by David Wilson

Umkhonto We Sizwe Amandla

Description:

In the United States, the white picket fence represented the American dream, but in South Africa, it represented the African nightmare - APART - HATE (Apartheid).

Umkhonto We Siswe is the motto of the African National Congress, the organization to which Nelson Mandela belonged. It means: Spear of the Nation. I remember the day when Nelson Mandela was released from prison because I followed the entire days proceedings on television in NYC where I have lived from 1976. I am originally from the Caribbean, The Commonwealth of Dominica, to be more specific. Amandla was the first word I ever heard Mr. Mandela utter when he was released from prison in 1990.

At the time of Mr. Mandela’s release, the popular dance in South Africa was the Toi Toi dance in which the dancers would raise their legs alternatively, in a stamping motion, as if in defiance of the oppressive Apartheid System that had terrorized them for so long. So, one sees the two dancers performing the Toi Toi dance as they wave the flag of the African National Congress and the Pan African flag. They dance in the street in protest of the Apartheid laws as they pass the white picket fences which, in America, are a sign of individual progress. However, for them, it was more of a nightmare. In the USA, the white picket fence represents The American dream, - owning one’s own home. However, in South Africa, the white picket fence was the African nightmare. The fence represents the divisions along the lines of race, thus creating Apartheid or APART- HATE - People kept apart through Hate (That’s my personal meaning of it). APART-HATE is what the word sounds like when the South Africans say it. And that is what it means to me. Together the dancers and the houses represent the image of Mr. Mandela, magnanimous with his smile as he bears no ill feelings for his long incarceration and sees it as the price that he had to pay for the freedom of his people. So he smiles. The smile represents the true Christian aspect of forgiveness.

© David G. Wilson

Please Click On The Picture Links Below For More Information:









About:

I am exhausting tremendous efforts in trying to depict a spacial dimension that is inclusive of the third and supported by a two dimensional surface. It is a dimension that exists somewhere within our three dimensional terrestrial space, congruent and mutually inclusive of empirical realities. Its existence is contingent on the shifting retinal impressions of the viewer's perceptions. I call it:

'Alternative Reality'




The Commonwealth of Dominica



Now Lives

Jamaica, NY - United States