#a luta continua

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Finding Joy on Independence Day

I'm a naïf and so have been feeling a little excited about July 4th. Patriotic songs pop into mind like "It's a Grand Old Flag", and especially "America". I really do love that song.

But the cognitive dissonance is strong, the authoritarianism, the concentration camps, torture, renditions. How can we find joy in times of genocide?

There is a contradiction at the root of the country's founding. Surely we may take joy in the combined struggle for freedom, justice, equality and democracy. The struggle is not a national project alone.

In Atlanta on July 4th Spirit of Mandela is holding a National Mobilization Against Genocides. There's a full program with some events streamed.

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been insude its jails. A nation should not be judge by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones. ~Nelson Mandela

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(via HAITIAN WOMEN'S STATEMENT 2025)

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[hyperfashionist]

Hannifashion April Challenge: Even more days of Alana Bloom

Day 12: Digestivo - “Your brother is a sadist” - RAIN CHECK

@fannibalgrowingcircle​

I really had my fingers crossed that today’s outfit would have arrived by now, but it won’t be for a couple of days yet. ETA: it’s up! Go here.

We apologize for the inconvenience. While you wait, here’s some pictures of me looking ruthless behind the scenes of A Luta Continua. Photos by the incomparably talented and generous Duncan Grisby. Check out his whole site!

Hoping the outfit, when it arrives, will be worth the wait...

Forth to the outfit

Back to previous day

Forth to next day

[thecastleofmyskin]

Still...

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The students of 1976 had challenged a system. The system remained standing throughout the 1980s and early 90s. Every year, when June 16 came around, adults would tell us about the bravery of the students who marched through Soweto. We learned about Hector Pieterson, the 13-year-old boy whose limp body you have probably seen in that iconic Sam Nzima photo, shot dead during the protest, carried by high school student Mbuyisa Makhubo, Hector’s sister Antoinette Sithole, running alongside them, wailing. We learned about Tsietsi Mashinini, a prominent student leader. We learned that young people had helped change the course of a country. What I remember most is the feeling that they were not much older than we were. As children, we are taught that history is made by presidents, generals, and famous leaders. The story of Soweto taught us something different. It taught us that history can be made by schoolchildren carrying placards. It can be made by teenagers refusing to accept what adults tell them is inevitable. That lesson mattered.

copyright @ okayafrica.com 2025

Lihle Z. Mtshali in okayafrica. Op-Ed: What June 16 Means to Those of Us Born After the Soweto Uprising

Born a year after the Soweto Uprising, I grew up in a South Africa where many of the injustices students protested in 1976 were still part of daily life. Fifty years later, their fight for dignity, equality, and a better future continues to shape how we understand freedom.

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Mbogeni Ngema - Lizobuya - Solidarity with the Arab Revolutions

RadioHM1