 Hi everyone, good evening. I hope you're all well and having a good week so far. Welcome to the Black Lives Matter Part 2, Britain's Not Innocent Talk, which is part of the SOAS Festival of Ideas. My name's Anisha and I'm a former SOAS student. I studied for my LLM here and I'm really glad to be back, even if it is virtually. This evening we have four amazing panellists who are going to be presenting their work and perspectives on Black Lives Matter in a global context, focusing on de-colonising education and youth movements. A bit of housekeeping for you. We've enabled the Q&A function so you can ask questions throughout and it would be good if you can ask your questions in the Q&A box and not in the chat box because they tend to get lost. You can ask throughout the panels and you can also ask at the end when there's a Q&A and a moderated discussion. We really want this to be interactive so please ask a lot of questions. It's also going to be recorded and available on the SOAS YouTube channel possibly next week and it's going to be live streamed on Facebook as well so if you want to share you can do that. As mentioned before, we're going to be hearing more about Black Lives Matter in the context of higher education and youth movements. Although the Black Lives Matter movement began in the US and the discourse is largely US centred, we have seen in recent years and even more this year. There's been quite a large movement within diaspora communities across the world, for example in the UK. The BLM movement started in the UK in 2016 and has gained major traction this year as we saw marches taking place all over the country. Also the toppling of statues, renaming buildings and demands for changes in the workplace and education with the work of organisations such as the Black Curriculum being amplified and the launch of the Free Black University to redistribute knowledge and promote a decolonised curriculum alongside think tanks like the Running Me Trust and projects such as the Young Historians Project. The BLM marches have also reignited the movement to decolonise curricula in higher education, calling for a more accurate portrayal of history, decentering Eurocentric views including global perspectives and ensuring that academia is no longer an exclusionary space for Black students and academic staff. A movement which we have also seen building over the last five years and one which would not be possible without youth participation. However, the Black Lives Matter movement is not unique to the US and diaspora communities in the UK and we've seen the impact of young people demanding change in South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria and across the world. Today we're going to be discussing the global context of these movements. So I'm going to introduce our first panellist of four this evening. We're joined by an amazing panel who I'm really excited to hear from. And first of all we're going to be hearing from Alayda Mendes-Borsch, who is a PhD candidate at King's College and a CSRS alumni. She has a background in human rights law and international development and is currently researching youth movements in Lucifer in Africa. So yeah, Alayda we're excited for your presentation. Hello, thank you Anisha. Can you hear me well? Yeah we can hear you. Wonderful, there's also sort of things happening on my board. So okay, let me, so first let me try and share my screen so that you can see my presentation. There we go. Okay. Yep, can you see it? Can you see my screen? Yeah, that's fine, you can see. Wonderful. So yeah, hello everyone, thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this panel. I'm here to talk about youth claims for the colonisation, perspectives from Cape Verde. As Anisha has already mentioned, this claims for coming from the young people for systemic change when it comes to the way we interact with black people have really been going through all sorts of different perspectives and I'm here ready to talk about Lucifer in Africa and most specifically Cape Verde and demands from young people for like real change in society, especially when it comes to a detachment from colonial ideas, which a lot of these young people believe are still quite prevalent in our society. So when introducing Cape Verde, first thing is always what is and where is Cape Verde. If you're Cape Verde and you know that that's always the first thing because most people don't really know what Cape Verde is let alone where that is. So it's on the west coast of Africa, a set of 10 islands, nine of which are inhabited with a, let me just have some basic facts of Cape with a combined population of around half a million. However, it has more than over a million people in its very large diaspora. Cape Verde gained independence in 1975 from the Portuguese. And today it has over 772.5% of the population being under 35 which is a trend in the African continent we have a very young population in the African continent and that's why it's so important to pay attention to what young people are doing and to their claims. It's important everywhere but it's much more relevant in the context of Africa because that's as you can see the majority of the population so you have to give them some space. In terms of the language, Portuguese is official language in Cape Verde but Creole is the language that is more widely spoken everyone speaks Creole. It's also just a fun fact to get is fun as we start. In case you're wondering, because Cape Verde means green Cape. It's not green in Cape Verde and actually the name derives from Cape Verde, which is the most western point of Senegal, which is the newest point we have to mainland Africa. Okay, so you might be asking why do we need the colonizing why we're having a colonization conversation in Cape Verde in an African nation. Well, a lot of young people argue that, although we have become independent in 75. There is a few among young people as well as other parts of the population that that process of the colonization hasn't really been completed. But what you know about the history of independence movement was upon Africa, but particularly in Cape Verde, our independence hero is a milka cabal and he was killed before we became independent. And a lot of these young people believe that the process of independence was actually stole by that process because he died. We didn't really substitute that ideological gap with anything else. What issued was more fulfilling of yeah we just get it done but then the actual decolonization process which as you will probably know it's a very complex one and not something that is easy to achieve. So they believe that that process is not completed. And so they're claiming that we need to do more efforts within society to the colonize the nation and the colonize the way we interact with the state. So, in this March, for instance, you can see in the past 10 years there's been a lot of energy coming from young people really trying to engage the state in changing the way it interacts with the society. And they, it's interesting that the claims are made really from the prism that it's a colonized way of interacting with society because you have the idea that there was a colonial power and that was very distant from the population because it was a foreign power. You have this national identity and this idea that you have a national government, but then this national government feels quite separated from society still. So then you associate that to a colonial interaction a colonial legacy of how democracy and political system should operate. So young people, they bring back the image of Amilka Kavao, which you can see here at the center. So it's the very, when you think about emancipation in Cape but you think about going back to the ideals of Amilka Kava. Let's go back to the way he reflected and the way he put forward what we need to do to become an independent society independent from the colonial power. Amilka Kavao wasn't just a strategist, he was an ideologist and he wrote a lot about, you know, the philosophy of the colonizing and he is one of the greatest thinkers around Lusophone Africa when it comes to that movement and the discourse around the colonization. So it's interesting that young people today feel like when they need to discuss this, they have to revert back to the image of our independence leader to reiterate that conversation that we need to have. And this particular protest that you can see here, it translates what it says here is you what can we do about ourselves so how can we sort out the challenges that we are having because the state is not doing it. And in some of this placards you can see for example, in this one it says the state is eating while the people are dying. And this one I also find very interesting here with the white shirt, he is saying, MP, I am working to sustain your family with my salary. So, because this particular protest here was in light of a decision to increase the salaries of MPs and people got really upset. And one of the challenges in Capewood is that, so we have a half a million, around half a million population, but it's scattered around 10 islands, nine islands, sorry, we have 10 islands but nine inhabited. So it's really difficult to organize. And so you might have a very successful protest happening in the capital city, but the rest of the country might be completely oblivious to it. And this protest, this movement called MAC 114, it was the first time that they managed to using social media to organize to have protest happening simultaneously in around four or five islands, which was really impressive from the Capewood perspective because for the first time we were actually working together for the same aim and it was really, really good and it was successful to the point that they didn't really pass that low. And so it was an illustration that if you work together, especially the young people, if they work together and put a coherent message, they can be some success in their endeavors. So it was a very good illustration of that. And I think that this image is very emblematic of what these young people are claiming and the struggles they are having now in Capewood. And so I also would like to highlight some initiatives that have developed in the last decade around the same idea of the colonizing state society relations and the colonizing the governance model of Capewood because the they're trying to tackle that, the educational model, the way politicians interact with us and really challenge that perspective that they have in terms of how they interact with young people as well. And June by Libertario is a very particularly interesting one. A lot of so it's it's they say that they are an organization that works on social intervention for action and citizenship. So they organized meetings with young people and members of communities, different communities around the country, and they sit together and they discuss questions pertaining to politics, discussing politics and one very interesting aspect is that they always try to speak in Korea because as I said, Portuguese is our official language, but Korean is the language that everyone speaks. And one of the challenges as well with the same discourse around the colonizing is that the politicians will be there speaking Portuguese and discussing among themselves in Portuguese in parliament, it will be on live radio, but half of the population people, especially the least educated ones the ones that don't have access to much privilege will only be conversant in Korea. So you wonder you're having political discussions, which are supposed to be relevant for the people, and therefore as to follow, but then you're choosing to speak a colonial foreign language. And so they do all of these day interventions that the June by Libertario group in Korea and they appeal to people to speak in their native languages and to give you a sense of understanding that only comes when you speak your native language and sometimes you can take for granted how important it is for you to use a language of communication that is native to you especially when you're discussing complex ideas of identity and politics. So I mean another important aspect in terms of June by Libertario is that they also had the sessions streamed online. So for the first time you could have a session happening in a particular neighborhood and people who were from different islands could also join in and they could ask questions, they could be part of it. And more importantly, they could also include that diaspora, I told you about over a million key guidance all over the world, if they wanted to, they could be part of that discussion, and they could be part of the change that these young people are demanding from the political elites. So it is definitely a very interesting project and they have very interesting initiatives and it's important to see that as also from the idea of claiming the colonization and claiming a change of the status quo and of the system in place. And this also shows you, again, that link to keeping the language creole so that everyone can feel included and also reverting back to the ideals of the independence movement, again with Amilka Kavail and that focus on the next generation and inspiring the population. And they also emphasize that what they're doing in the initiatives is what is absent from the educational system, both in terms of the language they're choosing because all education is done in Portuguese, which is an issue for a lot of people, but also what we are learning they believe that tends to be quite colonial. There's a colonial perspective on education, and so to detach themselves from that what is fed to them through the educational system they're organizing this kind of more interactive but also more engaging from an ideological perspective, education which they're giving to people in this and this and the events that they're organizing. Another project I really am happy to share with you this project forms the core of the research I've been doing for my PhD, looking at young people and community projects. And so this community project is called Pilarini, it's an association, and they have one of their projects which I find the most interesting as well is that they wanted to have a community library. And the community library that there's children from a very poor community can have access to books and can have access to a space where they can travel more importantly, they try to put together an African library and what they meant by that is a library that had sources that were relevant to the African community of Cape Bradens, which is something I'm not going to get into because that risks being quite long, because being an island state that really had a central role within the African, with the African slave trade, going in terms of from the African continent of the Americas, Cape Bradens was really at the center of that. It is a very complex society when it comes to the identity of Cape Bradens as Africans and they really tried to put together this library has so many really good books about different African sources, some African stories and books, that's not all are published in Africa but they are about Africa so that people could feel that it could connect at the community with their African identity and learn more about that about African history African geographies about to be more connected. And I find that a very beautiful project and you always see lots of children there and you're learning things that you might not necessarily find in other libraries in the main national library as well as in their school library so it's definitely a very innovative project and leadership in action really to see these young people bringing so much change. And the last thing I wanted to show you is also the mode of their discussions is always very circular and horizontal, where they really trying to encourage people to interact as much as possible with each other in their native language and share political ideas in a way that is really not common in Cape Bradens society. So that's all for me. Thank you so much Alida that's really interesting to hear the Cape Verdean perspective of Black Lives Matter. And next we're going to be hearing from Tasha Harris who is a US based educator and long time advocate for Black children and families. Tasha is a mentor teacher at Codman Academy Charter School and has dedicated 15 years of service to a diverse population of students and families in both public and independent schools. Tasha, are you there? Sorry, these are the issues we're doing things virtually. Yeah, okay, we'll come back to Tasha. So next we're going to have Kumani Maquelle, a political activist scholar and the founding member of the Rhodes Muscle and Fees Muscle movements in South Africa. Kumani is an international organizer of the Rhodes Muscle International Movement working with movement in Oxford and globally and is currently studying for an MFIL. Welcome Kumani. Hi, how are you? Good, thank you. I'll leave you to give you a presentation. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. Thank you to your viewers. And thank you to Sovis Festival of Ideas for inviting us as Rhodes Muscle and Fees Muscle in South Africa. I thought that it would be best if I really commend the organizers who are organizing this series Festival of Ideas around the condition of Black people around the world. And of course the topic of the Black Lives Matter, it is a critical topic for us in South Africa and I suppose it's important for us in Africa to really articulate our lived realities as Black people in South Africa and Africa and I suppose in the diaspora. What I'm really interested to touch on is really to speak about our experiences as Black people, Black activists in South Africa, who are constantly working on the idea of redefining ourselves in South Africa both politically and economically. And I want to really focus on our own experiences as activists in relation to Rhodes Muscle student movement in South Africa as well as the Fees Muscle student movement and how this movement were able to influence the political landscape in South Africa and of course across the world. I want to really depart with the point that says that for us really the idea of Black Lives Matter was really exemplified by the student of Rhodes Muscle, I mean, particularly at UCT who were able to generate and conceptualize ideas that were able to influence other fellow Black people in the diaspora and we are particularly pleased for us as young Black activists in South Africa because for the first time a student movement in the southern tip of Africa and in the global south was able to intellectually influence the northern community, both the European and America's community in relation to the idea of theory and practice. Because for a very long time, activists in Africa or in South Africa, particularly, were seen as just protesters or were seen as so-called barbaric action whenever we engage in political action. And of course our movement, the Rhodes Muscle, is not a coincidence of history. It's really a long historical tradition of resistance by Black people. We joined that long struggle. Those of us who are quite familiar with our forefathers' historical experiences, we joined our struggle as far as 1500. We're in the British colonialists who came into South Africa in the Cape, who saw it necessary to colonize our people. In the process of doing that, it was to brutally murder our people that include the Amakosa King, King Yinsa, whose head is still today in the British community. And we still want the head of our king, King Yinsa. That is why I was so pleased that this event is organized by SOAS, a British university, whose responsibility is to really criticize and critique the historical role of the British community in colonizing the African society, particularly the South African and the Zimbabwe society. It is particularly interesting for me to really take this back as far as 1500, because we are really tracing what others call the frontier wars, or others call the Cosa Wars, which is the people's war against the imperialism. You would remember that in the course of the 15th, 16th, towards the 1800s, there was almost 100 years of nine wars that took place between the Cosa's and the British. And those nine wars, five of which the Cosa people won, and then four of which we've lost, part of losing those wars was to lose the land of our people in South Africa. And of course losing the land was to lose even our way of life, our way of being, our culture, our tradition, our customs, because they were seen as barbaric acts by the slaves or those who ought to be captured. But particularly for us, it becomes very important to then, within that lineage of history of resistance, to then link our struggle, particularly with what others call the modern history of South Africa through the eyes of of, you know, Susan John Rhodes, a British citizen, a British colonialist who came to South Africa purely on the basis of extracting resources and brutally kill African people. That's what he did. And therefore we, in the process of conceptualizing our struggle, we really had to find a position or a point in history, where we can pinpoint, at least in the modern history, a figure who was directly linked with the British community or with the King of London, and that for us was Susan John Rhodes. Ironically, Rhodes, it is said that he somehow stole the land in the Cape Town, and subsequently he then opted to donate the land to the University of Cape Town. Our primary question that we really asked was, how can you donate the land that you have stolen? This is the historical question within the idea or the historical idea of decolonization. Because part of decolonization is to really revisit the colonial mission. Part of the decolonial mission was to colonize colonization in that sense means that the control of the African people be it politically and politically speaking, that control for us came within the land of black people was totally taken away, brutally so by the measures led by Susan John Rhodes. And I really want to emphasize for us what we really are proud of as the contemporary student in Africa and particularly in South Africa, is to really add to that we were able to intellectually force them to force the European and European community to see our political contribution not only as just a protest by barbaric individuals, but to see it also as an intellectual act. The other reason that we are proud to have been able to influence young activists in the diaspora, particularly the American activist, who was the first person to pull down the great flag in America, who stated clearly that he had action to be able to pull down the flag of the configurate in the US was influenced by the acts of student in South Africa, that is the road must fall. But also we were able to intellectually influence the student in Harvard University, who saw it necessary to establish their own Harvard must fall in the University of Harvard. And of course, part of what we're claiming was to really question some assumption in in Harvard University, and in some of the Ivy League University. And subsequent to that, we're able to host a comrade Justin from Harvard, as well as comrade Derek from the Harvard University as well in the US. And I mentioned these precisely because he for for for very long time, the, the historical political movement in South Africa, be it the anti apartheid movement. Most of the time was seen outside the intellectual production was seen outside the thinking. It was seen only as if it's an only the act, the physical act as opposed to the intellectual conceptualization and the intellectual processing of what Professor Mahmoud Mamdani call theorizing the our our our experiences. We, I think we as a rose must fall and fees must fall were able not only to theorize our, our, our, our, our lived realities, but we're able to also to face the colonial institutions such as the University of Cape Town in South Africa by its own making in its own existence. It is colonial. Therefore, it is that reason that we argue that, in fact, the University of Cape Town is not a University of Africa. It is a university in Africa that is almost totally implanted in Africa. Part of our argument is through the exercise of the intellectual work, which is then the idea of decolonization in practical terms is to really critique the, the, the existence of, of our institution here in in South Africa, but also to critique the colonial institution, not only those who are here in South Africa, but also those who are globally situated, who then claim a universal existence, and yet negate the historical contribution of the university is such as University of Oxford, or Cambridge, or so as itself. These universities contributed intellectually in the project of imperialism and colonialism of the African people without so as without Oxford University, Cambridge University, Harvard and so on. The colonialist could not have been able to intellectually, that is psychologically, culturally, traditionally to influence African people to despise themselves one way or another. But further, what we are really thinking, when we think about our own contribution in the world, the world politics, and of course today we, we were able also to influence the student in Oxford University, who, after, of course, observing what was happening in South Africa they established their own Rosemars fall in Oxford. And this for us is particularly important because for a very long time, historians and researchers came from the West, of course with the mobility of financial muscle come to the south and do the so called psychological or historical research. And yet, when they come here, I mean, there was a recent recent studies around protest movement, whether through Abbas Ali Basem, John Dolo, or Soweto people's classes community, or, or treatment action campaign. There's always this interest to in Africa by the researchers, as if the African people themselves cannot be able to produce their own ideas around their own political action or political protest, but the rosemars fall. We were able to do both, not just to protest, but able also to protest and produce ideas and interpret our own action, and therefore able to speak back to the powers that be in the West. Professor Habib, Adam Habib, who's likely to come to sow us anytime soon, he himself agrees for very long time in South Africa as a scholar, as a public intellectual himself, he never saw the activist who come from the rural areas, the township of South Africa were really the poor student were able to produce at the high level of intellectual production ideas and conceptualize those ideas into action. He acknowledged the, the contribution of the black student in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 to be able to produce their own ideas and implement those ideas and call for change. And of course, today we were able to influence the University of Cape Town, notwithstanding the, the resistance by the management, of course, even in that university where a professor Adam Habib is was able to also sort of challenge and resist the students and the activists who were questioning whether the question of Rhodes statue in UCT or statues in, in South Africa, generally, I mean if you go to Cape Town, you find much of the status colonial status, which they themselves somehow represent the brutal colonial project, which celebrates the colonialist power to influence and rule over above, over and above the African people's lives. And I think these pointers are very important because even so as so as is guilty of stealing ideas from African people, political ideas, or economic ideas, more so politically, if you check, since the 1960s, the most scholarly work produced about the African political project from Kwame Krumac, Julius Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and the likes is placed that kind of political work is intellectual production is in so as is in Oxford is in Cambridge University. And even African scholars have to go back to Oxford to find an African archive, whether of Oliver Tambo or Tabombegi or Julius Nyerere, somewhere in the British Museum, our archives are there. Now, what does this say? It says that we as Africans somehow we have sort of lost our intellectual production capacity to produce ideas about our own action, political action and create knowledge. That is why we argue that the Black Lives Matter, it becomes important only when black people can be able to produce their own knowledge, disseminate their own knowledge and have total control of their own knowledge. Otherwise, the Black Lives Matter movement, like any other movement such as the Black Consciousness movement can be easily stolen, both by the liberals, the white liberals, as well as the middle class black bourgeoisie, who will use their ability to articulate in an English language or French language and articulate the ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement. If us as activists cannot be able to enter these higher learning institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, or Harvard, then our ideas will be expropriated by the white bourgeoisie who have always expropriated our ideas, will be expropriated by the black elites. We are very critical of the black elites who can claim about Black Lives Matter and yet they are unable to link our lived struggles with the communities in Helm, with the communities in the shanty towns of the British community, with the black community in the streets of New York, the streets of British to be able to say, look, join with the masses. And I would like to call upon our fellow activists to be very careful and suspicious of both black bourgeoisie as well as the white liberals not to take away our lived reality through the black lives matter through the rose must fall through the fees must fall. We must present our own ideas. We must be able to produce our own ideas. Ultimately, we must decolonize the curriculum in these universities. And the point that I want to make really around the question of curriculum, which is was part and parcel of our founding statement as rose must fall at UC team. Most of the time we were we are asked how are you going to decolonize for example the English language or science or mathematics. But there's the simplest answer to this question, which is a very decolonial in nature is that first and foremost, the those we must question those who teach the African history. Those who teach for starters, the political history of Africa, the political theory of Africa, who are they, where do they get the authority to teach about Africa, even in New York, even in Oxford, even in so as we must ask this question, because if we don't ask about those who will teach, for example, about the, the black lives matter, somehow suddenly a white liberal student or a white liberal lecture, find it necessary and find it ordinarily to teach about our movement. Yet the activists who are actively involved in the movement who knows the logistics, the nightmares, the challenges that they are faced are kept outside this higher learning institution. And this for me, it is a critical thing because if we do not challenge these comrades who are willing to, to, to, to expropriate our ideas, then our movement will die. Second last point that I want to make is really around the question of the shared experiences between the African activists, whether in Congo, or Zimbabwe, or Nigeria, or in South Africa for that matter. We must be able to say, without fear, without gatekeeping, our experiences with the activists in the diaspora, because history has proven without the unity of African people, particularly the unity of peoples, for us as Africans to say, how do we sustain and interactually influence the global north in terms of ideas. The only way we can be able to do that is for us to close to own our ideas is for us to own our lived reality in terms of our action, both political action, as well as the theoretical intellectual production, because this is critically important. If we are unable to do it. For example, in South Africa, in the post apartheid South Africa, we had the movement such as Abbas Ali Basem, John Dolo, as well as treatment action, these two movements were sustained by the black poor in the township of South Africa, in the shanty towns of South Africa, in the squalers of South Africa. And yet, the post protest moment, which is the intellectual, the theorization of this moment, the writing of books, the lecturing around this movement, the scholarly work around this movement is always almost exceptionally done by the liberal whites and the black bourgeoisie who do not see any link between them and the waking class poor. As we speak today, because most of the people are always asking us as Rosemars Falls student who find ourselves, of course, as poor student, we're able to find our way through the universities of the elite and the bourgeoisie, but they were asking us now that you are in these universities, have you linked your movement with the communities? Our answer to that was yes, because we were able as part of our sit-ins or the occupations were able to invite activists across the length and breadth of South Africa in the rural areas in the shanty towns and towns of our country to come and join us. And today, the post Rosemars Falls movement, which is the black people's crisis, national crisis committee that we established, in fact, is again the continuation of that work that we are doing. Of course, notwithstanding the international campaign of Rosemars Falls that now we are assisting our comrades in Oxford University because we want Rosemars Falls to really and physically fall in Oriel College in Oxford. Therefore, I really think that if we are to talk of the modern political thought, I think we have to be able to include the contribution of Rosemars Falls, particularly the contribution, the intellectual contribution by the Global South. We can only hope with the arrival of Professor Adam Habib in Sowars in January 2021, he will be able to unite. He will be able to assist activists across the board, both the African student as well as the student in the diaspora, to mobilize around producing new knowledge and ideas. And I'm happy that the Festival of Ideas this year in Sowars was influenced by Professor Ashile Mbembe, whom was himself very amazed by the intellectual production of Rosemars Falls. And as a result, he was part and parcel of our series of debates around colonization, around statues in South Africa, around the science of the colonial reality. And the last point I want to make is really around the issue of our ability to reintroduce the 1960 project, which was started by the likes of Julius Nierere and Kwamin Gruma of and of course led by the scholars such as Achim Afege, Gungi Wantiyongo, who really tried to theorize the idea of decolonization and decolonizing the mind. And we are happy as Rosemars Falls. We brought that debate to the surface in the 21st century, and we're able to really pinpoint the signs and symbols that represent the colonization of Africa. In those words, I would like to thank you very much for the opportunity, and I'm looking forward to engage in the discussion. Thank you. Thank you Kamoni for the South African perspective and the influence that Rosemars Falls had on the global movement. Next we're going to have Tasha Harris, who I've already introduced, but is a US based educator and longtime advocate for black children and families. Hi everyone. So I just wanted to reiterate the value that I have as an educator. I'm a teacher at Codman Academy Charter School in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Dorchester is a black and brown section of Boston. We serve children from K1 which I teach through 12th grade. And we are in our 20th year of operation. We are a social justice charter school. And as one of the mentor teachers I have my own core value which is, I believe that young children come to school with their moral compasses fully intact. And that is my job to find curricula to heighten this awareness and to support and age appropriate healthy racial identity development. How do I do that. I first do that by preparation of myself. I first do that by being grounded in what I believe. And I do yoga, I walk, I garden, I forest bathe, I listen to live music. I have live lively conversations with my peers and colleagues. And I read, just like everyone else, hopefully. Hopefully that grounds me in who I am and then I can go to look to who my students are. So I do an intake with every family before they enter my classroom and I gather background information. That way I know who I'm teaching to, I understand who my audience is, and I can craft what we're going to learn together as a classroom crew, or community. I identify anchor text to solidify the takeaways that I want my students to have. And when we talk about decolonizing education, the books have to represent the students which is why I get to know who's coming to my class before they enter the gate. Because I can choose a whole plot, there are stories, but if they don't represent the children in front of me, then it's a moot point. The books really need to mirror the young learners that are going to be receiving that story. So one of the things we do is expeditions at Codman. So we spend a long time going into depth with a unit. And a unit in my classroom is getting to know you slash author study. So for the first 12 weeks of school, we're getting to know the students and their families. And we're doing an author study. And some of the authors that I pull out and search and vet are authors of color because again my students are black and brown. So we're looking at authors like Kadir Nelson, who writes empowering stories with great illustrations for black and brown children and for others, other students obviously. But it's important that the text matches the audience. It's important that the students are bringing their knowledge to the table. So I also anchor the conversations with circles that that allow them to speak and taking turns and speaking and getting to listen and hear what their thoughts are. Another unit that we do is called portrait of an artist where they take a close look at artists. And these could be anyone right but because I'm crafting it. One of the artists we look at our john Michelle basket. And I chose basket because he was told that he couldn't draw when he was young. He's Puerto Rican and Haitian which so are a lot of my students he shared their their heritage. When he died one of his pieces sold for one a whopping $1.10 million. And what does that do for young children who look like him. It tells them that they can also do it like believe it or not I can actually draw. That's one of his famous quotes, believe it or not I can actually draw. So they have that mental model right there in front of them. I also like to empower students at Codman Academy Charter School is to give them voice and choice. So within this portrait of an artist expedition, they're going to be coming up with their own creations and what makes them unique and special and spilling over their ideas onto canvases, or, or onto recycle materials or even onto a large mural which we actually did down the street in our community, together. So what I do with them is gardening. From very little, we get their hands in the earth. We teach them the life cycle of a plant. Because what they're going to find once they get that knowledge is that they can grow their own food. And if you know how to grow your own food you can teach other people how to grow their own food. So we have some of our indigenous wisdom and knowledge, and it shouldn't get lost in a textbook so we let the children put their hands in the earth and feel proud of these little green sprouts that come out of it. And we have a garden community in our backyard. So back to preparation of the teacher, because this year as we can all attest to has been a pretty unique year with the COVID lockdown. With some of the rhetoric that's coming out of our administration with some of the instability of the voting process, etc. It's it's got it's gotten everybody on edge a little bit right. So at the height of it back in my in May, I attended a protest rally that was sponsored by Black Lives Matter at the end of George Floyd's murder. And this was in the same neighborhood as my school was in. And I was vacillating whether I should go or not because you know it's COVID. Safe. Should I go blah blah blah. I decided to go. And I'm just going to show you a quick video from that, because it was, it was kids met. I'm not making this up. The song that was playing was wake up all your teachers it's time to teach a new way as soon as I hit the avenue where the event was taking place. Sign. We are done dying. That was handed to me from for free. And it just sums up how I feel about the whole police brutality slash current political state that we're having as a result of police reform. I feel like we need to teach people how to start living with that context right we are done dying. So we're going to start living and part of living in the educational system and decolonizing it is planting seeds. They trying to bury us but we are seeds and that knowledge can come through my curriculum all day long. So long as I'm rooted in myself and I stand strong in my belief that young children are the future. And I'm getting to know their families, and I'm honoring student voice and I'm honoring student choice and working in an institution that supports my anchor. They support my core beliefs, because it actually supports the mission, the bigger mission. So instead of beating my head up against the wall trying to bring these ideas into an institution that might not align with me. I've finally landed at a school where I can sort of rattle some cages and advocate for my black and brown students when things aren't quite right. Actually get full support for that. So that's that's pretty much it in a nutshell but I do want to end I'm not promoting this book but I am excited about the fact that this exists. I'm trying to get a few other educators to read this with me because it is a book about white supremacy. It's called not my idea a book about whiteness and I've gone through my first read to see if there was anything that sort of didn't land well with me when I was reading and I was like okay there was only one page. No big deal. So I'm going to hand this off to my next door educator who's also a woman of color. I'm going to have her read it to see if she has any hiccups or she thinks it's also a great anchor text. And then we'll hand it to the first grade teacher who's also a woman of color to see if there are any hiccups, or if she believes that it's a great idea for an anchor text. It's just vetting books. We don't just choose a book and use it lightly, because it starts and ends with the anchor text. That is how we teach our children with text and choosing the appropriate text is how we decolonize education, and we're empowered to do that at my school. That's it for me for now. Thank you very much Tasha and we'll be hearing from you soon on the panel. Next we have Lola Olufemi, a black feminist writer, a Stuart Hall Foundation scholar, and so alumni. Lola led the My Curriculum So White movement at the University of Cambridge. She's also the author of Feminism Interrupted Disrupting Power, which was published this year, and the co-author of a Fly Girls Guide to University, being a woman of color at Cambridge and other institutions of power and elitism. She's also a member of the Interdisciplinary Anti-Works Arts Collective, bare minimum, and just before I hand over, if you could all just continue asking questions in the Q&A function and not wait till the end. That would be really great. Thank you. Thank you, Lola. Thank you. It's been great to hear from the incredible speakers so far. So I think I want to start with the idea of relation, and one of the most exciting things about Black Lives Matter as a formation I think is how it reveals and refuses the architecture of the racial contract that structures the way that we live. By racial contract, I mean the agreement and investment in a white supremacist nation made possible because of imperialism. I mean race lives through the modality of class, as Stuart Hall tells us, wherein Black life remains unprotected, easily exploitable, precarious. This kind of contract, I think, is what makes the border possible. It's what makes immigration possible. It's what makes the law possible. It's about what makes the discourses about race as an innate biological fact and not a process of violent naming possible. What Black Lives Matter does, I think, or is as a movement, what it has the potential to reveal is that some lives matter precisely because others do not. Some people's deaths are necessary for the continuation of this racial contract, as I described before, and all the systems and signs that legitimize it, the state and its institutions lock this order into place and make it seem inescapable. I'm going to Ruth Wilson Gilmore's definition of racism as the state sanctioned and or extra legal production and exploitation of group differentiated vulnerabilities to premature death in distinct yet densely interconnected identities as a starting point for understanding the context that a movement like BLM emerges from these examples of premature death are everywhere from in a British context from unjust deaths in detention and at the hands of the police to the deaths as a result of what individuals would call social murder. That is the slow and gnawing way that the condition of this of life kills workers. We're inundated with premature death to the extent that protest against them in the form of BLM is more scandalous than black death itself in this context. But many of the most unprotected workers in this country are black. We know that they are more likely to work in manual labor in the gig economy and in service jobs, jobs that are the first to sacrifice their workers to the virus or to the prison of a low wage angles But when a society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or the bullet, when it deprives thousands of the necessities of life places them under conditions in which they cannot live forces them through the strong arm of the law to remain in such conditions, knows that these thousands of victims must perish and yet permits these conditions to remain. It is a deed just as surely as the deed of the single individual. Black Lives Matter I think emerges as a movement against social murder and when I say social murder I don't mean that this murder is constructed or that it is rhetorical or metaphorical, but that the very real premature loss of life is naturalized in our social world. Black Lives Matter UK emerges seeking abolition of systems of prevailing violence. It's a movement based in community approaches to care, a movement determined to examine and dismantle the conditions that make it possible for some deaths to register as protests, while others never even pierced public consciousness. In the UK, this movement has a really long and interconnected history. Black Lives Matter in its most contemporary iteration, which takes its name from the response to the first wave of protest and counter state movements from 2013 onwards belongs to a legacy of anti racist and black led protests in the UK. This was the first day of action that took place in response to the new crossfire, for example, the Brixton Broadwater Farm, Handsworth and Toxeth Riots in 1981. As another example, Black Lives Matter belongs to a history of self organization nurtured by the Black British Panther Party and the Black Supplementary School movement in Haringey, which also had a presence in Bradford Leeds during the 80s. These were mostly volunteer led schools, which challenged the whiteness of existing education and forms of knowledge and exposed children to the intellectual and theoretical contributions of those from the African continent, including the tenants of Pan Africanism. I think such projects demonstrate the community based nature of the Panthers approach. They were investing in transforming the world through consciousness raising and socialist restructuring of their local communities. The Panthers across London fought for better housing provision, legal aid and resisted the introduction of harsher immigration policies in the wake of the Windrush generation. Black self organization in the UK is not just an American input but was and is rooted in an internationalism and the specific struggles that come from being situated in the metropole. The lack of its predecessors and that legacy I think Black Lives Matter is a response to an encroachment of on Black life in the UK. A call to recognize the colonial modes of organization that make it possible for people to lose their lives in the Grenfell Tower, fire or to die disproportionately as a result of the ways that they are exposed to COVID-19. We see how whiteness works to transform these material consequences, consequences inseparable from capitalism, economic organization housing. We see how whiteness reduces those to questions of biology. So, as we've seen in kind of mainstream discourses, Black people are more likely to get sick from COVID-19 because of genetic predispositions and not because of the way that the world is organized. This is a kind of prevailing discourse that's emerged and re-emerged. What the Black Lives Matter banner does I think on a discursive level is make a claim for recognition, not from state actors or even from whiteness but rather a claim that seeks to unsettle the premise by which some live so others die. These kinds of leaderless coalitions arise out of a necessity, but they place emphasis on the need for coalition through decentralized structures. Black Lives Matter, like some of the key features in the UK might be said to be a rejection of the state apparatus, a strong arm of international solidarity, a call for the abolition of policing and prisons, sections of the movement dedicated to grassroots community engagement and political education. Either way, contemporary anti-racist discussions quickly devolve into the realm of law and policy. And what Black Lives Matter UK does I think is situate itself outside of that kind of conversation, concerned with the possibilities of revolution and what the conditions needed for that revolution would be. Like most movements, it's helped and hindered by this decentralized approach. Decentralization obscures organizers from view, it makes it harder for the state to surveil them, but it also makes it possible for many competing claims and counterclaims to happen under the same banner. And in the wake of COVID-19, many adopted the banner of Black Lives Matter to organize unofficial protests in response to the pandemic and a range of other issues, making it harder for a clear or coherent narrative to emerge about what this movement looks like in a UK context. But perhaps coherence as we understand it is not a necessary component of the kinds of revolutions that Black Lives Matter seeks to inspire. Perhaps those revolutions are local and global, localized and international, happening at multiple points at the same time. I think about how movements appear more structures also as they become historicized. So academics like Paul Gilroy have critiqued whether or not the current Black Lives Matter moment is a sustained or robust in relation to past moments of political awakening in this country. But I think also about how academics like and feminist organizers like Gail Lewis talk about her own involvement in feminist organizing through OAD, the organization of African, of women of African and Asian descent, and the bricks and black women's group in the 80s. She kind of recalls how the work she was doing as a member of a number of organizations at the same time were never joined up in that official sense, but we're still able to make an impact when and where they were needed. I think what we learn from Black feminist organization and forms of organization is also how movements like Black Lives Matter come to be hindered by age old structures that emerge when they are dominated by masculinist modes of thinking by ideas of the singular charismatic leader who brings the nation to its independence, for example, or when they fail to take into account herratic leadership styles that can sustain movements in long term ways. When thinking internationally we see how America and Europe become the focal point from which Black life is understood, but the kinds of questions under examination cross borders. I think the movement against SARS happening in Nigeria as we speak tells us much about the legacy of colonial extraction and infrastructure in the organizing of Black life across the globe. I think the abolitionist imaginary is clearly global, and it doesn't emanate from a singular point. Black Lives Matter, then also morphs into a project for decolonization. It aims to remind us what is threatening about mass movements to cut ties, to remind us to cut ties with settler nations and reject attempts to be reinscribed into the discourses of citizenship. Across the globe it helps make demands for land repatriation, the destruction of colonial property demands for an examination of the impact of neocolonialism. I think there's too much to say about how the meaning of decolonization has morphed and been flattened by adoptions in institutional contexts. I think it needs to be mindful of the over reliance on building a critical consciousness or changing curricula as a means of decolonizing, but for non rights quote decolonization which sets out to change the order of the world is obviously a program of complete disorder, as a result of magical practices, nor of a natural shock, nor of a friendly understanding, decolonization as we know is a historical process. That is to say it cannot be understood, except in the exact measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical form and content. And I kind of want to end here on this point. I think Black Lives Matter UK asked us to sit in discomfort to reject the idea that there are neat answers to problems that, to the problems that constitute Black life, or that they might provide us with those answers. They understand themselves, I think members of BLM UK as engaged in a legacy of struggle, one that continues across historical fault lines, and one that must, like the political histories it's indebted to be defined as it emerges. Thank you so much Lola. And if I could invite all the panelists to come back for the moderated discussion and encourage attendees to still continue asking questions that can be answered. So if everyone to come back on video. Yeah, okay, great. Thank you everyone for your presentations. I just have a few questions. And there's a few questions in the Q&A section that we can also ask them. There was a Guardian study this year on the universities which have committed to reforming the curriculum, and obviously there was quite a low number of universities that have actually said that they would decolonize their curriculum or make really big changes. What's the issue do you think with institutions committing to actually decolonizing and rather than just saying things like being diverse and inclusive. And do you think that the focus on Black Lives Matter and youth led protests at the moment will increase or change the pace of the progress of decolonizing higher education, and also for younger students Tasha. I'm happy to go first. I think I spoke to this but it starts with a teacher in the classroom and making sure we land in the right schools to support what we bring. So I am my students. I represent my students. I've grown up in families just like theirs. So when I hear the deficit model of thinking, it irks me and I have to speak up because you're not talking about my kids. You're also talking about me. So it's not going to fly if you have teachers who represent the students in which they teach in leadership positions helping to shape the decision and choosing having the autonomy to choose the curriculum. So I think it really depends on teacher training and then teacher placement. That's how we decolonize education from where I sit. And I think those are two really interesting questions. I think in a UK context we've seen consistently universities making these kinds of pledges and promises and I think perhaps what's more interesting is thinking about the kind of strategic relationships that students and kind of radical academics can craft within universities rather than assuming that these universities as has been rightly pointed out before that are founded very much through colonial and imperial endeavor. Have any kind of reason to even commit to, you know, the process of decolonization. I think there have been a number of conversations about what whether decolonization is possible within these institutions, whether it's actually even a meaningful framework to think about UK institutions in particular. And I think more than that conversation I think what's more important to impress on people is that I guess as Moten says there are things to be stolen from the institution. There are resources to take and be redistributed. And I think that's where the main focus should be instead of on kind of written commitments to do XYZ or focus on diversity and inclusion, because I think what the purpose of these institutions are in lots of contexts is to kind of subsume radical thought. It is to flatten it, it is to make it, you know, seem kind of impossible and that's what the bureaucratic machine does with something as kind of unsettling as decolonization. So I think it's good to return to this idea that even though, you know, we might not be able to fully decolonize our institutions, whatever that might mean. And even if, you know, language becomes kind of sticky when we're using it, what we can materially do is show support to black workers in the university at the lowest levels, we can make sure that we keep what is radical about kind of education outside of these more formal structures. Yeah, and we can make sure that we attempt to redistribute like the wealth and resource of these institutions to question their signs and their motives and their ongoing relationships with neocolonialism across the globe, I think. Let me just have a look, I mean, I think the, the change of the tide, it's important whether through the pretense of language at the level of administration of any university for that matter. But what is more important, because the universities essentially belongs to students. Primarily. Okay. Now it's up to students together with workers. That is why I mean this is the point about us, Rosemars-Fall and Fismars-Fall at UCT particularly. One of our thing that we did, as much as we're calling for decolonization. We also called for the insourcing of workers and we're able to have the workers insourced back to the university and aiming almost the same amount as the so called the real workers of the university, which is then the lectures and the professors. I'm saying we agree with my colleague about the question of workers. That's what we did and we did successfully to make sure that because that's how the system controls itself. It keeps those who are out, out and let those who are in, in. Now I think for me over and above universities being showing interest to decolonize. The project of decolonization belongs to student as well as the staff. And of course, historically and contemporarily, staff will always want to be pushed. You can I mean in the South African context or the African context. One of the thing that we realized and acknowledged is that the deep seated fear of black professors and black lecturers. This fear. Actually, when we examined it, you would realize that a fear of a black rural student who comes to a metropolitan city and UCT or verse or something. But equally, you realize the same fear was actually exhibited by a lecture, a black professor who can speak back to white power at our institution. I'm saying that part of complimenting the commitment of this university decolonization is for us as today and to take it very serious part of taking very serious is to push back lectures and force them to do certain things. And of course, what we acknowledge and realize is that some of the black professors in South African universities, they in fact come from the Western universities, whether Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and so on. Now they come with a particular sense of wanting to assimilate to the whiteness want to be like white people. Now they are struggling to question white power. And of course, I'm not taking for granted the fact that white power to question white power, you must be willing to sacrifice. Therefore, we must, if you can stand up and raise political question, you must be prepared that you will be isolated. You will be cut off the mainstream and money people choose not to be part and parcel of those who will be extruded for us. I mean, some of them the activism that we're involved in, not just the victories, but I was expelled more than three times from UCT I had to go to court for the court to be to reinstate me. Now, it is part of those sacrifices that we must be willing to to to endure. And I can imagine some of the black lectures for example in Oxford or Cambridge or any other university in in UK. They might be scared because there are few the minority. And yet my appeal is always that every time we want to praise the intellectual revolutionary moment, and yet very few people who are willing to face the brutal treatment as an activist you will receive for questioning white power. Now, same thing with the issue of of transformation of the curriculum. Those who are willing to take this for for the posterity must be equally willing to make sure that they will suffer the consequences. I'm really willing to meet those consequences, because most of the time this white power always make us as if we depend to to so as we depend to Cambridge, we cannot survive outside these universities as activists we must prove that in fact questioning white power. You can be able to survive outside this institution, but hopefully the revolution will come and then they have no reason to to kick you out. Thank you very much. Okay, so moving slightly away just from within institutions and over to youth movements I lead I'm going to start with you as you talked about in Cape Verde how the youth were able to organize simultaneous protests across different areas. So what do you think are some of the significant benefits of youth movements and how do you help. How do you think social media kind of helps with organizing. Thank you. Thank you for that question. I mean I think it was some for spaces such as Cape Verde without social media it would have been nearly impossible to organize because as I said we have 10 different islands and people are not necessarily well connected. Technology is very expensive already so even connecting over the internet is really expensive but using the phone would be even worse. So if you didn't have the advent of social media to actually send short messages and to keep the connection going across different days, you'd have been nearly impossible. And also, how do even people get access to information. It's not just the communication but just being aware of what's happening being able to follow up on how the movement is developing etc so for spaces like Cape but it proved quite substantial but then you see the same thing with the movement such as the Arab spring right. The internet played a huge role in connecting with young people across different spaces and sending the message across different borders. And so the Arabian movement it was important because it also included the diaspora, and the more people you get connected in these networks, the more successful the movement is going to be in terms of achieving its aim so I think it's been crucial and fundamental for this movement. Thank you. I'm going to ask one of the questions that were in the chat from Janek Aliaron who said what if any differences do you think there are for black people or the movement in the UK. And I guess we can widen that to your respective areas as well. I think the difference in the movement is that it's being televised right. We like to think that the revolution will not be televised but it's everyone's gotten up. Most people have a phone, and you can just record. So it's, it's a civic, it's almost a civic duty when you see something to, I know I stop and bear witness now. One of my brothers is being spoken to by the police I kind of hover around to just let them know that I see them and I'm seeing it. I almost can't help it these days. But I think that the difference is the awareness raising it's hard to deny it. It's not like we we are no longer overreacting. We're no longer sensitive to white power structure and institutional racism. It's actually a thing that's being televised. So it's hard to deny it. I guess I would say, I think the one of the core differences in terms of how BLM works across context and I would say in a UK context is that obviously because of the differences in size and and also the differences in infrastructure that's available for specific kind of critical movements I think what we've seen in in the past like 10 years in the UK is the complete kind of decimation of infrastructures of social and public care. And that means that things spaces where critical consciousness might be cultivated. That is in the youth club that is in the community center that is in spaces where people might come together. They don't really exist in a in a centralized and robust way in the UK. And so I think, like I said, there is a real sense of decentralization within any kind of social movement in the UK precisely because of that reason. And in ways that there are obviously advantages and disadvantages to that. But I think there tends to be what is a really interesting, I guess, discourse about black history in the UK is somehow needing to constantly be recovered or not being put front and center because the radical histories of people responding to power, people responding to the state, people responding to racism and premature death, not only do they exist, they're also rich histories that we might be able to draw on in order to sustain the movements that are happening at the moment. And so I think one thing that's a really key feature in terms of kind of British grappling with a critical consciousness around racism idea that like we are somehow disconnected from our history which I think is an interesting way to think of history as somehow linear and are needing to go back to recover it instead of thinking about a kind of fragmentary history where we might be able to pick up on fragments in order to advise ourselves or in order to look back and see what strategies have worked in the past and what strategies might help us stay on in the moment. And I think on the question of social media, I think social media is helpful in as much as it as a later said, can cross help us cross borders and share strategies between different movements that have the same aims in different contexts. I think social media is also obviously a tool for surveillance and a way through which movements of critical consciousness are derailed or sensationalized or made to seem kind of trapped within these discourses of impossibility or outrage or sensationalism. And so I think we have to be really strategic and really careful about the ways in which we utilize social media and really understand what it can offer to our movements but also the many ways it might hinder our attempts to raise certain issues. Well, I just maybe I should add just one point in relation to the youth movement. And really my challenge that I'm trying to think through as we organize in the metropolitan, which is the cities, the big cities, is how much organization that is taking place in the rural in the township in the shanty towns, because also them the idea of activism might also be affected by the class question. If we are not as as activist thinking around of involving those who are not at university, those who are not in big cities, because most of the movement you realize that it's always around them, the major cities. I think for me, then the idea of the youth movement, and of course the benefit thereof and I mean it cannot over be ever over emphasized the idea of social media it's good. But of course what I realize is that with the, the nature of instinctness of our of our times, everything is instant. What is happening is that there's a likelihood that the, the, the idea of a sustained movement might be leaky. And for us who are facing that because people are always trying to catch up on the next thing. And, and of course, to change the course of history, or to change the social structure that we're under. It means that you must at least have a movement that can be able to sustain itself in the course between one year to five years, so that you can be able to see the real change in the ground, because most people think that things will just happen. And within two days of protests, which is that's not the case. And of course, I suppose that the main issue here is the modes of protest, the modes of organization, the modes of mobilization and how do we link. This is the challenge that is really facing them, the middle class, the upper class activists, particularly at the university, you can find at university for example, the most radical professors. And yet what I've realized the, their, their limitation is that they are always unable to break away from the comfort of the ivory tower. I think as young activists, we must be wary of the comfort abilities of them, the ivory tower. And I mean, even fine on fine on suffered through this idea of limitation of the ivory tower, always in the city, always in the university in the workplace of them, the modern city, and how do we overcome that our educational and colonial decolonization of education processes, how do we have linkage and relations with the poorest of the poor in the rural areas in the farm towns in the Santa towns and townships of our areas I mean, I mean I always think about young people in Congo today as black activists in in Cape Town or in in UK, wherever, and I'm thinking about the young people in Nigeria, you know, the suffering that they're going through those particularly those who are in the rural. How do we organize those young people? How do we share our experiences because the greatest limitation I can tell you now is the fear to go where there's no resources is the fear to go where there's no comfort ability as university student how are we going to change this thing as we grow entering in the space of the mainstream politics, because I think if we prepare ourselves now, we can be able to to change the course of history, because as things stands now I mean I was listening to the president of Ghana. How he tried to make sense of the Chinese relationship between China and Africa and then he says we are going to the relationship with China with eyes open. What does that mean? It means that years after years, the relationship between African countries and the Chinese or the Europeans or the American, it has always put in the forefront the interest of them, the western powers. I think for me we have really a challenge as activists to say how do we integrate our activism so that our activism does not only end in the metropolitan cities, but it goes to the rural areas because that's where the real change is needed so that we can be able to see the material change, but also we must be able to be prepared to really not expect things to happen instantly, but to allow a five year tenure period of being engaged in the activism exercise. Thank you. I have one last question. Oh, later please. I just wanted to add to that really important point about connecting this, the different social movements and it I always found it quite interesting in a lot of social movements that happen in the continent the Cape Verdean case is slightly different which I hope you appreciate it. It comes really from the bottom, and they still don't engage the university population which is really interesting. So you either have one side or you have the other but you don't seem to have both as your money is is highlighting. And I think there's strengths in different different types of protest because the bottom up approach is really interesting because you really have the community engaging with it, and the people from the countryside as you said so it has a wider reach because in most of our societies, the educated large university population is happens to be the minority. So you have a much wider reach when you're doing it from the bottom up, but then you still don't interact with what we call the organic intellectuals right you don't interact with those people that have the means of production. So, if they remain mostly very marginal, there's this movement, however, a very interesting point with the last association that I mentioned the Pilarino, they've been working actually for more than 10 years now. And it's really interesting how they kept their influence and their works, and it's particularly because they have very stable projects where they're working mostly with children. So they managed to even get funding from the government, because yes they have this very strong desire to the colonize, but they are really targeting children so they're educating children about Africa. They're educating them about having an open and political mind. So not just being on the receiving end of what happens in society, but they have, they've learned that they have different streams and they've had problems because of that because the movement is wide. But then some of them are much more, you know, they tend to be less radical. So they work with children and they try to do that with slow progress where others just want to go and protest and fight against the government. They've managed to have two streams working at the same time with the many problems involved, but it seems to be working. So there is scope for that to happen. It's just not easy. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Just the last question. I'm getting a five minute warning from the moderator. So I'm going to ask you all to keep your answers to maybe 30 seconds. I'm just looking at the Q&A's. There's a question about whether we should just break away and really do it for ourselves. And then also a question about whether we how to interact with new institutions that have now changed their name. So an institution that has removed Cecil Rhodes from their name. So I guess I'm going to flip the question and have it as do you think it's possible to do on your own, for example, movements like the black curriculum or whether we should stick with working within the institutions. For example, with Tasha where we've heard she has a supportive institution and maybe because it's a charter school there's more freedom, which do you think is like the best way to move forward at the moment. I think I'll go first. I think it's both and I think there are some people that are going to go with the idea of going over here and doing it for ourselves, right, like the Garvey, the Garvey movement. But then there are also people that are going to be like, no I'm not ready for that. So we need to do both and I choose to work at an institution where my, my frontline knowledge and community experience is celebrated and recognized and compensated. My ideas are given resources so I can stay here and be happy to interrogate the system from here from where I sit on behalf of my students and families. But I also think it is important to have institutions where where people can go into that are Afro centric curriculum. I can, off the top of my head I'm struggling to name some, actually. So I think there is a wide open field for that. I would I would love to support educators who are ready to do that. Well if I just go after I will address the question about what to do with this new community centers that emerge. I would, I would say that as I took experience from the projects I've been working with start with children is the best way. Children start light get the community on board, start working with questions that are relevant to the community where this community center is located. And then once you get established then you can push forward an agenda. But I think, if it's just, I mean change after change sometimes can be difficult. So start with small changes working with children is phenomenal, because you can really shape them and you can put forward really interesting ideas. You can work with their parents and next thing you know the community has a lot more cohesion, and you can develop ideas I like what Shimani said, it's time things take time change takes time, and you have to be very patient and be willing to actually put the effort for to do what it takes to get the ideas forward. I mean change doesn't happen within the next day. Alright, let me just cover this. The, I mean, the Gavin approach is a beautiful approach. Because it has limitation. I would really argue that we ought to do both, you know, for example in South Africa we've got a very peculiar and practice around for example the NGO sector. As activists, we even came to a conclusion that it is hard to establish a black lead NGO, like an NGO that is led by black people. And then we, the honest truth about it, which is almost a racial connotation is that most NGO in South Africa are led by white people. And the irony about these NGOs, they are about the very issues that we contesting in our communities, but the funding funding come from the the funders of course it come from the funders to only NGOs that have white people in. The historical reason for that he that's why I'm saying it might be linked with history of racism is the belief that it's only white people who are accountable, who can be able to account for those resources. For example, there's an NGO in South Africa called the Children of South Africa. When you go to the website of this NGO, it's really kids from the township, from the rural areas, and then the board members and the founder are white people. Now, you can ask that why black people don't start something like that themselves in the township because we come from there we were born there, why didn't you start it, but the reality of the method is that you will not get funding. And actually the systematic structure of funding, generally, in South Africa, you can really count individual, which big funders come to in South Africa, and those individual then they disseminate the funds among their friends. It's really hard to go alone as black people to the work that we are already doing without funding. But what we have concluded on is that look, maybe we should then just work with white people and put them there as financial officers. But of course we have to work with white people who are conscious. We can't just take white people who want to control everything. We must take those who are willing to work with our communities because most of the NGOs in South Africa, you can go online, whether Czech section 27, or equal education, whatever, the tricky about them, white-led NGOs, they want to end salaries of executives in private sector. That's the challenge we're facing. The money that was meant for the NGO, it goes to the salaries of these white people because suddenly they've got the life standard they want to maintain. Now that is the challenge. The last point on issues of new institution. I think, I mean, we must work with institutions that are willing to change. But as activists, we've got a responsibility for example to make sure that the change that is said to be taking place is not artificial change, is the real change. And we must be willing to push back these people when they make certain changes within question. What is the nature of those changes? What is the character of those changes? And at the same time, these people need to be assisted. Power, we must remember, does not get to be given away willy-nilly freely. It must be taken from those who've got power. And I think that's the responsibility of us as activists to take power and engage and not be feared. For example, if now there is a rose must fall and then, I mean, there's a rose must fall instituted, UCT. We're not going to go away from UCT. We will be there to make sure that that rose must fall institute is operational. It's happening according to our wishes and the real change can take place. Thank you very much. Thank you. And alone as the last answer. Um, I think, um, I guess as everyone was speaking, I was kind of thinking about this idea that institutions aren't horizons. I don't think institutions are robust enough places for us to, to invest all of our time and energy into. And by that, I mean, in the worlds that we seek to build, right, these worlds that must account for everybody. These institutions don't exist. Like, there is no kind of hierarchical forms of organization, right. And so I think it's always necessary to treat the institution with suspicion to enact a kind of strategic relationship with it where you are able to, like I said before, Ghana and redistribute resources when and where you can. Um, yeah, and to be ready to abandon it when and if necessary. So I think it's always about having a dynamic relationships, a dynamic relationship to the institutions to which you know many of us emerge from many of us are indebted to in specific ways. But understanding that these institutions in and of themselves are not conduits for the kinds of freedoms that we're talking about. And the, and especially the kinds of freedoms that decolonization as a, as a project of unsettling offers us. Thank you. Thank you so much to our wonderful panelists and for all the attendees, everyone engaging and watching at home, and a huge thank you to Stephanie Corrand and the rest of the team for organizing the panel and the festival. This has been such a great conversation. I'm sure we have a lot of a longer reading list and a lot of things to look into. So thank you all for your time. And then the next event this evening is a joint book launch for Islam on campus and essays on secularism and multiculturalism. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.