Let them eat chaos
March 25, 2025, News from JAH 3
We refuse to be
What they wanted us to be
We are what we are
That’s the way, it’s going to be
Bob Marley, Babylon System, 1979
Soul Rebels,
Greetings. Welcome to JAH’s third newsletter.
The right to poetry: World Poetry Day falls on March 21, the same day as South Africa’s human rights day, memorialising the 1960 Sharpeville massacre by celebrating the right to life and equality. Poetry and human rights are connected. The right to poetry is the right to love without fear, to dream without bombs and hunger, to grow up, to see beauty and feel joy. Writing poetry can be an act of reclaiming our power over words and using words to insist on our humanity and rights. Poetry is resistance, resilience and redemption. It’s the essence of us.
JAH News looks for poetry in our day-to-day struggles, as a sign of life.
I have no words for the pain and cruelty being inflicted on the people of Gaza. But poems and photographs from within Gaza will fill the void of my speechlessness showing that not even a genocide can quash hope and resilience. I recommend you visit We Are Not Numbers to read these poems or just read If I must die by Refaat Alareer.
The photo above is by Mohamed Salem and is part of a project called Gaza Habibti, where you can find many more photos of the humans who live and die under the bombs.
Civil society campaigns that count
"Hunger is the manufacturing house of poverty":
The Union Against Hunger is growing. On Human Rights Day a mini-Indaba of members was held to refine the UAH’s vision and demands, listen to and learn from each other and discuss building the campaign between now and World Hunger Day on May 28th. It was attended by representatives from the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), Real Reform for ECD (with a big delegation of community ECD practitioners), the SA Council of Churches and the Centre for Faith and Community, inner city food activists from Tshwane, Jo'burg, Alex, Orange Farm and academics researching food and development.
Did you know? Thirteen million children live in poverty in South Africa; 27.4% of children are stunted by the time they are five; the government’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) subsidy of R24 per day, includes only R6.80 per day for nutrition. Sufficient? Go figure … As Bob Marley sang “This train is bound for glory”: Get on board! Write to Busiso Moyo at: info@unionagainsthunger.org
Most people agree that in Gauteng Province, the provincial health department which has an annual budget of R67 Billion, is still captured by thieves.
As a result, corruption and maladministration take a terrible toll on life and the prospect of relief from treatable illness.
One example is care for cancer, where the waiting list runs to thousands. This is despite a campaign by civil society organisations that led the National Treasury to make a special provision of R784 million in 2022/23 - money that then wasn’t spent.
Civil society to the rescue: Eventually, in November 2024, the Cancer Alliance, representing more than 30 patients’ organisations, and represented by SECTION27, took the issue to court in an urgent application.
It shouldn’t take four months for a judgement in a life and death urgent matter to be handed down. Judgement was meant to be delivered today. This newsletter was on hold for it! But the judge delayed again. Watch this space in the next JAH News.
And cross your fingers.
Thumbs down
The late Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Eyad el-Sarraj is quoted as having said:
‘For Israel peace is the most dangerous thing, not war.’
The end of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was inevitable. Peace requires accountability and Prime M******* Netanyahu cannot afford accountability. With friends like Trump he’s banking on this being the age of impunity.
Nonetheless, on the night of 18 March 2025, at 2am, when bombs and bullets rained down on people trying to sleep in Gaza – killing over 400, 174 of them children - it was still enormously painful.
The words of English spoken word poet Kae Tempest in her 2017 book of poetry, Let them Eat Chaos, came to mind with the morning news:
She’s screaming, she’s screaming
The drones
Turned her beautiful boy into a pile of bones
No body to bury
Nobody is home
South African journalist Redi Thlabi is breaking new ground as an anchor on a new weekly Al Jazeera programme, Up Front. Recently she interviewed Craig Mokhiber, the former director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mokhiber resigned in October 2023 in protest at the UN’s failures over Palestine, setting out his reasons in this letter. In the interview Thlabi gets to why international law - and bodies such as the ICJ and ICC - remain so important, even if they feel impotent before the masters of war.
Activists bookshelf: books you need to read
There’s cruel reason in the madness of the Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 and Trumpism. It’s captured in a book by Canadian historian Quinn Slobodian, called Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy.
I’ve mentioned Slobodian’s first book Globalists before. It is a meticulously researched piecing together of a hitherto unknown and untold history of how neo-liberal ideas and organisation developed. Crack-Up Capitalism (2024) is a more up to date accounting of how the current generation of oligarchs are trying to fill the wreckage left by neo-liberals.
Beware.
Be aware.
Know thy enemy!
Activists are indebted to historians like Slobodian who unearth threads of history, join dots and monitor conservative thought and publications. We should return the debt by reading their books!
Primer: Quinn Slobodian recently did an interview on Democracy Now where he set out his analysis. He’s also just published an article, ‘Speed Up the Breakdown’, in the New York Review of Books.
Compassion, Connection, Culture: Not Like Us!
Trump may be successfully “flooding the zone with shit” and racist MAGA types may be polluting our newsfeeds, but they do not represent the majority of Americans. The real America is still being expressed in its cultures and artistry.
If you need an antidote that will inspire you that another America is still possible listen to/watch/watch and listen to the amazing Super Bowl performance by Kendrik Lamar (in the presence of Donald Trump nogal, but calling out Trumpism in a poetic language that He Who Shall Not be Named couldn't hope to understand); Childish Gambino’s (Donald Glover), This is America; or the songs on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, particularly her prescient anthem Ameriican Requiem.
Activism Unusual: “Laughtivism”
As civic space closes all over the world soul rebels are going to have to learn or relearn how to resist in closed authoritarian spaces.
Recently a friend told me about a podcast called ‘Laughing at Power’ featuring Srdja Popovic, who as a young activist helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Listening to it made me aware how laughter can be a form of poetic justice, but also of its power to draw non political people into political resistance.
Using examples which made me LMAO Popovic explains:
“If you do something witty and you hit the right target then eventually your opponent will respond and they will become part of the show .. they will have only two bad choices, react to your prank and do something inappropriate or do nothing. By being creative you are making your opponent's strength work against him or herself and making them look ridiculous.”
JAH recommends: Popovic is one of the founders of a website Tactics for Change and the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS).
Laughing at Power is one episode of a podcast series called Your Undivided Attention hosted by the Centre for Humane Technology.
Drop in for some ideas.
Finally, Dr Costa Gazi is a name that I doubt will be known to most of you. In the late 1990s and early 2000s I got to know him when he played a brave outspoken role as a doctor and activist advocating for access to AIDS treatment. Costa was eccentric and larger than life. He died in London last week. Thank you Costa, we remember you with love and boundless respect.
Until next time,
Mark Heywood
If you enjoyed this newsletter please forward it to other soul rebels. They can subscribe by contacting me at markjamesheywood@gmail.com
The Justice and Activism Hub is a change tank for a time of change. We are committed to strengthening social justice struggles through connection, collaboration, coordination, convening and catalysing.