Pambazuka platform has 'given voice to the vibrant and engaged people of Africa and its diaspora; people who are passionate about pursuing justice', writes Marion Grammer.

Marion Grammer acknowledges the significant contribution made to the liberation struggle by the teachers, writers and intellectuals behind the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), the first organisation in South Africa to adopt the principle of non-racialism, which debunked the myths about African ‘inferiority’ and administered ‘an antidote to the poisonous indoctrination of apartheid. It was ‘the politics of anti-imperialism and non-racialism learned from the Unity Movement’, says Grammer, that ‘provided the impetus that sent young people marching and protesting and fighting for democracy in the 1970s and 80s’.

Marion Grammer is surprised that Leslie Dikeni’s roll-call of South African intellectuals makes ‘not a single mention of the many so-called “coloured” and Indian intellectuals who were so prominent during the Apartheid years.’

The two fat cats sat reading on the mat.
A Persian rug actually, but we won't go into that.
The Stock Market's up, they saw. Oh, what fun,
As their sleek black coats gleamed in the afternoon sun.

'Lyric, my mate', said cat one with a purr,
'scratch my back, just there, under the fur.
It's lasted a while, since 1994, this constant itch,
Which coincides incidentally with me getting rich, rich, rich.'

'You're wearing your diamond studded collar,
I see', said Kyoto. Did you perhaps pay top dollar?
'It was a bargain', said Lyric looking shifty,
'In the current financial climate you have to be nifty.'

'I rang my mate, old Nacker de Beer.
He said 'Look Lyric, everything's not as it may appear.
There's a storm brewing, the markets might tumble,
Don't cash in your shares yet, be ready to rumble.'

Kyoto's whiskers twitched, and he asked with a frown,
'Should we let them know the market's going down?'
'Who's them', meowed Lyric. 'You mean the unwashed?
Why, they're too stupid, they'll never have us sussed.

'Look at them, stretch your neck and you will see,
Those starving masses, they've never heard of BEE*
We've been out in the cold, in exile, for ever so long,
Now our financial masters are playing our song.'

A sound at the door made them prick up their ears.
They got up and stretched, exposing their rears.
'I think it's the boss, he's home early today.'
Said Lyric to Kyoto, 'Get ready to play.'

'Hello little pussies.' He enters the room.
'Had a good day boys?' his voice a loud boom.
He scratches their chins, his fat white hand lingers,
As he waves under their noses some golden fish fingers.

Now Lyric and Kyoto being nobody's fools knew,
That this was the moment, this was their cue.
They had to perform, to sing for their dinner,
Else their bank balances would surely get thinner.

They cleared their throats and puffed out their chests,
And prepared themselves for what they do best.

'Who wants to be a millionaire, we do.
'Who wants to be a billionaire, you do'.

* Marion Grammer was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She is an accountant and works for a Human Rights Advocacy Centre in Sydney, Australia. She writes fiction and occasional social commentary.
* Black Economic Empowerment.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Born 3,600 million years ago,
I am the oldest and most stable land mass on earth.
I am so large that the mightiest nation on earth
could fit into a desert of mine.
My oldest rocks bequeath such wealth,
I am well-endowed.
Too well-endowed for my own good.
My geology deposited an abundance of riches within my borders,
Beyond imagining.
Gold, diamonds copper, coltan, tin. I can’t remember them all.
I am too old.