Our Dead Sisters

In this city I call home we celebrate Gay Pride for one week every February. In our country we can live in union, have joint bank accounts and can even be named in our lover’s wills. Meanwhile an epidemic is sweeping through our land unchecked. Daily we are adding names to the long list of lesbians being attacked, our deceased sisters slain at the hands of those they know.

The media does their bit – bringing home the awful reality of ‘corrective rape’ sweeping through our black townships. At large the battle is fought by NGO’s. A march to court in support of too many drawn-out cases. A demonstration to parliament demanding the recognition of our human rights.

The balance lays with every one of us –our ability to see this as our collective struggle. As women, as lesbians, as human beings, as mothers and fathers, a community of sisters and brothers, a country saying “NO!” to the rape of women regardless of how we dress, our sexual persuasions and our street address.

With every call to action and news bulletin, a name is added to the list. Today I will mention only one – Zoliswa Nkonyana. A 19 year old living in Khayelitsha, Cape Town murdered for being a lesbian on 4 February 2006. Now 40 postponements and more than 5 years later, the 9 men accused of this brutal hate crime have dropped to 7. In the course of the trial several of the accused men requested to be charged as minors as they were not of age when the murder was commited. A year ago, 4 escaped from police custody but were re-arrested. Poor police work coupled with the prosecution’s weak case show the long arm the law discarding Zoliswa’s story.

We are called to action:

Come, speak up for your dead sisters!

In protest of the shocking results of the 4 year old trial for the murder of Zoliswa Nkonyana:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2011/09/08/lesbian-killing-two-go-free

Time: Tuesday, September 20 • 4:00pm – 7:00pm
Location:  Ndifuna Ukwazi Offices, #203 in building, 47 on Strand, Corner Strand and Long Streets, Cape Town

There will be a meeting to organise a march and legal case on the criminal justice system.

This is a poem I wrote after a march to Khayelitsha Regional Court possibly postponement #36:

zoliswa and i                 fifteen march twenty ten

brutally gang raped by your own times nine
slain for your freedom
for looking the way you do
for loving the way they do
your womanhood lay cold in the night
today i marched for you.

the gun pressed to my head
the violation tearing at my flesh
the far away place
i hid my heart in
the numbness
today i marched for me.

your blood flowed today
filled the streets in song
the rhythm of our footsteps
our clenched fists raised high
against a failing system
today we marched for you.

for all who know the pain
the unspoken, unreported
endured
for those left behind bearing witness
for all our mothers, daughters and sisters
today i marched for you.