Shailja Patel

What language have we that can grieve Sierra Leone's mudslide disaster? Its enormity and horror smother thought.

To have the ground you walk turn on you. Devour your loved ones. To be forced to bury your family in the same mud that swallowed them.

Because we were also a colonized people.

Because Hamas is Palestine's Mau Mau.

Because East Africa was also proposed as a location for a "Zionist Homeland."

Because Africans, like Palestinians, were non-people.

the morning after a massacre
a country wakes nauseous

no food stays down
no chai comforts

on the roads
they drag crosses

blood is given
blood invoked
blood sanctified
blood is our national language

on TV the men
talk blood and markets

TOP LAYER

The scene is Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art, on Sunday, April 15th. The event is the celebration of World Art Day, and the 75th birthday of the Swedish Artists Organisation. Five artists have been asked to create birthday cakes for the occasion.

INTRODUCTION

‘No one can compensate you for rape. No one can compensate you for infection with HIV. But there is a certain amount of peace only justice can bring. There are those of us who meet our perpetrators every day. Those who raped us are our neighbours.

The ICC Kenya trials that are riveting the country have taken an ironic turn.