Climate Justice, Equality and Decolonization
While all of humanity is heading for a warmer and more uninhabitable planet, we are not all in the same boat. Depending on where in the world you live, on your gender and way of life, the fight for a future looks very different.
For many indigenous people, such as South African Nonhle Mbuthuma, the fight for their homelands and way of life is an uphill battle against powerful corporations, one in which even your life is at risk. What is the difference then, from how previous generations fought their colonizers for that same right to land and future?
South African history is not separate chapters of apartheid followed by Rainbow Nation, but rather a continuum, where its dystopian future can be easily imagined through its dystopian past, according to writer Masande Ntshanga. In his writing, he explores how apartheid shaped and continue to shape South African society, and turning to speculative fiction, he explores the dystopian future where the country is currently headed.
Through her groundbreaking trilogy of novels, Tsitsi Dangarembga has portrayed her home country from colonial Rhodesia to an independent Zimbabwe, following the girl Tambu through these decades, from her fight for equal education to her disillusioned work in eco-tourism in the new nation. When Dangarembga took to the streets in peaceful protest in 2020, her subsequent arrest and trial illustrated just how far her country is from being free.
Our three main guests for this program all use words and actions to show us how the past and the future are connected, and that it is up to us what the future will look like, and who it will be for.
The program is supported by NORAD.
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