The Black First Land First (BLF) movement shares the grief of the Zimbabwean people on the loss of their beloved son and African revolutionary, Professor Sam Moyo. We learn with heavy hearts from our occupied country, South Africa, that Prof Moyo has passed on from this world.

We share the pain of the world peasants, landless and anti-imperialist community. This loss comes at a time when our world is again in the grip of imperial and colonial aggression and mendacity. In a world saturated with lies, revolutionary intellectual work becomes part of the most important arsenal of the battle for liberation of the oppressed.

We shall forever remember how Prof Moyo stood as a beacon of truth and principle in a sea of sponsored condemnation of the Zimbabwean land struggle. Imperialist propaganda went into overdrive trying to soil the heroic acts of the Zimbabwean people and their government to return the stolen land.

Prof Moyo rejected acclaim and acknowledgement that comes from colonial and imperial scholarship that implores Africans to take the side of Empire against its people. We watched with great admiration how, from every conference, from pages of rarefied academic journals and in books, Prof Moyo again and again defended the Zimbabwean land reclamation struggle.

We will always remember that there was a time when Prof Moyo stood alone with the revolutionary people of Zimbabwe. In international academic platforms he refused the seductive embrace of colonisers which comes with a litany of personal rewards.

We learned from Prof Moyo’s example that the greatest reward is service to the African masses and the oppressed of the world.

We learned from Prof Moyo that the land and agrarian struggles are foundational to the liberation of the African continent. We learned from Prof Moyo’s principled defence of the African revolution that the revolutionary process is served best by rigorous scholarship. From Prof Moyo’s agitation and scholarship we learned the truth of the Zimbabwean land revolution and were able to counter the imperialist lies better.

The avalanche of lies and condemnation from imperialism and its agents never stopped, but in the face of the tireless revolutionary scholarship of Prof Moyo these mountains of lies paled into insignificance. We learned from Prof Moyo that without committed intellectuals the people perish. Africa must grow her own intellectuals, driven by the singular desire to serve this blighted continent.

Today, we march with less certainty because one who could see further than most of us, is no longer amongst us. We however, take solace in the knowledge that Prof Moyo left us foundations strong enough to take the process of building the African revolution further.

We South Africans remain a people shackled by colonial and neo-colonial bondage. We as South Africans remain landless after twenty-one years of pseudo-independence.

We have learned from Prof Moyo how to do battle against the intellectual deceit of the West. On our part, we commit to honor his memory through tirelessly working for the return of our land and attainment of self-reliance because we know only through returning our land first can we be on our way to putting blacks first in a world that puts blacks last.

To the people of Zimbabwe, his friends and colleagues and the entire anti-imperialist world, we say may the black gods strengthen you at this time. To his family, we thank you for sharing with us this brilliant gift from the Black Gods.

Hamba kahle son of the soil!

ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE OF THE BLACK FIRST LAND FIRST MOVEMENT

23 November 2015

Black First Land First Mail: [email][email protected]
Zanele Lwana
(National Spokesperson)
Cell: +27 79 486 9087 Mail: [email][email protected]
Lindsay Maasdorp
(National Spokesperson)
Cell: +27 79 915 2957
Mail: [email][email protected]