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Mayihlome is an engaging news publication aimed at highlighting and advocating the plight of the poor working class masses. We inform, educate and inspire

We inform, educate and inspire communities to stand up and fight for their social, political and economic interests. Our primary responsibility is to conscietize the poor working class masses majority of whom are Africans, to build formiddable fighting capacity to defeat the instruments of plunder and exploitation praying on the human, capital and natural resources of the poor working masses who l

anguish in grinding poverty despite their indespensible economic contribution. Mayihlome strives for a society committed to democratic principles of self determination, equality, justice, common ownership of the means of economic production, equitable sharing of wealth creation and consumption and an end to exploitation of man by man for the benefit of the few at the expense of the sweat, toil and blood of the working class masses. Ours is a cause for the creation of a socialist society.

23/11/2022

On Wednesday November 9th 2022, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) conferred its final honorary doctorate (formally called the Philosophiae Doctor Honoris causa) in literature, to the Tanzanian born British scholar activist and author Professor Abdulrazek Gurnah. This occasion took place, in a context of a week filled with other miscellaneous headlines on the national front. Amongst these activities, one may enlist the release of the much anticipated Judge Sisi Khampepe Report on racism and transformation at Stellenbosch University (SU), on Tuesday November 8th 2022. As a past Student Representative Council (SRC) leader, at University of Zululand (UZ) during 2004/5, SU during 2009/10 and University of Johannesburg (UJ) during 2016, I share concerns of fellow sceptics, who amongst others are aware of how the demand for an independent enquiry was made by a student political organization and whether or not the noted recommendations will be addressed. My reservations among others emanate from the genesis of the demand, made by the South African Students Congress (SASCO) aligned to the ruling party African National Congress (ANC), instead of having originated from the SRC as the official leadership body of the entire student body. So the Sisi Khampepe Report on racism and transformation at SU is in essence a commissioned report by SU’s management, as mandated by SASCO instead of the SRC. Besides such typical student politics, my concern on addressing recommendations, recalls the failure of previous recommendations that were made in the Report of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation and Social Cohesion and the Elimination of the Discrimination in Public Higher Education Institutions, released on November 30th 2008. That report was chaired by Crain Soudien hence the common reference to the Soudien Report of 2008. Notably challenges of racism and transformation, are not unique to South Africa’s universities.

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/uj-awards-honorary-doctorates-to-luminaries-with-stellar-record/

26/10/2022

Another radiant milestone was witnessed on Saturday 15th October 2022, in the ongoing history of DITAU Primary School (now DITAU Higher Primary School whose motto stipulates that-‘Knowledge is Power’), based at 6604 Madala Street in Orlando East, Soweto, as 89 year old ex- principal Edward TM Tenza was honored. At present the initial address of DITAU Primary School on Taukobong Street in Orlando East, Soweto is occupied by DITAWANA lower Primary School. Since both schools are in Orlando East, it is presumed that on completion at DITAWANA Lower Primary School, pupils can progress with their basic education by enrolling at DITAU Higher Primary School.

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/ditau-primary-school-alumni-honor-their-former-principal-edward-tenza/

15/08/2022

WHAT IS STILL TO BE DONE

what with such confusing verbiage
what with these abstract lofty explanations
making no sense / no meaning
to see the way / our way clear
today and every other day
of the tangible sacrifices made
by blood / tears / sweat / power
to ring in the material changes
to rid us of the colossal robbery
what more still needs to be said and done?

what is still to be done
before the sun rises
to end with immediate effect
the nightmare of misogynist
ra**ng our wives / daughters
beating to death our sisters
terrorising to hell our communities
of the have nots / the poorest
we have talked about this horror
all night and all day
what is to be done now / this minute

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/what-is-still-to-be-done/

24/06/2022

Sacred Heart College and the Unrest of 1976

On Monday the 13th of June 2022, I honoured an invitation in my capacity as an alumni to present a lecture about Sacred Heart College (SHC), whose latin motto is In Meliora Contende meaning ‘Strive for Better Things’. SHC has been sited in 15 Eckstein Street, Observatory, Johannesburg since 1924. The original school name was Marist Brothers (as it was a boys only school until 1980) and it was sited from 1889 at Koch Street in downtown Johannesburg, currently occupied by the Mariston Hotel and is used for student accomodation for University of Johannesburg (UJ). My task was to speak about SHC’s role, relevant to the unrest of June 1976. My hosts comprised of the first female Head of SHC and Principal of the High School Heather Blackensee and her deputy Principal Dhiraj Bharuth. The latter pair felt that although in the previous year, they had invited guests (such as Antoinette Sithole – the eldest of three sisters of the deceased Zolile Hector Pieterson (1963-1976), a lingering gap however persists in the public domain, vis-à-vis SHC’s role against the Apartheid regime’s nefarious segregation agenda for schools. I accepted the invite, based on my research apropos the long duree of SHC’s history. More about my lecture further ahead.

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/sacred-heart-college-and-the-unrest-of-1976/

10/06/2022

THE CLOUDS OF BLACK ARE COMING
[For Tlhaki Joe Lekganyane]

they have to darken slowly and ripen
coming together | going apart
pushed like gray paper kites in the wind
tails swinging for attention in an unadorned sky
they have to rob the sun of its hard day
for our work | the seed scattered
during spring’s unending miseries of staying
during a struggle for rising and saying our say
the clouds of black have to happen
https://mayihlomenews.co.za/the-clouds-of-black-are-coming

12/04/2022

The outcry from miscellaneous members of the South African public, against the lacklustre services by officials of the Department of Home Affairs are amplifying. The list of grievances includes disheartening queues, which commence beyond entrances of the majority of the branches of Home Affairs, key machinery being intermittently offline, fallible plenipotentiaries prone to bribery and most recently the growing calls for the resignation of Minister Aaron Motsoaledi. In my view, Minister Motsoaledi is among the few performing ministers, in an obsolete African National Congress (ANC) led government. He is sadly let down in his present ministry, by inept and corrupt plenipotentiaries. Removing him alone instead of the entire ANC cabinet, will be similar to playing the man instead of the ball. In sum such a move, will not change anything.

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/home-affairs-not-in-order/

29/03/2022

Africa my beginning
And Africa my ending
Azania here I come from apartheid in tatters
in the land of sorrow from that marathon bo***ge
the Sharpeville Massacre the flames of Soweto
I was there I will die there
In Africa my beginning
And Africa my ending
Let’s do something
Mbopha…

By Ingoapele Madingoane

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/africa-my-beginning/

28/03/2022

[Originally published in March 1976]
“Half measures are no good in this wilderness any more than a leaking boat is any good in an ocean. One needs certainty, a sense of security, something solid to hold on to in the dangerous void – and it has to be absolutely solid.” – Alan Moorehead

The savage massacre of African patriots at Sharpeville and other places in South Africa on 21 March 1960 is of paramount significance in the struggle against apartheid and needs to be understood in its historical scope. Sharpeville marked unquestionably a turning point in the struggle for liberation in Azania. As the respected African church leader, Canon Burgess Carr of Liberia, said, it was the watershed which spurred the outpour of revolutionary struggle against white minority rule and colonialism throughout southern Africa. The fatal gunning down of some eight score peaceful African demonstrators and the maiming of several hundred others, in a callous and live re-enactment of the wild west, rightfully brought international public opinion against apartheid South Africa to a boil. So far the massacres at Sharpeville, Langa, Nyanga and Vanderbijl Park stand out prominently in the minds of people all over the world as the sanguinary examples of apartheid barbarism.
https://mayihlomenews.co.za/the-sharpeville-massacre-its-historic-significance-in-the-struggle-against-apartheid/

25/03/2022

At last the much anticipated third part of the Zondo report was released this month, what follows is a pithy summary of its contents. It structurally consists of four volumes, detailing the shady shenanigans that took place, between the African National Congress (ANC) members on instructions of their leaders, ANC government officials and BOSASA. Descriptively, BOSASA is a South African company, which had its headquarters in Krugersdorp. The BOSASA Group was made up of the BOSASA Youth Development Centres and BOSASA Operations (subsequently renamed to African Global Operations since 2017). BOSASA’s deliverable products were listed as providing business services and catering to the government’s correctional services facilities. At this point, the latter claim has turned out, to be a partial truth. By all accounts BOSASA was an ordinary company, until Gavin Watson (1948-2019) bought the company, in the year 2000. Since then Gavin Watson has been BOSASA’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and from 2004, he has astutely masterminded contracts, scrutinised in Zondo’s third leg of his report. Although unverified at this stage, it is however doubtful that BOSASA is still operational. The latter scepticism emanates from the aftermath of banks, who decided to disassociate themselves by closing BOSASA’s accounts since February 2019, due to the overwhelming corruption charges levelled against BOSASA. The pressure of being forensically investigated, eventually compelled BOSASA to declare voluntary liquidation. That must have been the final nail, to BOSASA’S operations. Gavin Watson’s meteoric rise a la a successful BOSASA, is allegedly linked to his family’s struggle credentials, waged against the Apartheid regime.
https://mayihlomenews.co.za/part-3-of-the-zondo-report-focuses-on-bosasa/

15/03/2022

International Women’s Day must also evoke Unsung Pan-Africanist Heroines like Alice Kinloch

The 8th of March 2022, marked the umpteenth International Women’s Day (IWD) globally. IWD is meant to uplift women globally, by acknowledging and celebrating their achievements. The United Nations (UN) dubbed this year’s IWD’s theme as ‘Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow’. The aim this year is to focus “on women and girls worldwide, who participate in promoting climate change, adaptation and mitigation as a response to build a more sustainable future for all”. As regards the history of IWD, the UN briefly narrates on its website, that the first milestone related with woman’s rights activism in United States of America (USA) was in 1848, when ‘white’ “indignant woman were barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) congregated a few hundred people at their nation’s first women’s rights convention in New York. They demanded civil, social, political, and religious rights for women”. Among their credits, the latter two women, are considered as pioneering Abolitionists. So historically these two American women form part of the cohort recognized as founders, of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in USA. It is unacceptable how the aforesaid UN’s narrative, omits black women activists such as Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) and Ida B Wells (1862-1931), amid others.

https://mayihlomenews.co.za/international-womens-day-must-also-evoke-unsung-pan-africanist-heroines-like-alice-kinloch/

05/03/2022

The South African public joins the rest of the world, in witnessing local and international civilians (including fellow South Africans working and studying in both countries), trapped in the unfolding bilateral ongoing saga between Russia and the Ukraine alongside their respective allies. What is new in this contemporary dispute, is that previous confrontations between Russia-Ukraine, never soared to the current level, were World War 3 (WW3) seems imminent. Those misreading this current dispute, as limited to ‘European Affairs’ must think again. The involvement of multilateral institutions such as countries, who are signatory to the National Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) founded in 1949, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) should be concrete proof, of the global scale of this dispute. No amount of denialism about this contemporary global encounter, may be wished away. In order to make sense of this international relations affair, it may help to summarily backtrack into history. After the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)collapsed in 1991, the bilateral relations of its successor states navigated periods of both alliances and hostility. As one of the USSR’s successor states, Ukraine’s foreign policy since the 1990’s, was particularly dominated by aspirations to ensure its sovereignty and independence, followed by a balanced cooperation with Russia, the EU and the UN.
https://mayihlomenews.co.za/understanding-the-conflict-between-russia-and-ukraine/

01/03/2022

On the 10th of February 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the State of the Nation Address (SONA) tabling Government’s social and economic investment programmes for South Africa. Predictably, SONA 2022 was consistent with what was raised in the African National Congress’s (ANC) ‘January 8th Statement’, delivered in Polokwane. So the new finance Minister of South Africa, Enoch Godongwana’s maiden budget speech 2022, tabulated this week on the 23rd of February 2022, must be read as merely allocating funds, to implement programs announced at SONA. For the majority of South Africans compelled to adjust, since March 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic had an adverse economic impact on their pockets, much was expected from Godongwana’s 2022 budget speech. The respective circumstances of South Africa’s residents, may justify their anxiety, on what may have been prioritised in the 2022 budget. Uppermost on this year’s budget speech was keen interest, on how much money was going to be allocated to job creation, capacitating the healthcare system, economic growth, measures to curb Gender Based Violence (GBV), infrastructure development and social protection. Furthermore curiosity about how much would be allocated to besieged State-owned Enterprises (SOEs), such as Eskom was very high. South Africans have after all been experiencing a ridiculous amount of load shedding, which has negatively impacted the economy especially the Small Medium and Micro-Enterprises (SMME’s).
https://mayihlomenews.co.za/godongwanas-lackluster-maiden-budget-speech/

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