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10
Contents
editorial
NYOKABI KARIŨKI
On Learning that one of the first Electronic Works was by an African, Halim El-Dabh
MARIMBA ANI
An Aesthetic of Control
JANNIKE BERGH in conversation with HAIDAR EID
Even Ghosts Weep in Gaza
WANELISA XABA
White psychology, Black indecipherability and iThongo
Theme African Psychology
DYLAN VALLEY & BISO MATHA RIALGO
An Epidemic of Loneliness - introduction to the African Psychology theme section of herri #10
KOPANO RATELE in dialogue with ARYAN KAGANOF
Psychology Contra Psychology: In Search of the Most Appropriate Definition of African Psychology
N CHABANI MANGANYI
On Becoming a Psychologist in Apartheid South Africa
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
African Psychology: serving as a reminder of human universals which have been lost or forgotten in mainstream Western psychology.
AUGUSTINE NWOYE
From Psychological Humanities to African Psychology: A Review of Sources and Traditions
SAM MATHE
Naming
ZETHU CAKATA
Ubugqirha: healing beyond the Western gaze
KOPANO RATELE
Dethingifying
PUMEZA MATSHIKIZA
A Psychological Explanation of Myself
SYLVIA VOLLENHOVEN
The Elephants in the Room
GWEN ANSELL
A New African String Theory: The Art of Being Yourself and Being with Others
ISMAHAN SOUKEYNA DIOP
Exploring Afro-centric approaches to mental healthcare
KOPANO RATELE
Four (African) Psychologies
LOU-MARIE KRUGER
Hunger
FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA
"We are a wounded people."
CHARLA SMITH
Die “kywies” by die deur
KOPANO RATELE
Estrangement
MWELELA CELE
Sisi Khosi Xaba and the translation of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth into isiZulu
HUGO KA CANHAM
Leaving psychology to look for shades and complexity in despair
MALAIKA MAHLATSI
When Black academics leave historically White institutions
PAUL KHAHLISO
AGAINST COLONIAL PSYCHOLOGY
KOPANO RATELE
The interior life of Mtutu: Psychological fact or fiction?
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
Call Me Not a Man
WILFRED BARETT DAMON
James Joyce En Ek
ASHRAF KAGEE
Three friends in Gaza: We grieve, we mourn, we condemn, we deplore, we march, we demonstrate, we attend seminars and webinars, we wave flags, we wear keffiyas, we show off our t-shirts, but still the killing continues.
KOPANO RATELE AND SOPHIA SANAN
African Art, Black Subjectivity, and African Psychology: Refusing Racialised Structures of Aesthetic or Identity Theories
galleri
DATHINI MZAYIYA
Musidrawology as Methodology
STEVEN J. FOWLER
Dathini Mzayiya – the sound of the mark as it comes into being.
NONCEDO GXEKWA
Musidrawology as Portraits of the Artist Dathini Mzayiya & his Art
NONCEDO GXEKWA & NADINE CLOETE
Musidrawology as Methodology: a work of art by Dathini Mzayiya
NJABULO PHUNGULA
Like Knotted Strings
SPACE AFRIKA
oh baby
STRAND COMMUNITY ART PROJECT
Hands of the Future
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
The Blue Notes: Searching for Form and Freedom
DESMOND PAINTER
'with all the ambivalence of a car in the city...'
KOPANO RATELE
Ngoana Salemone/Mother
SOPHIA OLIVIA SANAN
Art as commodity, art as philosophy, art as world-making: notes from a conversation with Kopano Ratele on African Art, Black Subjectivity and African Psychology
ROBIN TOMENS
"Why don't you do something right and make a mistake?"
SIMON TAYLOR
On The Ontological Status of the Image
borborygmus
NAPO MASHEANE
Manifesto ea mokha oa makomonisi
MAKHOSAZANA XABA
Curious and Willing: Ngazibuza Ngaziphendula, Ngahumusha Kwahumusheka
RICHARD PITHOUSE
The Wretched of the Earth becomes Izimpabanga Zomhlaba
FRANTZ FANON/ MAKHOSAZANA XABA
The Wretched of the Earth - Conclusion
EUGENE SKEEF
Yighube!
VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU
Amahubo
MBE MBHELE
Who cares about Mandisi Dyantyis Anyway?
KARABO KGOLENG
Women and Water
BONGANI TAU
Notes on Spirit Capital
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
Conflict Cultures and the New South Africa
ADAM KEITH
A Conversation with Debby Friday
DICK EL DEMASIADO
Some Notes on Cumbia and Dub
MULTIPLE AUTHORS
Thinking decolonially towards music’s institution: A post-conference reflection
frictions
AAKRITI KUNTAL
Still
FORTUNATE JWARA
In between wor(l)ds
KHADIJA TRACEY HEEGER
A Love Letter
SHAFINAAZ HASSIM
Take your freedom and run
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
10 New Poems
KHULILE NXUMALO
Two Poems For
HENNING PIETERSE
Translating Van den vos Reynaerde (Of Reynaert the Fox) into Afrikaans
OSWALD KUCHERERA
Words to Treasure
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
To kill a man's pride
KELWYN SOLE
Political Fiction, Representation and the Canon: The Case of Mtutuzeli Matshoba
SABATA-MPHO MOKAE
Maboko a ga Alexander Pushkin 1799 - 1837
NAÒMI MORGAN
Why translate Godot into Afrikaans?
TENZIN TSUNDUE
Three Poems
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DILIP M. MENON
Hugo ka Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes
BARBARA ROUSSEAUX
Undoing Fascism: Notes on Milisuthando
WAMUWI MBAO
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Reclaiming the Territory of the Mind
SISCA JULIUS
Ausi Told Me: My Cape Herstoriography
SERGIO HENRY BEN
Read. Write. Relevance. A review of Herman Lategan's Hoerkind.
MARIO PISSARRA
the Imagined New is a Work in Progress
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The city is mine by Niq Mhlongo: A review
KARABO KGOLENG
The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell
DOMINIC DAULA
Pain, Loss, and Reconciliation in Music and Society
KNEO MOKGOPA
Normal Bandits: Mix Tape Memories by Anders Høg Hansen
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
‘Southern Cinema Aesthetics’: broadly imagined in multiple frames
RUTH MARGALIT
Writing the Nakba in Hebrew
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
Coming to Johnson
ekaya
KOPANO RATELE
From "Wilcocks" to "Krotoa": The Name Changing Ceremony
ARYAN KAGANOF
The herriverse: Introducing a new kind of Research Method, one that is Structural or even Meta- insofar as it exists in the Reader’s Navigation of the Curated Space and the Possible Contingent Connections as much as in the Objects being Curated; an Epistemic Construction therefore, that is obliquely but absolutely determined by Ontologically Unpredictable Exchanges.
MARTIJN PANTLIN
Introducing herri Search
off the record
UHURU PHALAFALA
Keorapetse Kgositsile & The Black Arts Movement Book Launch, Book Lounge, Cape Town Wednesday 24 April 2024.
PALESA MOKWENA
Lefifi Tladi - "invisible caring" or, seeing and being seen through a spiritual lens
CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE
Edmund "Ntemi” Piliso Jazzing Through Defeat And Triumph: An Interview
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
CHRIS McGREGOR (1936-1990): Searching for Form and Freedom
SHAUN JOHANNES
In Memoriam Clement Benny
VEIT ERLMANN
"Singing Brings Joy To The Distressed" The Social History Of Zulu Migrant Workers' Choral Competitions
SAM MATHE
Stimela Sase Zola
MARKO PHIRI
Majaivana's Odyssey
EZEKIEL MPHAHLELE
The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction
BASIAMI “CYNTHIA” WAGAFA
Hyper-Literary Fiction: The (meta)Poetics Of Digital Fragmentation – an interview with August Highland
feedback
DIANA FERRUS
Thursday 20 February, 2020
LWAZI LUSHABA
Saturday 4 April 2020
NJABULO NDEBELE
Sunday 5 December 2021
BEN WATSON
6 June 2023 20:50
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Facebook
herri_gram FEEDBACK
Instagram
the selektah
LERATO “Lavas” MLAMBO
Real human person – a mix by Lavas
SIEMON ALLEN & CHRIS ALBERTYN
Celebrating the genius of Ntemi Edmund Piliso: A mix-tape of twenty five tunes recorded on 78rpm shellac in 25 years – 1953 to 1968
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
Stone Unturned 18: The Static Cargo of Stars
PhD
WARRICK SWINNEY
Stick Fighting against extinction: end beginnings and other dada nihilismus polemics
hotlynx
HOTLYNX
hotlynx
shopping
SHOPPING
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contributors
the back page
ELMI MULLER
Fugitive reflections on pain, death, and surgery
DICK TUINDER
Rob Schröder (13 November 1950 - 6 July 2024)
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TENZIN TSUNDUE

Three Poems

SOMEWHERE I LOST MY LOSAR[1] The term ‘Losar’ translates to “New Year” in the Tibetan language, where ‘Lo’ means year and ‘Sar’ means new.

Somewhere along the path, I
lost it, don’t know where or when.

It wasn’t a one-fine-day incident.
As I grew up it just got left behind,
very slowly, and I didn’t go back for it.
It was there when as a kid I used to wait
for the annual momo dinner,
when we lined up for gifts that came
wrapped in newspapers in our
refugee school, it was there when
we all gained a year together, before
birthdays were cakes and candles.

Somewhere along the path, I
lost it, don’t know where or when.

When new clothes started to feel
stiff and firecrackers frightening, when
our jailed heroes ate in pig sties there,
or were dead, heads smashed
against the wall as we danced
to Bollywood numbers here,
when the boarding school and uniforms
took care of our daily needs, when
family meant just good friends,
sometime when Losar started to mean
a new year, few sacred routines,
somehow, I lost my Losar.

Somewhere along the path, I
lost it, don’t know where or when.

Colleged in seaside city, when it was
still Bombay, sister’s family on pilgrimage,
uncle in Varanasi, mother grazing cows
in South India, still need to report
to Dharamsala police, couldn’t get train tickets,
too risky to try waiting list, and it’s
three days, including return journey
it’s one week. Even if I go,
other siblings may not find the time. Adjusting
timings, it’s been 20 years without a Losar.

Somewhere along the path, I
lost it, don’t know where or when.

Losar is when we the juveniles and bastards
call home, across the Himalayas and cry
into the wire. Losar is some plastic flowers
and a momo party. And then in 2008
when our people rode horses, shouting ‘Freedom’
against rattling machine guns, when they
died like flies in the Olympics’ spectacle,
we shaved our heads bald and threatened
to die by fasting, but failed.

Somewhere along the path, I
lost it, don’t know where or when.
Somewhere, I lost my Losar.

REMEMBER HOW WE WALKED

99 days of walking,
300 heads in a single line, one behind the other
bearing Gandhi and Dalai Lama photos, talking
but not able to look into each other’s eyes,
one head following the other, telling each other
personal stories and secrets, walking through green fields,
dark valleys, high mountains, over old bridges,
through the busy streets of Moradabad,
attempting to sing like Bob Marley,
singing old Bollywood number ‘suhana safar hai’
clarifying that we are Tibetans, not ‘ching-chong’,
not related to Jackie Chan.
99 days of sleeping by the roadside
dreaming of home, thinking of Chinese bullets
and all that noise in Tibet’s prisons,
99 days of saying namaste to every Indian
we pass by on the way,
in the rains, thunder showers or
scorching heat in Rudrapur,
reading newspapers on the walk and not missing
the fresh cowdung on the path,
mosquitoes and leeches in the jungles on the way to Didihat,
the higher Kumaon mountains, sweating, sweat
that wets your clothes to the skin, blisters that pop
like chewing gum leaving behind sorry red-eyes in the feet,
shoes with worn out soles and still looking nice from the top,
99 days of celibacy and
the guarantee of good behaviour, monks and nuns
and gay people, getting arrested and spending days in jail
with murderers and rapists,
leaving behind parents, family and
close Indian college friends, missing emailing,
and yahoo chat, hi5 and photos on facebook,
marching to Tibet
inch by inch, every day,
worrying what next
the police will do, what will happen
at the border, walking into uncertainty.
99 days of walking, wistfully thinking
believing we are returning home
in a dream and waking to a jolt when
Indian police arrested us
on the 99th day, packed in buses, trucks
and jeeps, and sent back
from the doorsteps of Tibet,
back to Delhi…
remember how we walked for 99 days …

When It Rains in Dharamsala

When it rains in Dharamsala
raindrops wear boxing gloves,
thousands of them
come crashing down
and beat my room.
Under its tin roof
my room cries from inside
and wets my bed, my papers.

Sometimes the clever rain comes
from behind my room,
the treacherous walls lift
their heels and allow
a small flood into my room.

I sit on my island-nation bed
and watch my country in flood,
notes on freedom,
memoirs of my prison days,
letters from college friends,
crumbs of bread
and Maggi noodles
rise sprightly to the surface
like a sudden recovery
of a forgotten memory.

Three months of torture,
monsoon in the needle-leafed pines
Himalaya rinsed clean
glistens in the evening sun.

Until the rain calms down
and stops beating my room
I need to console my tin roof
who has been on duty
from the British Raj.
This room has sheltered
many homeless people.

Now captured by mongooses
and mice, lizards and spiders,
and partly rented by me.
A rented room for home
is a humbling existence.

My Kashmiri landlady
at eighty cannot return home.
We often compete for beauty
Kashmir or Tibet.

Every evening
I return to my rented room.
But I am not going to die this way.
There has got to be
some way out of here.
I cannot cry like my room
I have cried enough
in prisons and
in small moments of despair.

There has got to be
some way out of here.
I cannot cry,
my room is wet enough.

Notes
1. ↑ The term ‘Losar’ translates to “New Year” in the Tibetan language, where ‘Lo’ means year and ‘Sar’ means new.
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