsile (South Africa’s 
first poet laureate) and Mongane Wally Serote (South Africa’s current 
poet laureate), writer Mandla Langa, musicians Jonas Gwangwa and Dennis 
Mpale, and visual artists Thamsanqa ‘Thami’ Mnyele and Judy Seidman. The 
dossier weaves together original interviews with many of the surviving 
artists and research that brings in the voices of those who did not 
survive the brutality of the apartheid regime. Based in Gaborone 
(Botswana), these artists came from a variety of political traditions, 
such as the Black Consciousness Movement, the African National Congress, 
and the South African Communist Party and were inspired by the broad 
tradition of national liberation movements from Vietnam to Chile. 
Together, the Medu collective built on Frantz Fanon’s idea that ‘it is 
at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness 
establishes itself and thrives. And this dual emergence, in fact, is the 
unique focus of all culture’.

December 16 – Heroes Day, 1983. Credit: Medu Art Ensemble via Freedom Park

Medu Art Ensemble (Botswana), /December 16 – Heroes Day/, 1983. Credit: 
Medu Art Ensemble via Freedom Park

Medu, like other artists’ collectives rooted in national liberation, 
drew their inspiration from popular struggles, such as the fights to win 
control of the land, create an international anti-colonial project (the 
Pan-African movement), and build a national liberation project (as 
articulated in South Africa’s 1955 Freedom Charter). These were the 
resources that gave confidence to the artists in Medu as they painted 
and sang amongst the people who took part in the Durban strikes of 1973 
and the Soweto Uprising of 1976.

>From this energy and from their own practice, Medu produced a theory of 
art centred on three key principles: art is a necessary weapon of 
struggle; art must be produced in collectives that work in communion 
with the people; art must be made to be understood by the people. These 
three principles were articulated in their internal debates and in 
gatherings such as the Culture and Resistance Symposium and Festival of 
the Arts (held in July 1982 in Gaborone), which brought together 
hundreds to thousands of cultural workers from inside and outside South 
Africa to advance the cultural battle against South African apartheid. 
Together, Medu built up a distinct body of thought and theory of 
socialist art.

Then, on the night of 13 June 1985, a military detachment of the South 
African apartheid state crossed the border into Botswana and descended 
upon the homes of many exiled South African artists and activists. Two 
of the twelve people assassinated that night were Medu members, 
including the key visual and poster artist Thami Mnyele. The group’s 
ability to continue their work and advance their thinking was destroyed.

Apartheid regimes fear the inspirational power of the arts and the 
imagination. They respond with violence.

Organisers prepare for the first session of the Culture and Resistance 
Symposium and Festival of the Arts, Gaborone, Botswana, 1982. Credit: 
Anna Erlandsson via Freedom Park

Organisers prepare for the first session of the Culture and Resistance 
Symposium and Festival of the Arts in Gaborone, Botswana, 1982. Credit: 
Anna Erlandsson via Freedom Park

Thirty-eight years later, this war against art and culture continues, as 
we are witnessing in apartheid Israel’s genocidal rampage against 
Palestinians. Amongst the many painters and artists killed during this 
bombardment are the painter Heba Zagout (1984–2023), the muralist 
Mohammed Sami Qariqa (1999–2023), the poet and novelist Hiba Abu Nada 
(1991–2023), and the poet Refaat Alareer (1979–2023). Alareer’s poem 
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=5e2a5b565f&e=d206d0a40d> 
‘If I Must Die’, written in 2011, has resonated deeply with people 
across the world since he was assassinated by the Israeli Occupation 
Forces on 7 December.

If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.

The Israelis know the power of words. General Moshe Dayan once said that 
reading a poem by Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003) was like ‘facing twenty enemy 
commandos’. In her poem ‘Martyrs of the Intifada’, Tuqan wrote of the 
Palestinian stone throwers. The poem 
<https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=c4998b9c27&e=d206d0a40d> 
itself is a stone thrown at Israel:

They drew up the map of the road to life
they paved it with precious stones and with their young hearts
they raised their hearts as stones on their palms
embers and flame
and with these they pelted the monster of the road,
now is the time to show courage and strength,
their voice was heard strong everywhere
it reverberated everywhere
and there was courage and strength
they died standing
blazing on the road
shining like stars
their lips pressed to the lips of life.

Warmly,

Vijay

Website <www.eltricontinental.org>

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