Friday, June 25, 2010

Mumia Speaks:The Spiritual And The Profane

The Spiritual And The Profane
[col. writ. 6/16/10] (c) '10 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The sounds of vuvuzelas, tens of thousands of them, have become the buzzing background for the World Cup, the megasized sports event held in South Africa.

The vuvuzela, as every spectator knows, is the long, plastic, tube-like instrument that resembles an elongated trumpet, without keys. While an omnipresent pest to Western sportscasters, it is a thing of joy to South African soccer fans, as it expresses their exuberance.

This instrument, which creates a sound likened to a maddened wasp hive, didn't begin as a tool of sports enthusiasm.

It was an instrument of religious expression, used by the Shembe church movement, originating in South Africa in the early 1900's under the leadership of the African prophet, Isaiah Shembe, in a distinctive synthesis between Zulu culture and Christianity. Shembe founded the Nazareth Church in 1910. Today it has hundreds of thousands of members in KwaZulu-Natal, the ancient homeland of the AmaZulu.

The Shembe Church holds pilgrimages of believers who retrace Shembe's footsteps, in bare feet, to the holy mountain, Mount Nhlangakazi.

Church elder, Ref. Goga, speaking of his church, said, "Jesus for Israel, we believe Isaiah Shembe is an African prophet and on a higher level than Jesus."

The Shembe play the vuvuzelas using the lower tones.

In this year's pilgrimage, over 300,000 men and women, clad in white robes, made the trek to their holy mountain, accompanied by the low tones of the vuvuzelas.


--(c) '10 maj

[Source: "Unholy Row Over World Cup Trumpet," The African Times, (Africa Watch) May 1-15, 2010, p.3.)
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The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!


URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/


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Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com

Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

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