Ramadaan expo honours slain activists

FREEDOM Day, the legacy of Imam Haron, important social issues and the significance of the national elections on May 8 were major themes at the Spice Mecca Ramadaan for All expo at the Cape of Good Hope Castle, from April 26 to 28.

The expo was attended by over 30 000 people.

These themes resonated with the traditional target audience of Muslims but also with a broader audience of other faith traditions as well as social and religious activists.

The official opening ceremony featured a diverse range of speakers, including representatives from other faiths.

Selected items on the expo programme were broadcast on the radio station Voice of the Cape and iTV.

The setting of the Castle of Good Hope as venue offered both a symbolic and a physical confrontation between our colonial past and our present challenges as citizens in a democracy about to vote in national elections on May 8.

Given the significance of the timing and setting of the expo, the programme addressed these converging themes in stimulating ways that illuminated some vexing questions and interrogated many comfortable assumptions of our time.

Shreef Abbas, CEO of Spice Mecca, said the expo had surpassed the objective of offering an inclusive trade platform to usher in the sacred month of fasting.

‘We are contextualising the spiritual significance of Ramadaan with relevant social and political themes so that we may deepen our understanding, appreciation and devotions for the love of humanity and in true submission to Allah,’ noted Abbas.

The Jumuah sermon by Shaikh Sadullah Khan, on April 26, in reflecting on the significance of Freedom Day, emphasised the importance of freedom from economic exploitation, political exclusion, social oppression, injustice and tyranny.

In this respect, he questioned the nature of the freedom experienced by South Africans today due to poor governance by those in the highest public office.

The sermon similarly addressed religious and ideological extremism and denounced these as a means of achieving any virtuous objective.

It also foregrounded the failures of our democracy, after 25 years, in meeting the fundamental human rights of our people.

In calling for an interrogation of our current leadership, the speaker exhorted all to return to the values of heroes like Imam Haron.

On April 27, coinciding with Freedom Day, an audience of 100 people benefitted from a symposium on the theme of freedom.

Cassiem Khan of the Imam Haron Foundation moderated the symposium and Shaikh Ihsaan Taliep set its tone with some opening remarks.

The panel of speakers were Professor Muhammed Haron, son of Imam Haron who was killed in 1969, Imtiaz Cajee, nephew of Ahmed Timol, killed in 1971, Nkosinathi Biko, son of the Black Consciousness activist, Steve Bantu Biko, who was killed in 1977, and Lukhanyo Calata, son of Fort Calata, one of the Cradock Four who were killed in 1985.

Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, Distinguished Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University, Aslam Fataar, and Cape High Court Judge, Siraj Desai, were respondents.

The family members of the freedom fighters killed in the apartheid era offered narratives of their experiences of the deaths of their loved ones.

They also raised critical questions about the painful struggle to obtain justice and full disclosure of the events leading to the deaths of the activists.

In meaningful engagement between speakers and respondents, there was broad recognition that sacrificing one’s life in resistance against apartheid was for the ideals of freedom, justice and dignity.

The message of the symposium is that there is an exchange between the attainment of these

ideals and the means offered by our democracy.

These means are pre-eminently political instruments although the justice system, activism, advocacy and the like are also important.

Politically, the citizen has the power of the vote to engage those in political office over corruption, state capture, inequality, underdevelopment and the indignities associated with large-scale poverty.

As believers and as citizens, argued the participants, we invoke the sacrifice and martyrdom of heroic figures like Imam Haron. Death in activism and martyrdom are invoked as a price paid for freedom, justice and dignity. Therefore, the heroes of the past, particularly the figure of the martyr, offer a legitimate means to apply moral and ethical pressure on those in political office to deliver on the promise of freedom, justice and dignity.

The speakers and respondents also shared reflections on the meaning of sacrifice in respect of broader struggles.

Fataar averred that the ‘blood of the martyr would be wasted on those who support the Zionist state of Israel in its persecution of the Palestinians’.

He argued that the same applies to those who trample on the sovereignty of Venezuela, those who fail to be hospitable to the refugee, those who fail to challenge gender and all forms of unfair discrimination, and those who violate the rights and dignity of the poor and the marginalised.