NPO’s work set to take stage at global rally
CAPE Town NPO Cape Cultural Collective will feature on the programme of an online global anti-racism rally on Friday.
Millions of participants, which include movements and audiences from Minneapolis and Soweto to London and Jerusalem, will be introduced to the Cape Cultural Collective’s music and poetry that reflects the life and legacy of Imam Abdullah Haron.
Haron was an anti-apartheid activist who was killed in police detention in 1969.
Groups involved in the anti-racism rally include Black Lives Matter activists, BDS and international peace and solidarity movements.
Cape Cultural Collective chairperson Mansoor Jaffer said the NPO’s involvement was to provide support and cultural items, as they felt racism was an mportant issue to tackle.
The Imam Haron Foundation, in partnership with the Cape Cultural Collective, produced the tribute, which was recorded during the Imam and Us cultural tribute last year.
“The Cape Cultural Collective was approached to render a cultural item as part of the programme for the anti-racism rally. We agreed and have supplied organisers with a video clip. We are pleased to be sharing our work with a global audience,” Jaffer said.
Jaffer said Imam Abdullah Haron was a freedom fighter who stood for a non-racial, democratic, just and equal society.
“It is important for the present generation to understand who are the people that sacrificed for us, and more importantly, what they stood for. Imam Haron fought racism for much of his adult life and was especially outraged by the Group Areas Act of the fifties that uprooted more than 3million South Africans.
“He lived out his religious and political principles by treating all people equally, regardless of race, gender or social standing. He was well known for doing community work on the Cape Flats, especially in Langa.”
Jaffer said they were grateful to the Imam Haron Foundation and the Haron family, who were keeping his legacy alive through education and advocacy work.
Organisers have called on people to register on the United Against Racism Rally Facebook link, And Still We Rise!, if they want to take part.