Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe’s birthday to be celebrated through culture and agriculture at Diniso Arts Centre in Sharpville

Part of the celebrations will included tree planting, vegetable sale and music concerts, poetry shows, stage plays and ”truth-talks on black leaders’.

By CityLife Arts Writer

Diniso Kasi Arts in collaboration with BlackHouse Kollective (BHK) and Sobukwe Class project will be celebrating the Birthday of Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe on 5 December at Diniso Arts Complex in Bedworthpark (aka Blackwashpark).

The Birthday will be celebrated through the planting of two pine trees in remembrance of Steve Biko and Abram Tiro.  The day will have art exhibition, stage performances, truth to power talks and vegetable sales.  The pine trees planting is going to be done by BlackHouse Kollective which is an institution that upholds the ideology of Pan-Africanism that Mangaliso Sobukwe pioneered in ‘working the land’. 

Diniso Kasi Arts which through art perpetuates the philosophy of Black Consciousness towards attaining righteousness.  Hence the theme of the event is ‘Arti-Culture and Agri-Culture’ to celebrate Sobukwe’s birthday.  Sobukwe Class, an activity that was started in 2015 whereby every Sunday is having a class in which the main talk is about Mangaliso Sobukwe.

The celebration of Sobukwe’s birthday will be followed by various activities that connects us to our revolutionary lineage as Black consciousness Pan Afrikanist. On the weekend of the 10^th and 11^th December we will be hosting the ‘Our Fathers Words of Wisdom Fest’ where the attendants will be sharing the wisdom that their father’s left to them as heritage.  One the weekend of the 17^th and 18^th December, will be hosting the ‘Our Mothers Food of Wealth Feast’ where food cooked by attendants’ mothers will be shared.  These two weekends will be graced with music and other artistic performances.   

There is no better way of ending the year by celebrating one of the greatest leader in Africa in Mangaliso Sobukwe through this respectful approach where revolutionary arti-culture and groundbreaking agri-culture are combined to restore dignity and moral regeneration.  In the not so far past especially in Sharpeville from September to December there was a buzz of bees, flow of butterflies, melody of birds in the air and laughter of playing children under sober atmosphere.  Sharpeville community is initially from the farm life that is why every backyard was a vegetables garden and the front yard of flowers garden because they were the people of the land as Sobukwe claimed that ‘the land first and all shall follow…IZWE LETHU’.                                                                                                                                                                       

Sharpeville was clean and healthy unlike today it is filthy and intoxicated by alcohol and drugs and consumption of expired and junk food.  Every event from children’s birthday parties to funerals are drowned in liquor. 

Sobukwe and Sharpeville are similar as arti-culture is to agri-culture. Through this event is to introduce the Annual Sobukwe Birthday Celebration–  in the form of a Black Power Festival starting on  5 December to 16^th December , 2022 with music concerts, poetry shows, stage plays and truth-talks on black leaders and liberators such as Muntu Myeza and Sabelo Pama, Nyakane Tsholo and Nkutsoeu ‘Skaap’ Motsau amongst the others.

All participating productions must be of the content that bring black power and hope to black people, not productions that misrepresent and lambast blackness in order to please the same system that continuously bedevils and belittles the black community as if there has never and there is no powerful and good black people.

Productions and talks that focus on the negative portrayal of blackness through various antiblack programs paraded as progressive by the anti-black media will not be accepted.  Thus the festival will never accept the corrupt government support and funding and the corporate sector that manufacture consumptions that destroy the black masses.  This is a clarion call to all Pan-Africanist and Black Consciousness Towers to pay homage to true liberators of Azania.  The Black Power is in the creative arts and nutritious food.    

People who would like to exhibit art, craft, sell books, sell vegetables, herbs and spices and healthy nutritious food are welcomed through contacting 084 282 9160 or WHATSApp 062 454 5315.