Rebirth and Revolution: the Return of Yaa Asantewaa’s Body PART I

Momma yenkafo no eeei,
Yaa Asantewaa eeei,
Obaa basia a oko aprem ano eeei,
Obaa Yaa eeei!’

(‘Hail her!
Yaa Asantewaa
A mere woman
Who fought against the cannon!
The Woman Yaa’)

Folk Chant as homage to Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa


I was told that I would be in hospital four days following the operation. It had taken over two years for me to decide to have the operation but by now I felt assured that I was in good hands (Divine Order). Instead of four days, however, I remained in the hospital for four weeks. Complications from the first caused me to have a further operation. My immune system became severely compromised (it didn’t exactly break down – I was on a drip and unable to eat or drink for three weeks) for which reason the medical team insisted I have a blood transfusion (I had instructed that this should be given only as a matter of life or death). I wasn’t dying but my haemoglobin had fallen way below the level at which they would normally transfuse (my cries of resistance now seemed futile and irrational). As well as this, my wound became infected and had to be opened to release inflammation.


Due to the severity of the infection and the discovery of yet another internal obstruction it was decided that I should have a third procedure. By this time my family and friends feared I might not make it. In truth when I was told about this third procedure I felt that some greater force was seeking to utterly destroy me; not satisfied that the two earlier/major operations had failed to do this. My chanting intensified. I called on my family to add their prayers and chants to mine – rather I needed them to intensify their support -which had so far been remarkable- in uplifting me. Early one morning I was prepped to have the third procedure at which point psychologically I felt I was about to complete the battle with an unrelenting enemy. It would be a final confrontation out of which there could only be one victor. Who would be the victor and what “victory” would mean to me is what I’m hoping to express in this Shout. To do this I will consider the story of Yaa Asantewaa whose name I have claimed as a cultural realignment with my ancestry. I use her story to link some issues upon which I’ve been reflecting since coming out of hospital. These relate to my spiritual development (rebirth), my renewed commitment to Pan-Africanism as a stance against racism, imperialism, capitalism and neo-colonialism and my activism in the revolution which objective is to dismantle these oppressive, dehumanising forces and thus to further the cause of humanity.


Most of us know the legend of Yaa Asantewaa. Her death is recorded as 17th October 1921 so in honour of the 90th anniversary of her transition this very day I will briefly outline her story for those who might not be aware of this remarkable African warrior and ancestor. Queen Mother of Edweso (Ejisu) part of the Asante region of Ghana she led a war (otherwise referred to as ‘rebellion’) against the British Colonials who sought complete dominance of the Asante Empire. This war (1900-1) was the last in a series of such wars between the Asante and Britain throughout the 19th Century. It is also remembered as the last war in Africa to be led by a woman. Having seized power of Kumasi, the Asante capital and exiling its King Prempeh I and other members of Asante government, including Yaa Asantewaa’s grandson, Edwesohene (Chief of Edweso) Kofi Tene to the Seychelles, the British demanded the Golden Stool which symbolised the soul of Asante.


This brazen and offensive demand by Frederic Hodgson, the British governor of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) incensed Yaa Asantewaa. She wondered why members (men) of the Asante Government were allowing Hodgson airtime to insult them by his facetious demand when instead they should be demanding the return of King Prempeh. She declared that where the men exhibited cowardice, contrary to the fighting spirit of Asantes of old, like Nana Osei Tutu I she would rouse other women to fight the British and thus liberate her district Ejisu, Asante generally, its King Prempeh and her grandson from their exile. Her brave campaign lasted a year before she was captured and also exiled to Seychelles. There she died on October 17th 1921. Prempeh I was repatriated to Kumasi in 1924 whereupon he later negotiated the return of all exiled Asantes. Yaa Asantewaa’s body along with others was exhumed and returned to the Gold Coast in 1930 where she received a royal burial.


Following a trip to Ghana in 2002 I adopted the name of this remarkable African woman who sacrificed her life for her people. At the time I didn’t know very much about her. I was born on Thursday, like Yaa so the adoption made sense. It would take me several years later to register a spiritual precision in our birth and death. I was born on 16th October. My name was changed by Deed Poll which was signed 9 years ago on 17th October 2002. This was not a deliberate convergence. I was not aware of her birth and death dates when I chose the name – just about the campaign she led against British Colonials – which was for me inspiring enough. It might be considered coincidental but I prefer to see this as an intuitive activation, a spiritual vibration that signalled the poignancy of my rebirth. Thus more than a symbol of patriotism, resistance, liberation and womanhood, Yaa Asantewaa for me also represents continuity and the incarnatory vibration of struggle. This vibration of struggle would see Ghana achieve Independence in 1957, the first Sub-Saharan African country to do so. Yaa as (earth – “Asase Yaa”) mother, as warrior, as freedom fighter metaphorically birthed a son of revolution, Kwame Nkrumah. The significance of this is that her exile to the Seychelles didn’t halt the struggle for liberation.


The return of Yaa Asantewa’s body (remnants of her spirit one might say) to Ghana in 1930, the same year Nkrumah had completed his theological studies, symbolises a re-memberment of the struggle not only for Ghana’s liberation but that of Africa. Nkrumah pursued the struggle for liberation with a new emphasis – Pan-Africanism. Inspired by the ideas of Marcus Garvey and others he called for unity of all Africans, diasporic and continental for mass organisation and politicisation which movement would confront and ultimately defeat the forces of imperialism and colonialism. This Revolution as underpinned by Pan-Africanism calls for the participation of the mass without which it carries little force. Thus it is that Nkrumah declared that, "all people of African descent whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any other part of the world are Africans and belong to the African Nation." Nkrumah called for the creation of an All-African People’s Revolutionary Party - as we find in the A-APRP - which was realized by Kwame Ture, amongst others in 1968 and which continues to activate towards the liberation and unification of Africa and its people. The party also works with other organizations committed to the freedom of all oppressed and exploited peoples across the world.


Yaa Asantewaa’s body then (as depicted here, emaciated and frail) can be regarded as a symbol of struggle and resistance; as Africa under the siege of colonialism. Metaphorically I also relate her story to that pregnant woman in Revelations 12 who was pursued by the ‘great red dragon’ - her pregnancy being a symbol of rebirth, renewal, freedom, the emergence of self, transformation of society, liberation (awakening consciousness)- in essence the battle for humanity. The ‘red dragon’ by which the woman was viciously pursued I relate to the evil hands of imperialism, capitalism and neo-colonialism clutching at every corner of the earth to destroy humanity. Like that woman who had to ‘flee into the wilderness’ whilst a battle ensued between Archangel Michael (“and his angels!” – support from the mass) and the Devil (“and his angels” - forces of oppression/exploitation), Yaa Asantewaa was exiled whilst Ghana remained a site of struggle for its independence. This was achieved when colonialism (‘the great dragon’) ‘was cast out’.


But the story didn’t end there. The last verse in Revelations 12 writes: ‘and the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.’ An indulgent interpretation sees this ‘woman’ (and therefore Yaa Asantewaa) as Africa (by extension the oppressed world) and the ‘remnant seed’ as Africans who are perpetually confronted by the instruments of racism throughout our lives and the forces of imperialism, capitalism and neo-colonialism (incarnatory vibrations of the ’great red dragon’) which continue to blight our reach toward self-determination.


TO BE CONTINUED: you’ll have to wait for the second installment to hear how I relate the foregoing to my time in hospital which will be posted at the end of the month.

Embracing Love: the spirit of aliveness (edited)

By Neiman Marcus
“Give me my heart. Let it pump again life’s power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk.”
Awakening Osiris, Normandi Ellis
Love: a Regenerative Power
Love, some say is dead or near it. Modernity has meddled with our capacity to fully express our love. Technology has seriously compromised tactility; we touch and swipe screens, not each other. Persisting wars, marking most of our lifetimes is antithetical to love and a vital sign of an overlying disconnection with love’s regenerative power. Daily images of destruction (degenerative power) are paraded before us; of bloodied or blown apart bodies, distressed peoples, particularly children, abstractedly clinging to some strand of humanity to stop the violence and madness; bombs explode like fireworks at a festival and the media reports on it are orgiastic. As a sign of how advanced we are in warfare, unmanned fighter planes with unmemorable names bounce through Syrian skies like models on their catwalk. Confrontations and struggles against enemies are fangled commodities of terrorisation. Terror, not love is en vogue. Something of the heart becomes desensitised by these images, and our tears remain coiled in their ducts. Yet against the emotional tyranny of destruction the heart yearns to be reacquainted with its purpose; tears crave the slow journey from their ducts down the contours of the face, slipping into our mouth for us to taste the salt, sweetness and pain of genuine love. What follows here is a gentle whisper drifting towards those hearts in search of deepest love as the regenerative power of their aliveness.

Queen and her King

In the transience of death Ausar (Asar) pleads for the rekindling of his heart. The heart fires life, infusing the body with spirit. Those words – ‘rekindling’ and ‘fires’ are not whimsical but are effectual in the awakening of Ausar. This is how he will ‘rise’ and ‘walk.’ Shaman Patrice Somé of the Dagara (in Burkino Faso) says that fire is both regenerative and thus constructive and degenerative and therefore destructive (1998, 205-7). In other words fire is both positive and negative. Modernity, technology and persisting wars are symbols of fire in the Western world – relating to rapid progress (of a kind), ‘restlessness,’ ‘radical consumption’ and ultimately ‘death’ (literal and metaphoric). Fire in this context is expressed negatively. When expressed positively, according to Somé, ‘fire is the element that keeps people connected to their purpose and to the world of spirit.’ Fire in this sense ‘emerges as vision, dream, and intimacy with the ancestors.’ It is in this context – the exploration of fire as the ‘warmth of being, creativity and life’ – that I present an interpretation of Ausar's’ plea for the return of his heart. Ausar, being symbolic of Divine Consciousness, of transcendence, of elevation, of the risen, the crown chakra - in short the GOD WITHIN PRINCIPLE, which is the source of the regenerative power of love. The expanded consciousness embodies LOVE; for it KNOWS itself. It HONOURS its power, its creativity, its purpose. It does not hide or refracts from the responsibility to PROGRESS through love. To love is to live, to embrace and perpetuate the boundless beauty of our universe.

Blackartdepot

The (Ether)real thing
The heart houses the ethereality of love – love of course is not tangible. The eye would strain to see it physically; hands would eternally ache attempting to touch it. Yet love emanates. We know of love because its power electrifies when fully expressed or ignited. The light of love can be blindingly manifested in some people. They radiate it with ease and serenity it’s impossible to walk past them without absorbing its force. If modernity has not restricted one's capacity to be still you will be still and pause there, basking in love’s manifesting radiance. And how sweet, how beautiful that moment. And how painful too because a distant memory now pervades your being; you ache to relive some mythic height that once was part of you. The breath of life stirs within you. You feel newness manifesting. You feel pristine – as though you have just emerged from some dreadfully long sleep, or from the depth of the ocean onto an untouched island. You have arrived as if you’re the first to make impressions on its beauty, marvelling at the whitest, cleanest sand, the bluest water. Palm trees shimmer gently against azure sky as if to realign your heart to a slower beat; “the struggle against the tide is over; you have emerged; take it easy; breathe; let go,” those palms are whispering. Thus Ausar knows his need of the heart as the pump that will ‘quicken’ his rebirth, releasing him from sleep, dream and death. His desperate plea then is to feel, to experience creativity; it is to splendidly live again.

Water Goddess, Graphicsbeam.com

How resonant is this plea in our lives? How conscious are we of any dream to feel the quickening of spirit? I’d venture that many of us are unaware that this really isn’t it; that the stuff in our lives is not the substance of life. Such a reflection remains at the level of the unconscious and is a silent ritual. Our preoccupation with contrivances (the stuff in our lives) is a kind of mantra or meditation – our focus is misaligned. That negative fire-the rush toward some apparent need to satisfy some apparent lack – (which is overconsumption and distraction) allows us little, if any, time for Self reflection. But reflection is necessary if we are to be alerted to the deadness of our spirit. Consequently we exhibit creative dormancy and the debilitation of Self. Put another way how conscious are we that we are spiritually asleep or dead? What time do we give to understanding the matters of the heart? And if we attend, even briefly to such matters are we properly freed from the burdens of our present and past? Because a superficial study of the heart cannot reacquaint it with its purpose – that is as giver and sustainer of life and the aspect through which we experience the beauty and abundance of genuine love.

Ausar and Auset
Create it, then live the dream

And it is this – to embrace the regenerative power of love again that Ausar makes his plea for the return of his heart. To desire life without love is to exert degenerative power since it is possible to live without love in our lives. But that would vex the soul, would be a devilish deviancy within community and ultimately a pernicious disregard for humanity. Love is greater than those burnt-out relationships we cling to as though life was still there. Love is not fear but freedom. Love cannot express under the weight of our bitterest experiences. Those have to be cast aside or out like the demons they are; though you naturally accept that they have vitally shaped your life and contributed to where you are now. Love is not demanding; it is not control of another’s will to love, nor is it CONTROL of any kind. It is not a heavy chain by which our emotions are unwittingly dragged through extremes. Love is the power that unlocks that chain. Love is light. It does not hide for fear of discovery. It is creative power, a bareface dream - or leap. And like a flower unfolding from its enclosed posture during the night, love awakens the woman/man in you. You must be ready for this, and yield. And once love has freed you thus it requires you to make some hard choices. For love has led you to a crossroad. This is necessary for the perfecting of our journey. Here we might wish we were apportioned two lives but that would never do because love has a rhythm that is natural and precise. No matter how painful the decisions love has brought before us we must attune ourselves to that rhythm rather than force the recreation of another, which would be an offbeat. With back arching and poised like a ballet dancer ready to make an exhilarating leap, our breathing steadied we must dare to dance down either side of that crossroad. And that without looking back or returning there to the unforgiving past, worn out experiences - and lest like Lot’s wife we freeze in that posture for eternity.

Rhythms of aliveness
Love’s rhythm is the spirit of our aliveness variously expressed as: an intensity of physical attraction/connection; electricity hotting an impromptu embrace; a sudden readiness to expose the soul; an extreme, almost irrational urge to protect and nurture; the meddling memories of teenage affairs and adult indiscretions; a sense of falling into something unknown but being unable to stop it or flying fearlessly through different worlds or swimming in deep waters; crippling vulnerability; memories of past hurt, either as instigator or receiver; an emotional pendulum of bitter sweetness; haunting melodies from your subconscious captivating current mood; a desire to start a new life; beginning a new life in reality in some entirely new place; surges of passion opening the sacral chakra; acute awareness of the delicateness of the heart; dialectics of spirituality for signs that connections are precise – that what is happening, how it’s happening, the force with which it is happening was written; standing at the top of stairs suspended in the air with a voice you know is ancestral whispering - ‘hold tight’ and ‘don’t be afraid’ - 'go for it! Trust'; the simultaneity of assurance and uncertainty; happiness then fear - that way round – and then fear then happiness as the emphasis alternates confusingly; combustibility, rather the possibility of imploding from the intense energies surging through your body. The rhythm fades, the chemistry dies through our lack of will to good - which is eternal. Love is after all not a wasteful, idle thing, but a powerful alchemical pursuit. It is the becoming, the knowing of self; the consistent flow of regenerative energy.

Asar Mikael

From Peakblackness, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis

And finally, in its expression of aliveness love enables the release of trapped tears from the confines of their ducts. A thumb gently rubs them away - rather smoothes them into your face – ritualistically as though they want you to bathe in your tears and be cleansed thus; they rest their soft hands under your chin, tilting your head ever so slightly. Their eyes meet your eyes, each soul reaching for its reflection, lips touch lips. The tenderness of the heart is exposed. Your breath stops momentarily, then you gasp as you emerge once more from spiritual death. Your heart has been reacquainted with its purpose. Love pervades your being. The fire of life ignited. Someone is there beside you. “How did I get here?” They ask. And you say in the softest, sweetest voice as though whispering some mythic secret: “I summoned you from the depth of my imagination. The key to my life, the perfecting of our journey is there in the ignition. You put it there. But are you prepared to share the ride. Are you ready to dance with me down the road of enchanted love which some say is dead or dying? Because although I cannot say for sure where that road will lead my feet now refuse to be still when the spirit of aliveness is the sweetest melody my heart has ever known. And I want to feel it again and again as the breath of life now stirs ecstatically within me, colouring my being with the ethereality of genuine love.”

In search of a spiritual muse: awakening the God/Goddess

For Denise

The search must be sincere and profound; the spiritual querent committed to the simplest or most extreme demands of the outcome. There is a still space within each of us that can be accessed in the quietest moment of contemplation. When we have stopped or at least paused long enough to tap the interior door of consciousness. To avoid psychical meltdown, consciousness requires this slowing down, pausing or stopping to advance us spiritually.

This meltdown manifests in various ways relative to current social deprivations and depravations. Depression, psychotic breakdowns, spiritual and cultural vacuousness are subtle forms of a kind of madness caused by an imploding society. An example of what I mean – we were told earlier this month that following “actionable intelligence” of his whereabouts US Special Forces killed Osama Bin Laden and to respect his Islamic tradition buried his body at sea. “Justice had been served,” President Obama reportedly said. Was this assassination a judicial practice? If there was so much respect for Bin Laden’s Islamic tradition why was there such disrespect for our perception of justice?

Now - if you faithfully believe in the system, in the literal meanings of things; that all alleged criminals had to be given a trial because not only the Law but humanity dictated it, how do you respond to this blatant violation of said belief? You are expected as if it’s a movie to suspend disbelief whilst staring mindbogglingly at a released image of Obama apparently watching the ‘unfolding mission’ of Bin Laden’s killing. But this is not a movie and that vital suspension of disbelief – if you run with that course- precipitates the onset of madness. No amount of headscratching can explain what you’re seeing, what you’re hearing. It’s befuddling and you little realise that you are caught in the matrix of insanity. If, however, spirit forces you to acknowledge that what you’re seeing/hearing is madness and you fight it you have missed a real opportunity to advance your spirituality.

A kind of madness is also evident in that reluctance by some of us to realise that Obama’s complexion does not make him less Capitalist or Imperialist. He is seductive because he’s not dumb sounding, nor seeming like Bush but his intelligence alone should never have been trusted. He was never my Messiah because I am not looking for one. To hail him as such is to voluntarily imprison my spirit and thereby relieve me of the profound and sincere responsibility of the search. That profundity is necessary because my spirituality is not a wilting modicum that is satisfied by religious dogma, zealous Sunday sermons or masterly political orations. Obama is a ready-made muse, a sort of accessible one-for-all, with that smile that charms (if it yet does not sicken) and those words that mesmerise (if they yet do not frustrate). The seduction was easy because as Africans the familiar messianic trap (from the time of the Maafa) was thrust before us – some God is always descending, expected, arriving from outside of us to bring light and lead us out of our miserable darkness. And now that many of us accept that the white image is untenable we look for it in the black. What is transferred is the belief that our salvation is the responsibility of someone other than ourselves. When they deprive us of this what is our recourse? Some of us will never reach the point of asking this question - so steeped are we in the matrix of insanity.

When we stop or pause long enough to contemplate our place in the matrix I think something extraordinary happens. And embracing this ‘extraordinary thing’ is both a perceptible calling and salvation from that psychical meltdown. It’s a way of keeping your head when those around you are losing theirs through the persistent pressure of peering out. Embracing this ‘extraordinary thing’ I’ll simply call awakening the God/Goddess.

The serious querent searches because the spirit is tired of the mirage and its psychic grasp leaning you toward meltdown. They know there is more to Self but are not certain what it is. In one of those pauses when the still space is accessed the spirit speaks. The language is not complex but it is intuitive and might only point to some unexplainable notion, some vagueness of thought that we need to engage further when we return from that still zone. We cannot remain in that zone, but we’ve dipped in long enough to touch something or be touched by something that requires a further push. Presently it is superficial – the spirit is weary that the querent might not be ready for the fullness and withholds the totality of potential mystics. Some of us remain at the initiatory stage – that first touch- because the push toward the deep already reveals too intense a commitment –it feels more like a pull; like some greater, invisible force directing your movements counter to your will. But the push, your giving in to spirit, affirms your readiness for the depth of revelation.

It is not always possible to identify how or why the search began. Sometimes it comes at the end of something – or at the point of its rupture. Trauma can force us to the interior space we’ve avoided all our lives. A feeling of disempowerment or realisation of spiritual deadness might be the catalyst but whatever the reason once we’ve embarked on this path we should keep journeying towards that fulfilment. For now the God/Goddess is awakening. Spirit might reveal, as an example, this God/Goddess to be the dual principle of Yemaya Olukun. Yemaya, contracted from ‘yeye emo eja’ – meaning one whose children are like fishes, in Ifa represents the Mother of creation, Mother of the Ocean, the symbol of motherhood and fertility. When paired with Olukun this becomes a deeper expression of a power that resides at the bottom of the ocean. The name Olukun is likewise a contraction that fully refers to the owner of the oceans and symbolises a persevering, stern, majestic force that complements the nurturing, forgiving capacity of Yemaya. The ocean we might see as a physical expression of subconsciousness from where springs creativity.

Initially you might not recognise or be able to identify the God/Goddess principle in this way – as Orisha. Furthering the push might eventually lead you there. But there has been an intuitive activation; the spiritual landscape is now open. There is no doubt that what you’re feeling is real. Your head feels light. You feel possessed by a quiet, yet demanding power. People randomly tell you that “you’re amazing” though you cannot see how or know why. But you are bursting with a remarkable aliveness which has evaporated foregoing trauma. It’s a secret, delectable sweetness that no politician, no pastor, teacher, counsellor, doctor, friend or lover has fed you. The awakening God/Goddess is a reclamation of your power. And it is all yours. There is but one crucial consideration –this reclaimed power will last only as long your readiness to make the serious commitment to meet the simplest or most extreme demands of spirit.

The killing of David Emmanuel and the cause for vigilance

For those lost lives not forgotten but whose names are too numerous for an epigraph

Anger has to be regressive. It otherwise consumes the heart and stupefies the mind. But how do we respond when we hear about another victim of police heavy handedness in enforcing the law? Some might sit and sigh – shake heads and exclaim ‘how sad!’ Some of us will feel so enraged that sitting and sighing won’t alleviate that vigorous pounding in our hearts. We feel compelled to do something. Some will have an acute understanding of the experience because of the recent killing of their son or brother or husband, uncle or sister or mother or daughter. And by recent I mean as close as the experience is to their heart. But will it revive their anger and frustration? For a moment - maybe. But anger burns energy and the time for it has long past. The tirelessness of those campaigning for justice shockingly against the police is durable because their anger has regressed. In its place, action, will, determination. Spirited action and the conviction that they will succeed, however long it takes, however tiresome the fight or mightier their opponent. And if some of us are not angered or stirred to action this does not mean we do not empathise. But the lack of action or expression of empathy can cause some of us to make sweeping and confounding remarks, which this Shout hopes to address.

Contrary to a floating view that some of us only attended the march on 16th April because it was for Smiley Culture, for me it was because I was yet again faced with the memories, none more harrowing than that of Joy Gardner nearly twenty years ago and other deaths committed by the police throughout my lifetime in this country. My sister because her son had been arrested by police and forced to do community service for committing no crime whatever. My 22 year old niece because she wanted to be part of a collective committed to bringing change to her generation. I wonder whether the suggestion is that we shouldn’t act/protest in order to avoid the accusation of bandwaggoning or misguided idealism. I make no apology for participating in the march last week, whatever my reasons. If some of us are considered guilty of acting out of some fabricated and belated concern how then must those who did not participate in the march be judged? Should we consider them more righteous because they didn’t choose to ride the Smiley Culture bandwaggon? Should we denounce them as exercising nothing short of wanton apathy? Of course not. Everyone does “their thing a little way different” and within the timeliness of their own convictions.

Smiley Culture’s death has given the cause another profile because of his status, this is true, but the march called attention to the reality that deaths in police custody have for too long perpetuated with impunity. It highlighted that figures of victims alarmingly accelerate whilst the police responsible retain their liberty at our taxpaying expense. This freedom not only means they are above the law but that they are empowered to commit these inhumane offences again and again – in the name of the law. What this calls for is for every one of us to be at all times vigilant.

Last night I observed two policemen exercising their stop and search powers. They’d pulled over a black man; he seemed to be in his forties. His was not a flashy, sportsy car; if anything it looked like a family car (I’m useless at naming the models). Although I kept walking I was same time trying to observe what was happening as I have so many times done when I see police handling brothers. The man was being cooperative as far as I could tell; stressing almost jovially that he had wanted that particular model of car as opposed to the latest, but the policemen weren’t appealed by his light heartedness; after all he was ‘suspicious.’ They were instead seriously trying to find some kind of criminal act on his part. I continued my journey, sensing that the policemen might not get the satisfaction they craved from the guy, who seemed far too relaxed – and if I could stretch the thought- familiar with what was happening to him.

About an hour later I was speaking on the phone to a friend when he started railing at someone for rushing up to him. I thought it was a road rage moment with some random other driver. He was asking the other person why they’d approached him so aggressively when he was sitting in his car talking on the phone – that is he was emphasising that he was not committing any crime. It was then I realised he was talking to the police. They were asking him if the car was his (again, it was not flashy, nor noticeable). He told them it was. They were challenging his every word, which was heated because he couldn’t understand what they wanted from him. There have been a lot of guns and gang problems tonight so we’re checking everyone out – I heard them telling him. Fine – he responded, but why have you approached me so aggressively, I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m sitting in my car having pulled over to speak on the phone, minding my own business. They then said there was no need for him to be speaking to them the way he was (heatedly) when they were only doing their job. A beat of silence, then my friend asked them if they were going to arrest him or what to which they said no and left. Not before shouting after him “and don’t do it again.” My friend, enraged, yelled back at them “do what again?” but they had driven off. He was so vexed that we didn’t speak much more after this. But before we said limp, frustrated goodbyes he said that when they were pressing him he started to doubt himself, wondered if he had done something wrong; maybe he had started to speak to me (on his mobile) before he had pulled over. It took effort of will to be confident he hadn’t done anything wrong. Part of his anger was owing to the fact that a female relative had recently been assaulted by the police. The bitterest part, however, was that the experience was in his psyche causing him to repeat a few times before hanging up that "they’re starting this thing again."

Is it seriously possible that we’re seeing a resurgence of police over exercising their powers discriminatorily against black males? Would that not seem to frustrate our demonstration last week and the many isolated, low profile campaigns across the country? It reminds me of something I heard Robert King one of the ‘Angola 3’ say when he recently visited the UK. Asked whether they had support from any high profilers (celebs) to free Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox (the other two ‘Angola 3’) from further enduring solitary confinement in the US penal system, he said this: he believed the cause was best supported by ordinary people at the grass roots; he knew for a fact that the night Obama was elected a number of random arrests of black men were made as a message that nothing was going to change – the (white) man was still in charge. So rather than a resurgence I would say that the excessive use of force, killings and harassment of black people (mostly men) by the police is a perpetuation of a wheel in motion. Hence the march was also for the most recent custodial killing of Kingsley Burrell Brown in early April.

To be vigilant then is to ‘keep careful watch for possible danger or difficulties.’ After I hung up the phone to my friend I replayed the scenario and saw that his life could have easily been snatched from him by those policemen. I would have heard the killing on the phone but who would believe it -even with the evidence on our phones? Those policemen (read vigilantes) would still walk free and I would know they were guilty. The IPCC would be called to investigate – welcomed in fact by the police to do so – and yet the men who had killed my friend would be acquitted. The wheel in motion perpetuated. What faith can we have in the IPCC when they’ve not secured any conviction for a policeman involved in the death of someone in their custody? There is no faith in the IPCC because it is impossible to know precisely what makes them independent from the police.

At the march a sound call was made by Sean Rigg’s sister. Sean was another victim of police brutality – killed whilst in their custody in 2008. His sister through trembling, tear choked voice asked why it was that with CCTV cameras everywhere there wasn’t any in the backs of police vans. Why don’t they record their ‘busts’/’raids’ as a matter of course? It’s a rational call given that the numbers are mounting on both sides – policemen are being accused of offences which they deny and young - mostly black men are dying in suspicious circumstances whilst in their custody. Video evidence would be used to support either side to give the public assurance that justice is being properly and fairly served. It would also whittle out wheat from the tares. Surely not all policemen are deserving of Smiley’s cockney translation from “Ole Bill” to “Dutty Babylon.” But can I seriously say that to the families who are frustrated by a system that since the horrific hounding and eventual killing of David Oluwale as far back as 1969 has been so wicked, corrupt and unjust.

It will be noted that I make a bold assertion with the title and constant references to ‘killings’. To refer to these as ‘deaths’ is a euphemistic play on words for which now is not the time. After all, we’ve been told that Smiley Culture ‘killed’ himself. That means a ‘killing’ took place. Like his nephew Merlin Emmanuel, whose dignity and composure as the family’s spokesperson is commendable, and other members of the black community I cannot accept the scenario given by the police. We’ve been asked not to jump to conclusions until the outcome of the investigation. In other words, we’re expected in the meantime to accept the account given by the police that Smiley stabbed himself through the heart whilst he was allowed by them to make himself a cup of tea. We must accept this insulting account whilst allowing the police time to embellish their story. This would take some doing though – rather like trying to polish a worthless piece of diamante to see it if might magically turn to diamond.

To the comfy cohort who raise the argument that Smiley was on a drugs charge I ask whether this vindicates his killing by police. And is this drugs charge punishable by death? A charge does not mean guilt. That is for the court to decide. What in any case does that alleged charge have to do with the present incident? I am reminded here of the crucifixion of Jesus – a David, an Emmanuel whose people told Pontius Pilate (symbolic of the Roman system) to go ahead and crucify him. Our march last week represented the root of ‘vigilance.’ It was a kind of ‘vigil’ meaning ‘a period of staying awake during the time usually spent asleep, especially to keep watch.’ To that cohort who condemns our actions we say that’s your right - for while you criticise and sleep we’ll keep vigil for your sakes as well as ours and future generations who deserve to live freely with dignity and without fear. I walked behind a friend whose shouting vigorously and passionately summed up our feelings about what we’re protesting against: “HUNDREDS OF YEARS WE BEEN HERE AN’ DEM STILL AH PISS PON WE.” To that we say resoundingly enough is enough.

Shout Out

Olive Morris: A voice unedited

Just look at you
barefoot and free
commanding
me to see
your full face of pride
demanding
that I stand beside
you chanting

The Red Brick
knows no way
to drum your dreams
and anguish
and seems so silent
though a troubling pitch
of noise screams -
unfinished business

Rippling my miserable
mediocrity
compelling me to rise
from sleep’s wanton
inactivity
to talk much less
and for god sake do
something.

For Olive Morris –International woman

Certain admissions are woefully embarrassing. But the honest heart must attend to them in some way or other. Must be nearly two years now that I’ve had a picture in my house of a sister I hadn’t until now attempted to know. So why is she on my kitchen wall? She must have put herself there – at least spiritually. I did the physical action of printing it out along with other pictures of Black icons in the seventies and laminating it - this was for a ‘decades’ party I was having. After the party I kept her there – not through any kind of laziness – she just seemed to belong. She’s smiling beneath Marsha Hunt – ‘big fro... lil fro warriors’ is the caption I wrote. I didn’t even find the picture myself. A sister emailed it to me saying, ‘I had to forward this to you as Olive Morris and you so resemble...it’s a good resemblance to have as she was a warrior sistah,’ My reply was ‘thanks. My skin’s crawling.’

Spirit knows the significance of vanity on a feeble conscience. But it’s always a matter of time before the divine purpose of a connection is manifested. I didn’t take time to look for Olive. It seemed enough to parade her on my wall, utterly pleased at the physical resemblance. People would ask, confusedly, if it was me they were seeing. And I wouldn’t properly reply, I’d giggle - idiotically almost, basking in something I didn’t comprehend. Who was this woman? If they asked me her name, I really couldn’t say. I didn’t feel embarrassed that I couldn’t explain who she was; that I didn’t consciously register her name after being forwarded the email. The resemblance seemed to me to say all that was necessary. How shamefully wrong that was.

After the last Shout, which privileged three brothers it’s as if I felt her spirit straining for some of that – or the same. What about me – she was saying. Don’t forget me. The picture on the wall began to take on new life, pressuring me to look for, not simply at Olive. The purpose of those two years hence connection was manifesting. How many times had I driven past that building in Brixton where she has been memorialised? But on discovering this, something still bugged me about how little she is known. I don’t know if I’m saying that the building isn’t enough or whether there’s something too silent about it – maybe something missable as well as missing there. Online entries about her note unspecific birth and death dates – ‘1952-1979’. But when exactly? I needed, for some yet unfathomable reason to know the precise dates. I kept searching but every entry was thus limited and it annoyed me. I know the annoyance was probably more at myself for my belated interest.

I determined to visit the Lambeth Archives where I was sure I could find her exact dates of birth and death. That place – which houses archival material about Olive – was snaky to find. My heart was drumming as I drove round and round, knowing with each mistaken turn (no sat-nav in my beat up banger) that I was so very near to finding Olive. Once there, I was overcome with that satisfied feeling of achievement. The effort mattered. Two boxes – one they couldn’t find without some tumbling up – held images and recordings of a life briefly lived. My eyes lit up – this seems pathetic now- when I noticed a passport because I was determined more than anything to know how specifically brief that life was. Olive Elaine Morris was born 26th June 1952 and died 12th July 1979 after completing almost exactly 27 years of life. I breathed.

The life was brief but full. It expresses that utmost urgency of spirit that is beyond the weights of gravity. She was on spirit side from time and so utterly fearless. That’s what we see in that barefooted feature – some spirit up in the face of human oppressors. The warrior weapon is her voice – an unbounded one – whose pitch and dramatic soprano held accented Jamaican notes. The adorable lyrics of that line crucially said everything about what she meant. How do I know how she sounded? It is simply that the loudspeaker is still sounding: ‘stop police Nazi activity in Brixton’ shouts from one of her flyers. The leaflet highlighted the systematic harassment of Black youths in Brixton following one of the many Notting Hill Carnival riots. That harassment persists in differing signs.

One of the photos in the archive - and there are so many that depict snatches of a full-on activist’s life – is particularly grievous. It is 1969, Olive looks mashed up – you can see the ashy skin even though the image is black and white. You notice still a troubling smirk escaping despite the ordeal. She looks much older than 17. The picture was taken at Kings College Hospital following a police assault. At the back she found it necessary to inscribe “taken at about 10pm on 15th Nov ’69 after the police had beating me up.’ You’ve read the verb correctly – that’s exactly what she wrote, ‘beating...’ Why struggle to find the past tense of a verb for which the action is perpetual.

Yet there's an image that delighted me – made me smile someplace surreal - one where Olive is up in the face of two policemen. The veins in her neck are straining as if she’s attached to invisible chains pulling her in the opposite direction. A white woman is watching, as others are, stunned, silenced by this warrior’s unrelenting will.

On 14th March 1986 she was honoured with the naming of Olive Morris House in Brixton. You will have passed it many times. But I don’t think that if you’re now compelled, as she has made me to really look for her that’s where you need begin. Spirits don’t remain where they’re buried - in cold coffins and tombs. Memorial buildings tell you that they’ve once lived but hardly say for what and how. And if you’re really curious to know why so brief the life and for what purpose it came, perhaps you’ll have to be ready like Elisha when Elijah was mystically caught up and had to leave behind the prophetic mantle.

Shout Out

Living Lights

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity." Malcolm X

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery none but ourselves can free our mind. Have no fear for atomic energy, cause none of them can stop the time. How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look. Some say it’s just a part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book.” Bob Marley, 'Redemption Song'

“I believe I'm going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I'm going to die high off the people. I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.” Fred Hampton

Certain energies come in with a force so swift gravity alone cant keep them down. They’re beyond gravity’s pull. They almost seem as though they weren’t born or as though they aren’t real or living as you or I. Yet they are very real because it feels as though you know them – as though you’ve always known them deeply, intimately, truly. Throughout this month, three brothers have been riding my spirit. I don’t know what I mean by that but perhaps I can briefly illustrate in these words which I trust will serve as libation to their memory.

February, though annoyingly short (thanks to Roman egotistical dalliances), is significant for various reasons. I came to England in February over thirty years ago. It was treacherously cold and I’d been stuffed into an awful hand sewn blue suit whose style was still hankering back to the 70s to make the special, life changing trip. I looked ridiculous – it was some strange prickly fabric – I think I even had on platform shoes with those never-ending rubber heels! Anyway we had been here for just one year when I vaguely recollect hearing that Bob Marley had died. He was born in February. I cant quite explain it and I don’t care how curious it sounds but there has always been in some remote part of me a belief that I was related to Bob Marley. Rather, that he was someone I really knew.

The song that sticks most in my mind is ‘War’. As children we used to play about with the words, unaware then of their import; rhyming ‘East with ‘sheh crease’ and ‘north’ with ‘under sheh skirt’ and so on; childstuff (obviously male inflexed). I know now that they stemmed from an address made by Emperor Haile Selassie to the league of Nations in 1963. I’ve since used the words of this song as part of my lectures to reveal that the cry for human dignity will ever be prevalent – that as long as one group of people believe in their superiority over others there will always be a humanitarian struggle; that, as we see across the middle east, this struggle is also about systems of beliefs that deny people their human rights. And as we almost voyeuristically watch what’s unfolding there we might take some sordid pleasure in believing that this human struggle is an abstraction that is removed from our experiences. But subtly we’re being pressured and squeezed and frustrated but we have too many distractions to really deal with how crucially we’re being affected. How should we describe a government for which the majority of a nation’s people did not vote? How should we regard the chop and slice of crucial social and community services (libraries, schools, hospitals/NHS care, etc), and the arbitrary increases in everything (especially and despicably the price of education) by our government? And hauntingly as ‘War’ alludes Africa continues to be raped of its resources, its people enslaved by the global economic trade system that denies their right to self sufficiency. So the chant for freedom and redemption that we hear in the undying rhythms of Bob is like a constant invective toward those systems that have no regard for humanity. But systems topple; ‘none can stop the time.’ It is only a matter of time.

February is also when Malcolm X died. I’m not sure when Malcolm entered my soul. There was always a picture of him floating about the house – that one with him and the gun, guarding his home peering through the window; the words ‘by any means necessary’ were on the bottom banner. Again, Malcolm came to me as no stranger. He looked like someone I knew; someone I’d always known. There’s this black and white picture of my father which must have been taken in the 60s. He’s wearing thick rimmed spectacles just like Malcolm. He has that same penetrative, intelligent, serious stare as if there is so much contained within him. Like Malcolm my dad died young. I didn’t literally know him - so it’s the same spiritual soul deep type of knowing of an ethereal presence that I have for Malcolm.

That quotation about the light is my favourite because it speaks again about the middle meeting toward human compassion, dignity and intelligence. It’s urging us to reach toward the spirit of humanity which is our light. Malcolm here is at peace with himself and conscious of his light. That consciousness was deep enough for him to know, be prepared for the death that would come when he was only 39. In his ‘Redemption’ song Bob was conscious too of his mortality, of his light; of his time to return. Redemption has a lonely sound, because that road Bob knew he had to tread alone. And Malcolm was that prophet gunned down when he was surrounded by so many – that’s the way of assassinations, it's true, but it was timely, unstoppable – his light was that swift force, that fleeting star. Although swift, he left his light on. When you listen to him or look at a picture of him after a while it stops appearing as though you know him, but it’s as if he knows you. Actually it’s as if he’s marking you or demanding something of you. Maybe it’s that you never forget or that you acknowledge the greatness of his light. It might get to that point of anxiety because you’re not sure how deeply you would be or whether you know anyone who is prepared to die if that’s the cost of expressing their truth.

The only connection with Fred Hampton and February is that earlier this month I saw the screening of a film that looks at his murder. Another prophet – it cannot be denied – gunned down by the system of white supremacy against which he fought. Not only fought, but, as the above quotation illustrates, he was prepared to die denouncing. Most remarkably Fred was only twenty one. Twenty one. His light was so immense, so bright it shone all through his face, deep into his sharp dimples and lit up his everywhere. His light terrified the ‘pigs’ –the white supremacists who weren’t down for his kind of Truth. What was so wrong in demanding that African Americans protect themselves against the terrorists that were the American Police primarily but also the system that denied them human rights? What was so wrong, so criminal in creating a food programme for children? What was frightening about providing free medical care for poor African Americans and actually European Americans too? What was so outrageous about persuading street gangs that they were not each others’ enemies and to stop fighting one another? Anyone who looks at that kind of manifestation of pure light and Truth and declares it threatening, as J.Edgar Hoover did, is by contrast uncompromisingly evil. For just as there are light beams there are dark forces. Hence the struggle of humanity is not something that happens in specific decades – like the 60s (Civil Rights), or 70s (more Civil Rights, Vietnam War; racism in the UK), or 80s (unemployment, more racism in UK) and so on – but it’s perpetual, an ever present phenomenon. And you can feel it now – that revolutionary thing biting, but we sit and we watch and hardly believe in what we’re feeling because truly it’s frightening.

None of these prophets really died. That’s a physical thing that they seemed beyond. That’s why they were ready for death, knew it had to come but that it was nothing for them to fear – a necessary fulfilment of their book. In The Murder of Fred Hampton there’s a clip of his girlfriend, Deborah Johnson (now Akua Njeri) describing the morning he was brutally murdered. At the time she was 8 months pregnant with their child, Fred Hampton Jr. As she’s talking baby Fred is upfront in the camera, bubbling and sounding and all lit up, demanding we focus on him. And we do; we cant help it because Fred Jr bears perhaps not only the image of his father – nothing uncanny about it – it just is – but he is also brimming with the same kind of ‘high’ and light for which his father lived. He was born about three weeks after his father was killed – his mother barely escaping with the two lives, despite also being shot at by ‘pigs.’ The undying light of his father’s spirit resounds in his words ‘you can kill a revolutionary, but you cannot kill the revolution.’ But the ‘pigs’ will keep trying as Fred Jr will attest.

Betty Shabazz, Malcolm’s wife was also pregnant when he was assassinated. One of the twins born six months after her father’s killing made more news this February for a trail of offences that we’ll never truly understand. We daren’t think it’s a shame because we don’t understand how deeply she is affected by the power of her father, and mother’s light. The struggle of their family is ever, like that of humanity – it’s ancestral if we recall the wicked way Malcolm’s father was killed and the torment of the family by KKK terrorists. For Bob also there was a child born weeks after he died. Whose skin doesn’t crawl when we hear one of those children extending their vocals not merely to exact their father’s sound, but to perfect the image of his light?

I don’t mind that they have toyed with my spirit this month. It has been a kind of comfort. I don’t ever want to forget them; nor do I ever feel weirded out by that feeling that I’ve always known them. When I hear their sound, watch the manifestation of their light through their orating/singing, when the rhythm of their words penetrate my soul I feel both at once alive and enraged. And both I want to feel. In that way I can bask a little, meditate somewhat in the reflection of their light and get a bit closer to that something for which I too might be prepared to live and die.


Shout Out

Our Year?

I was in contemplation with an ancestor
the other morning.
She told me that she had seen darkness
in my aura
and she said that I would be betrayed
during the revolution.
I stopped the thing I was doing
and asked her - ‘what revolution’?

The revolution she said
that’s fomenting inside your head
pumping boiling blood around the circuit of your heart
the one that zealously gnaws at your intestines
churning your insides
devouring your cells like an embittered
vengeful tumour

It’s the one unleashing barricades of freedom
the one that raises empowered fists
to impassioned hails and chanted vivas
the one upturning stones and
unearthing dis-remembered truths
one that is a race against the atrocities of time
the one saluting your self-will and self-reliance
reclaiming untold legacies
it is the one repossessing your blighted prosperity
the one that is reviving your felicity

it is the revolution, she said that is
sparking your intuition
the revolution that is wombed
and waiting to be born of a
much more determined push somewhere
a little further from your imagination...

Stirrings that won’t simmer

There is a context for the year that I imagine most people are not aware of. The UN has declared 2011 the ‘International Year for People of African Descent.’ I’m trying to understand what it really means. Here’s some of the online blurb about it: “The year aims to strengthen international, national and regional cooperation to benefit the people of African descent, and to recognize and promote their political, economic, social and cultural contributions from their diverse heritage and culture.” (1) The same source mentions that the Guyanese Government is planning to mark the year with a series of activities that promote the historical and cultural legacies of Africans in Guyana. I imagine at the assembly that President Jagdeo gushed out these promises to trump the charges of racism against his government. No one’s fooled. This, of course, has queasy political vibrations because of the upcoming election when everyone tends to find their own racial shelter. Still, I suppose other countries with sizeable African communities will be knocking similar drums to mark the year.

I’m not sure how the year is being ‘marked’ here though. Where has it been mentioned so that we all heard and understood it? Was it amidst the popping of poppers and champagne, the stomping on balloons, in the warblings of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that signalled the New Year? As declared by the UN at the 2009 General Assembly, “the Year aims at strengthening national actions and regional and international cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for their diverse heritage and culture.”(2) It therefore urges member states to actively participate and promote the event, self-funded, of course. But is this order too tall for the UK as a ‘Member State’ to take seriously? What does this silent drum mean? What is being planned by the UK government to mark this momentous occasion?

One month into what’s supposed to be ‘our year’ and the Tories and ‘Dems have made it clear, they’re not interested. There’s a global recession –that’s the only tune. The cultural, social, economic and political rights of AFRICANS are just not items for this country’s agenda. But we’ll get a day to roll our eyes at that yawn of a wedding beautifully timed to distract the masses. Some of us will shamelessly catch ourselves fawning at the bizarre pompousness we’re paying for whilst we’re yet denied social, political and economic rights.

So for those of us who want to strut with the UN’s gesture I think we’ll have to make ‘our year’ ourselves. Each one will hopefully remember not only to teach one, but to express mutual respect for each other. We don’t need any more crumbs, if that’s what the mask of this year really is. We want to be economically empowered for real, but no one is going to help us enjoy all those rights we don’t already have. It’s incredible to think that they have to declare a year (the Indigenous Peoples’ had their ‘Year’ a while back) in which to recognise the (Human) Rights of a particular group of people? I think Malcolm sums it up better when he seriously asks “how can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?"

Perhaps if nothing else, we should embrace this year to seriously reflect on the depth of our collective experience – where we’ve been and who we are self-determining to be. It’s easy to lose (in)sight in the midst of these blinding Western lights. Any kind of revolution towards our self-determination is down to us. Revolution needs to be realised in ways that creatively channel our energies toward economic liberation and the liberation of our minds, hence the poem (Stirrings) I Shouted a few years ago. This fleeting, almost mocking homage of our humanity should not discourage us. It should make us fully alert to the hypocrisies that continue to deny us the substance of human dignity. There is yet a dehumanising philosophy that ‘holds one race superior and another inferior’ – this is our reality. We do not have to convince ourselves of the Rights of all peoples. This is what we have always known – that the world is diverse and that diversity is its richness. I say this not so that we might feel some kind of self-righteousness, but so we might understand why the drums are silent in the mainstream here. Since the UK takes lead from the US I’m not truly surprised by the silence. Did Barak Obama make a beat that recognised the significance of this year? I didn’t hear it, if he did. Didn’t his year begin with a roll in the sack with China’s Hu Jintao? This should tell us where his priorities are. I hear you; the man’s doing what the man has to do, right?

Fact is –as it’s always been - we have to beat our own drums, not for a month here (Black History) or a year there, but always. We have to create our own opportunities for economic enjoyment, tough as that is. That’s how we achieve self-respectability. If we do not have easy access to certain gates and doors we have to create new entrances. We have to keep bracing that wind and endure like the 'Ayo'. If there was no such thing as ‘employment’ – being paid pittance for the labour we give to someone else – what is it that we can do to claim our economic liberty? I’m no economist; I diverge on the territory only to try to understand the meaning of the UN’s gesture and to highlight how quietly ‘our year’ has crept in on us. Any beating of drums we’ll hear by keeping our ears to the ground, and we’ll feel that beating in our blood with every drop of libation we pour this year in honour of our ancestors.

Shout Out

I’ve listed a few links that might interest you.

(1) http://www.timeanddate.com/year/2011/african-descent.html
(2) http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41031&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html

http://www.un.org/observances/years.shtml

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/events/african_odysseys/african_odysseys_the_murder_of_fred_hampton_death_of_a_revolut

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2010/12/special-event-launching-of-the-international-year-of-peoples-of-african-descent.html
(this shows the lack of seriousness about the year...)

http://www.footballgambia.org.uk

http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk

http://adinkra.org