aBantu, meaning PEOPLE or HUMANS.

 

When European explorers first encountered my Ancestors, they asked, “who are you?” and the Ancestors responded by saying, “Singa Bantu!?”

 

As with many indigenous languages, there be no exact translation of this expression that to this day serves as a universal acknowledgment  of a fellow human being.

 

In the centuries that followed, the explorers, now settlers, would refer to my Ancestors as the ‘Bantu people’, which when translated is clearly a redundant use of words!

 

With the apartheid regime came the categorical dehumanization of the aBantu in Southern Africa. Pass Laws were instituted to restrict the ability of the aBantu to travel throughout their home country, forfeiting their natural rights. The Group Areas Act was enacted to forcibly relocate the aBantu to what this inhumane regime termed ‘bantustans’, ‘homeland settlements’, under the false pretense of ‘separate development’.

 

It is in the God-infused and rooted-in-the-universality of mankind, spirit of my Ancestors who attempted centuries ago to build bridges with new and unfamiliar settlers to their land, that i resurrect BANTUSTAND-the revival of humanity out of the inhumane sufferings of the past!