For those interested in Dennis' progress fighting cancer, climate chaos and capitalism, our guru poet was phenomenal last night, starting at 6pm as the surprise guest star of a Cape Town booklaunch party. He first gave us commentary on the 1999 Seattle WTO protest in the context of his prior work kicking the white South African team out of the Mexico City and Montreal Olympic Games in 1968 and 1972. This was to give background evidence for his stirring call, demanding African unity between social justice activists and state rulers at Copenhagen, in order to prevent a damaging deal in mid-December similar to the failed 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
In short, Dennis hopes the Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi will follow through on last week's threat to walk the African Union out of the Conference of Parties once it's clear the North won't provide its overdue payment on ecological debt, or cut emissions sufficiently (40% by 2020 at minimum), or abandon counterproductive carbon trading gimmickry (a.k.a. 'privatisation of the air'). Dennis wants activists outside the Copenhagen meeting to recall the way 70 000 courageous protesters in Seattle a decade ago locked down, telling negotiators to reverse direction. Since they didn't, the Africans said bye bye and the Seattle talks imploded.
(The post-Seattle lessons are important, too. Having shown the strength to deny consent in 1999, the African rulers got a major concession at Doha two years later in the form of Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights exemptions on AIDS medicines, again thanks also to social movement pressure from the Treatment Action Campaign and its allies. And at Cancun in 2003, with activists massing outside, the AU again showed spine by walking out, in spite of efforts by South Africa's negotiating team to generate a subimperial middle-ground stance, which is also a possibility at Copenhagen given that SA is leading the G77 delegates, quite counterintuitively given SA's role as one of the world's worst CO2 emitters.)
Dennis concluded the booklaunch with a moving read of his eco-poem Gull (below). For an hour and a half in front of a fantastic crowd of 100 at the Book Lounge in Long Street, this was Dennis' first public appearance since being feted at Washington's Busboys&Poets celebration in May (via skypecast).
And in New York City a few hours later (1-3am!), he received the War Resisters League's Peace Award (alongside courageous Zimbabwean womens and gay/lesbian groups, and his old friend Bill Sutherland), which Archbishop Tutu applauded (below) and for which four YouTube shorts were prepared (URLS below). Transmitted live via skype, his discussions with old comrades - peering in at a laptop at the dinner table before the ceremony - were a thrilling highlight of the evening; he was so happy to see everyone who had come to honour him. Transmission of his thankyou broke down after a short while, but no matter, we were prepared with a short speech and two poems recorded the day before, so everyone can enjoy them on the web.
Dennis is surviving what must be the hardest, most painful months of his 84 years, even worse in medical terms than the recovery after nearly dying from a gunshot through his mid-section during an escape from apartheid police in central Joburg forty-six years ago and then being tossed into Robben Island prison. However, spending yesterday and this morning with Dennis at his new Cape Town home, with an incredibly caring family (Tony, Jenny and the two grandsons), it's clear to me that his status is far improved from when I saw him last, on his departure from Durban a month ago. There's no more of the acute pain that characterised the prostate cancer symptoms, he's eating heartily, and he combines his wit and optimism with quiet reflection about his amazing life. One of his own mentors and buddies, Pete Seeger, wrote a comradely note for the WRL (he is also a past Peace Award recipient), and it reminded Dennis of the poems he'd done for Seeger's 90th birthday a few months back and in July (below).
Prior to the downturn in his health in late April when he fell and broke a rib, Dennis received two honorary doctorates on April 17 (Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Universities), and his magnificent 50-minute acceptance speech at Rhodes - a deconstruction of his latest political poem - will be online soon. He has also been as active as possible on the reparations front, filing testimonials in July about the apartheid profits case (through the Alien Tort Claims Act) now moving quickly into the New York courts, and assisting the Khulumani and Jubilee movements in U-turning the SA government's position away from Thabo Mbeki's former opposition to the case (a front page story in the Sunday business newspaper records this, a couple of weeks ago, and is at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs).
And in August Dennis worked with the emerging network of 'Climate Justice Now! South Africa' activists to fashion a call to 'seattle Copenhagen', his current fetish. Give him a call at 27 79 706 6971, and you'll get an earful on that topic, and lots more to think about as well.
He's meeting with the reparations lawyer Charles Abrahams today, and a climate strategy meeting will be held in his lounge with Amandla! magazine tomorrow. After his daughter Tina arrives from SF, Dennis will check in for a week at St Luke's to get more treatment but expects to be back on Christow Road by early October, when more visitors will be warmly welcomed. I'll check in again a couple of weeks after that and file an update. Feel free to send me any correspondence you'd like Dennis to have and we'll get it printed for him to enjoy, as his own email is just a bit challenging right now. But cancer, climate crisis and capitalism are not - he aims to defeat all three, you'll see!
Cheers, Patrick PS, I nearly forgot to mention the World Cup here in 2010. He's not shying away from that challenge either, and a fantastic new doccie, Fahrenheit 2010, captures Dennis (from November 2008) and other sports-tourism sceptics (Ashwin Desai, Dale McKinley, Eddie Cottle) in debate with the local elite. As SA's social protest rate has only been increasing over the few months since the new president took power, and with not much hope for improved political-economic trends or public policy (aside from National Health Insurance), there's lots more to be said on that topic in coming months. I'll be sharing this powerful film with comrades in San Francisco, Boston and Washington over the next two weeks, so if you're interested in checking it out, let me know via this email address.
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DENNIS ON YOU TUBE, 17 September 2009
(Thanks hugely to Bjorn Rudner for this filming)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQCiwJb-og0 Dennis Brutus War Resisters League award
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ok8hoPlQ1s Dennis Brutus comments on Pete Seeger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RRLnEo85xw Dennis Brutus poem 'Gull' Copenhagen conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RtuWT9MTSw Dennis Brutus Climate Change & poem 'Longing'
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"Gull" (read by Dennis for his War Resisters League award ceremony, 18 September 2009)
Gull gliding against gray-silver autumn sky sees a vast miasma of greed slowly encompass our entire planet cries out to unheeding stars to whom wails of children rise in shrill unending caterwauls
Gull sees traps and snares lethal pellets of noxious lead noisome sewers of excreta dribbling across continents rivers of pesticide oozing from lush golfcourses
Gull gasps, chokes on acrid billows from rainforests rampaging fires rancid with roasting flesh ashen with cindered bones
Gull breasts with buckling wing fierce gusts of questions strives, resists against questions slowly droops against questions succumbs twisting against question submits to extinction: Questions
October 18, 1995
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WRL 2009 Peace Award September 18, 2009
Archbishop Tutu Statement
It is a pleasure to congratulate Dennis Brutus, and the good members of WOZA and GALZ, upon their receipt of the War Resisters League 2009 annual Peace Award. We must also congratulate the War Resisters League, for recognizing the significance of the struggles in Southern Africa in our global efforts for an end to violence and for a just peace.
When we in South Africa needed the support of the international community to end the vicious system of racial oppression called apartheid, we had to have eloquent advocates to tell the world our story and persuade it to come to our assistance. We had none more articulate than Dennis Brutus, our wonderful poet-campaigner. We owe him an immense debt of gratitude.
In the difficult situation that Zimbabwe has been in, the members of WOZA and GALZ have courageously continued fighting for human rights there—specifically, for the rights of women and the rights of lesbians and gay men. Homophobia and the unequal treatment of women are crimes against humanity, every bit as unjust as apartheid. WOZA and GALZ show the world that once a people decide they must be free, there can be no stopping them.
We have long understood that militarism around the world is fueled by racism and, indeed, by every suppression of human rights. For the War Resisters League to expand its Peace Award to the international community by honoring WOZA, GALZ, and Dennis tonight is but another step in its eighty-six-year history of linking efforts for peace with efforts for justice.
Finally, I am happy to know that WRL is also honoring its longtime colleague and my dear friend, Bill Sutherland. For all those reasons, I am glad to be part of this historic evening. God Bless you all.
The Most Rev. Desmond Mpilo Tutu Archbishop Emeritus, Anglican Church of Southern Africa Nobel Peace Laureate, 1984
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A tribute to Pete Seeger by Dennis Brutus
On his 90th birthday, 3 May 2009
There is joy in that voice and lilting courage in that music his message will endure, will endure will endure, will endure even while the years roll along
He has sung his songs in the face of hate he has endured the storm’s bitter cold he has preached his faith, his tolerance confronting scorn he said “Be bold, we will not be trapped or lured by gold”
His voice joins a mighty chorus Arlo, Paul Robeson, Dylan and Joan and all who sing in support of Freedom: we know we are never alone we know we are never alone
2 May, 2009, Durban
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Honoring Pete Seeger Remembering a fundraising-benefit concert Northeastern University Law School, Boston 1980’s
“There is a season” we sang and our hopes rang high our voices rang clear like bells in frosty air
There is a time to live and a time to die a time to hope and a time to despair and a time to survive to survive, to survive
July 5, 2009 Parklands Hospital, Durban