MISSION STATEMENT – ANTI RACISM ACTION FORUM (ARAF)

(ARAF) is a space that brings together black people and organizations which are committed to ending Racism by ending White Supremacy. We recognize that Racism affects all Black people irrespective of gender, age, language, educational levels, geographic location, class position, religious belief or political affiliation. In 1994 we were given false solutions because there was no understanding that White Supremacy is materially located in LAND THEFT from where it develops all its other branches to institutionalise itself as a way of life. White Supremacy is the cardinal enemy we must defeat to be able to breathe. We come together now because of the urgency to give direction to our people to avoid yet another false solution to racism.

 
After 20 years of continued Land dispossession sustained by deception, which we realise now, as Steve Biko has said, “the main contradiction in South Africa is “WHITE RACISM”. The only solution to RACISM is therefore “Black Solidarity” which must obliterate and end white racism. There is an urgency now to avoid the possible disastrous legislation contemplated by political parties in parliament to “criminalise racism”. If no action is taken to give context to the proposed law, Black people and our struggle against White Supremacy will be criminalized, and thus making our people criminally liable for wanting to breathe. ARAF recognizes that for progress to be made in the struggle against Racism, the following principles must be adhered to:

 
1. LAND RETURN AS THE ONLY CONDITION TOWARDS ENDING RACISM.

 
At the heart of Racism is the question of Land which was stolen from Black people and continues to be in the hands of white minority, twenty years into ‘Freedom’. Thus making present day South Africa a racist society; built and sustained on the historical injustice of LAND THEFT. Racism is born from Colonial conquest which saw the violent confiscation of all African Land and property, a situation that lead to Black subjugation, pain and suffering. Blacks lost their land and would live as slave in reserves like Soweto, Alex and Khayelitsha. White people constitute the minority of the population, yet claim the majority ownership of the Land. LAND THEFT would turn our parents and members of the Black community into ‘kitchen girls’ and ‘garden boys’. LAND THEFT would realize the vision of arch racists land thief and imperialist, Cecil John Rhodes and his predecessors who later perfected the ideology of apartheid that legitimised the protection of LAND THEFT under the Property Clause and Bill of Rights in the post 1994 Constitution. The legitimisation of LAND THEFT post the 1994 political expediency continued to force Black people into exploitative working conditions in mines like Marikana. Twenty years under the watch of the ANC led government; Black people are still treated like second class citizens in the continent of their origin.

 
We are of the belief that nothing will change in the lives of Black people without first restoring Land to its rightful owners. LAND THEFT has created what we call Structural racism or Constitutional racism; Alex, Soweto, Khayelitsha are symbols of structural racism. Black people who continue to deny the connection between Land theft and Racism will have themselves to blame as thousands of our people continue to live in hazardous oppressive conditions like shacks and other sub-human dwellings. LAND THEFT and the disproportionate claim of Afrikan Land by the white minority is RACISM!

 
2. BLACKS CANNOT BE RACISTS

 
What is racism? Racism is the subjugation of Black people: their Land, labor and way of life under White Supremacy. White Supremacy is the global power that has divided the world into white and comfort, at the expense of land, labour and cultural exploitation of Black and indigenous people of the world. Racism is the power that determines which bodies are reserved for state bullets, whose son goes to prison, whose daughter is raped, whose mother lives with unending fear, whose father or uncle is killed in a mine shaft, and whose grandparents have no burial ground when they die. Racism is power that protects white privilege while sustaining economic marginalization of Black people from accessing habitable property, affording exorbitant university fees and qualification in the white controlled job market that affords them promotion at little or no effort.

 
Black people are neither the beneficiaries of race based privilege nor are they responsible for the imposition of racial prejudice and RACISM. Our resistance to dispossession, exploitation and systematic dehumanization in response to the legitimization of White Supremacy cannot be racist. Our struggle to delegitimize White Supremacy is a struggle for truth, justice and freedom to self-determine. Black people can therefore not be racist for seeking to restore their human dignity and the right to Land and property they were dispossessed by force and deception. They cannot be faulted for retaliating against dispossession, exploitation and dehumanization in the face of Racist oppression and deception. Therefore not all Black people are patronized into complicity with white privilege that thrives on dispossession and exploitation. Lest whites want to continue to prescribe to Black people how they must respond to injustice and inhumane conditions that colonialist, apartheid and now ne-liberal regimes have legitimized. Not only have these regimes legitimized injustices. They maintained the protection of white privilege and its ill-gotten loot. Black people and Afrikans in particular, are neither the architects not the beneficiaries of the racism that permeates society. They can therefore not be racist for standing up against racism. Haikhona! #Blacks Can’t Be Racists!

 
3. ANTI-RACISM STRUGGLE TO BE LED ONLY BY BLACK PEOPLE.

 
In a racist country it is logical for black people to organise themselves around their blackness and do so in their own terms, free of white supervisors. It would be counterproductive for black people as victims of racism to entrust the struggle to end racism to perpetrators of racism. The presence of white bodies in our spaces translates into black silence and subsequent erasure. ARAF supports the empathetic calls by Steve Biko to reject fragmentation of our resistance thus maintain Black Solidarity. We seek to oppress no one, but will not dialogue with the forces who continue to perpetuate our suffering.

 
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

 
1. Call and Anti-racism Summit for the 21 March 2016.
2. Expedite self-education programs through public meetings on what Racism is & how to fight and end it.
3. Educate the people about the dangers of the “criminalisation of Racism” within neocolonialism.
4. Defend black people against any acts of racism.
5. Support actions and organizations that do not contradict ARA principles.
ARAF shall be coordinated through a national steering committee, provincial and local chapters shall have autonomy as long as they subscribe to the three principles above.

 

Issued by ARAF National Steering Committee

DATE: Tuesday, 2 February 2016
CONTACT DETAILS:

ARAF Coordinator and  Spokesperson:  Zandi Radebe
Cell: 0782438830
Email Address: zandiradebe@gmail.com
ARAF Coordinator and Spokesperson:  Zanele Lwana
Cell: +27 79 486 9087
Mail: zanelelwana@gmail.com

ARAF Coordinator and Spokesperson: Yerushka Chetty
Cell: +27 72 649 7555
Mail: yerushka@gmail.com

Facebook Page: ANTI RACISM ACTION FORUM

Twitter: @ARAF_2016