Sinegugu Zukulu: Resisting imposed development in the wild coast (ep372)
“So-called ‘development’, envisioned outside of the community, more often than not brings challenges to the community because it doesn’t take into consideration the aspirations, the culture, and the way of life of the people. It disregards the right of the people to self-determination. More than anything, it destroys the ecosystem of goods and services that people are reliant on.”
In this episode, we welcome Sinegugu Zukulu. Sinegugu describes himself as a champion of rural development, having worked all his life to promote development that directly benefits rural people. He works in community development in the Wild Coast, focusing on ecotourism development, agriculture and youth empowerment. It is Sinegugu’s work and life purpose to advocate for rural people living on communal land getting assistance to secure land tenure that supports their way of life without being pressured by imposed development.
Some of the topics we explore in this conversation include resisting top-down, imposed visions of development, the integrative role of heavy metals within living landscapes, the Amadiba community's land defense against industrial mining and oil drilling, and more.
Subscribe and listen to Green Dreamer in any podcast app, or read on for the episode transcript.
Artistic credits:
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Lea Thomas
Episode-inspired artwork by Luise Hesse
Episode references:
Medicinal and Charm Plants of Pondoland, a book by Sinegugu Zukulu
Learn more about the Amadiba people's land defense struggles and campaigns against Shell
If you feel inspired by this episode, please consider donating a gift of support of any amount today!
Transcript:
Note: Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into each resource and topic explored. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Sinegugu Zukulu: My name is Sinegugu because it was actually a name that was given to me by my grandfather.
It is a tradition in my community that your grandfather—if he is no more, [then] your father—gives you the name. In our culture, mothers do not give their kids their names because the names are given for a particular reason. Part of it is to record the family history.
I come from a very big family. My grandfather had eight wives. Those eight wives are all my grandmothers and their children are all my uncles and my aunts. On my mother's [side of the] family, [my grandfather] also had eight wives. Those are the people who had an influence on my upbringing.
In our language, Sine means “we have”, and egugu is “the pride”. When I was born, my grandfather said, “that child is the pride of our family.” The family being the entire family, as in eight wives. And in my culture, we do not talk of your mother and father and all your sisters—we refer to the entire family. The entire family is all my grandfather's children. I'm proud of the fact that my grandfather gave me the name.
In my culture, we also believe that people must follow their names. What was intended with your name? You must try and strive to live up to it. Sinegugu, with pride. I strive to be the pride of my family, my community, of my tribe. That's one of the driving forces behind what I do.
Kamea Chayne: Thank you so much for sharing that introduction.
To offer some more context, in the 1950s to 1960s, residents of Pondoland resisted the betterment schemes of South Africa's apartheid government's Bantu Land policy, leading to the Pondo revolt of 1961. Can you share a little more about this historical backdrop to help us gain a clear picture of what the cultural landscape of Pondoland looks like today and why it's been recognized as one of the most threatened heritage sites of South Africa?
Sinegugu Zukulu: I think it is important to mention that all of us who are coming from the so-called Third World or who are coming from the Indigenous communities know that when the Europeans started traveling all over the world looking for places they wanted to occupy, or they used the term to colonize.
As Indigenous people, when our territories were colonized...
Europeans were looking for one thing: the best land and raw materials that they could use to support European industries. Hence, most of these Indigenous territories ended up being places that grow tea, coffee, sugarcane… you name it.
When the Europeans came to these so-called colonies, the territories of Indigenous peoples, they always wanted a way to say how they can have the land. That's where all the wars and people fighting to protect their land actually come from.
In Pondoland, they wanted to reduce the size and the plots of land which you could cultivate to one hectare. They wanted people to stop living in scattered settlements. [But] all Indigenous people [were living] in the forests. We always maintained a scattered settlement such that [wherever your house was], you [could] be surrounded by land to cultivate. [They wanted us to live in] “betterment villages”.
[There] was resistance against the land grab by the white government that had colonized our country. When they colonized our land in 1894, they started imposing these immediately after the Second World War. But when the Second World War started, things were put on hold. Then immediately after 1945, they started the implementation of the Tomlinson Commission's recommendations, [forcing] people to be clustered together, so that all the land could be released, [after which] the white government would decide what to do with the land. In Pondoland, people resisted that.
The government had co-opted the traditional leaders. Our traditional leaders were now part of the council. They were sitting in a council with the magistrates. They then started paying them salaries in order to corrupt them. Then the traditional leaders started bringing in these top-down policies, which [came] from [the] magistrate. People started questioning them, saying, “you are supposed to be our traditional leader”. And in the traditional leadership system, [we’re] ruled by a consensus, a bottom-up process. The people make the decisions, which are then given to the traditional leader.
But the traditional leaders were now working with the colonialists, [and] they are [telling] people about the laws that the magistrate had given them regarding the clustering of settlements and cutting down structures. The people said, “No, you are selling off our land by so doing.” Then people started meeting up on top of certain hills, refusing to go to the traditional court. Then people started wanting to kill these traditional leaders because they have sold the land, [saying that] we need[ed] to get rid of them and have other leaders; [while others] in the community started trying to protect the traditional leaders. As a result, the war ensued, [with] people burning each other's houses and all of that.
People were divided between those who protect such leaders and those who are trying to get rid of the imposed governance system. This was a war [from] 1958 up until about March 1961, [culminating] in a major meeting where all the people from all over Mundelein met in an area next to the town of Flagstaff, on a hill called The Hill. They met to discuss, and the police vans appeared, [cornering people there]. They started shooting and killed 11–15 people on that day. More than 50 people were arrested and taken up to Pretoria—they were hanged and their bodies were only [more recently] exhumed and returned back home.
So that was the first struggle. There were many other struggles that people fought. Today, when challenges threaten the land security in our area, elders always reflect back and see [how] so many people died protecting this land. We cannot allow, in our time, for this land to be taken. That's one of the motivating factors for us to be able to continue to wage the war to protect the land today.
Kamea Chayne: Some of the social dynamics that you mentioned certainly show up in similar forms today, [and] we're going to talk about a little later.
But one of your key areas of interest has been supporting and promoting rural development. But what you mean by this is quite different from the dominant top-down and colonial ideas of development. As you look at the forms of development that much of the “developed world” have gone through and that your communities may have been pressured to let in and engage with, what critiques and concerns do you have about imposed development from your cultural standpoint and also as they relate to the larger social, economic and ecological crises of our time that definitely look different in different places, but seem to share a lot of the same roots?
Sinegugu Zukulu:
The problem is that so-called development, which has been envisioned outside of the community, more often than not brings challenges to the community, because it doesn't take into consideration the aspirations, the culture, and the way of life of the people. It disregards the right of the people to self-determination. More than anything, it destroys the ecosystem of goods and services that people are reliant on.
For instance, if you were to look at mining—[which we have been fighting for more than 20 years, from day one]—we've been fighting against mining by an Australian company that wants to mine titanium and other heavy minerals which we have, in abundance. We are opposed to that because if we allow that to happen, the next thing we are going to have is dust flying all over. Once they've taken the minerals from the soil, the soil becomes very light, and then the dust flies around, which means we're going to have dust in the air, which [will] affect people's health. We are going to have our grasslands, which are grazed by livestock, being coated with dust. Our waters, our rivers, our streams, and our estuaries [will be] polluted by dust.
We as the people here are dependent on the land. Our food comes from the land. The land is everything to us. Our belief, as Indigenous people, [is] that we are born of the land and the land provides for us. When a baby is born, when the umbilical cord drops off, it is buried either inside the hut or thrown into the cross. In other words, linking the baby. As you grow up as a human being, you are still linked to the soil. That's why they will bury your umbilical cord within your home. The land provides us with food. When we are sick, the land gives us medicine. [We know] all the herbal medicines, almost every plant, and what medicinal uses are found in those plants.
The land looks after us and when we are dead, the land takes us in. Therefore the land becomes our mother.
[Because] the land is so crucial and so critical and so central to our way of life, you cannot put a price tag on the land. [But] if you look at the so-called development paradigms from the West, they don't see that. When they see the land, they see minerals. They see the amount of money they will make. They want to fence off [areas where] they see people. [When you are passing through such prohibited land, they say] you'll be prosecuted and all that nonsense. They commodify everything.
If you look at the ocean, we respect the ocean. But now when you look at it from the West, they want to explore [the ocean] for oil and gas which is going to pollute the ocean. Within our culture, we don't even use beef to fish in the ocean because the belief is that you going to pull out the princess of the ocean. We believe that if you ever use beef to fish and you catch them, then the weather, the climate will be so angry that you will have torrential rainfall, flooding, severe storms, and all of that.
We believe our ancestors live in the ocean. Protecting the land, the ocean, the rivers, everything—[that’s] because it provides for us. But to the West, they see opportunities to make money. Everything is commodified, and in the process, when you drill for oil, when you mine minerals, it becomes impossible for the land to provide for you, [because] the land is destroyed.
Development, [as] is envisaged by the West, is about profitmaking and goes against our belief system, our way of life, our culture, and our interdependence with the land. The land owns us. We cannot turn around and put a price tag and sell the land as a commodity. Whatever price you charge for the land—[and you can make up to] millions of US dollars—the fact is you will make use of that money [but] the land will remain. You cannot equate the land to monetary value.
Kamea Chayne: I feel really fired up hearing you talk about this.
I want to go back to a point that you mentioned. I think some people have the tendency to overlook the role of heavy metals themselves within the living soil ecology as if they can be separated and taken out of the ground without permanent impacts on the living landscape, as if the layers of soil can just be put back and the plants will grow back to restore the exact same ecosystems. You mentioned before that there is a reason that heavy metals are called heavy metals…
Sinegugu Zukulu: [The heavy minerals] are meant to keep your soil down there. They are actually the basis for food, for the vegetation growth. When you remove those heavy minerals, then your soil and your dust start flying because it is the heavy minerals that keep your soil down. They don't only keep your soil down, but they also act like oils or food for vegetation growth. [And we depend on that vegetation growth because we need the medicines and grazing for the livestock that come from there.]
[If] you remove those heavy minerals, you cannot bring that soil or that piece of land back to its original form. You will never be able to bring back the diversity because that minerals [are] there for a reason. [They are] what makes the land whole, what makes the land full. Once you have taken that out, you will never have a holistic piece of land or ecosystem. You have destroyed it forever. That's why you need to try, by all means, to keep the land, [in such a way that you can] make use of the land and respect the land.
The land is our mother. That’s why we have good rituals with good ceremonies. We pay respect, even if we go into an Indigenous forest to collect medicine. You don't just take the bark of a tree from any side of the tree. There's an acceptable side of the tree where you must take that particular medicine. [And] you [must] ask for permission from the tree, talk to the tree. For people from the West, it has taken [them] a long time to know and understand that trees are alive, that they can hear you.
When we collect the medicine, we talk to the medicine, we tell the medicine the help that we would require. That's why we talk to the trees. There’s that respect for creation, to the environment, and understanding that trees are alive. No microbiologist can understand why the microorganisms and the soil or even the root system are able to group themselves according to the different species of trees, the microorganisms that are unique. Each different tree in the forest has different microorganisms. That's why when you collect the medicine, you know that that tree will give the medicine that would help me to treat the headache. From that one, I would dig medicine for the stomach cramps. That's why even the taste of those barks and the leaves from the trees are different, because trees are living things. When we talk to them, they hear us. When we ask for medicine, if we pay respect, the medicine works. But if we go there and we disregard and we don't pay respect, the medicine doesn't work.
Our traditional leaders will go and talk to rocks. They go and talk to anthills. They go to where the pathways cross. They go to a thick bush. When they talk in those different places, they are talking to our ancestors, and they go [to those different places] because you will never know where the ancestors are resting on a particular day. But when they go to those different places, they know they are going to get an answer to whatever they are asking, for because they are everywhere. For instance, we had cases where people or the judges in court ask us whether our ancestors live in a particular part of the ocean. How are we supposed to know? All we know is that they travel through the rivers and they settle down. Their final resting place is the ocean. That's why when those who are training to become traditional healers go and consult with the ocean.
We respect everything, everywhere, as if our ancestors are everywhere.
As if the spiritual beings are living in the spirit world, because they are living within the same space. But we do not see them. Therefore, you need to walk with the understanding that there are other life forms that are beyond your own understanding that are living on the same land, in the same space. Therefore, you treat the rivers, the grasslands, the forests, the ocean, the natural pools, and the waterfalls, with the respect of knowing, understanding, and acknowledging that there are other things. Only when we do that, we shall be able to live in harmony.
When we disrespect this land, this planet, that’s when big challenges like we see now with climate change and all of that come to us, because we are not treating the land and the spaces with the sacredness that they deserve. Every piece of the land is sacred.
Kamea Chayne: I think it's easy for people with extractive mindsets to brush a lot of these perspectives off. But the reality is that there is so much we don't understand. There's so much complexity within ecosystems, within landscapes that we are incapable of understanding. They really demand our humility and respect. If we don't fully understand the complexity of the ecosystem, then we also don't know what we actually lose when we extract parts of the whole, when parts really need to come together to create the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are a lot of important lessons here.
In November of 2018, the Ahmadiyya community won a significant court judgment that confirms the community's right to say no to mining on your lands. So as a community member and leader who's been really involved in this process, what can you share about what it took on the ground in terms of organizing, strategy, and coalition building to achieve this victory and affirmation of your community’s self-determination?
Sinegugu Zukulu: In our culture we say that you are who you are because of the other people and the other beings that surround you. In other words, you cannot be able to achieve much if you are alone. That's why they say in the African proverb, if you want to go quickly, you must go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.
We have achieved all of what we have achieved because of the other people who have been kind enough to join us in this struggle, because of the journalists who have been diligent in terms of coming to us to listen to our story and be able to take it out to radio, to newspapers, to TV. Because of the lawyers, we have been able to make sense of what we are saying and be able to find the relevant legislation and the laws and the Constitution and be able to argue them in court. Because of so many partner organizations, people have been able to listen and come on board and advise us and share with us. Because of the many academics who have come from all over the world, to listen to us and to do research and to document.
The partnership, collaboration, and working together have been able to help us win those particular battles. It is never one individual. We are indebted to many partners, many NGOs, and many donors who have been able to hear our cries and be able to come on board. So, in other words, [being able to] cry out for help has been very, very successful.
We went to court wanting the court to declare that as Indigenous people of Pondoland, we have a right to say no. We wanted a declaratory order that guarantees us because we knew what the Constitution of this country says everyone has a right to a safe and healthy environment. [So we were saying] here the government department of minerals is giving a license, a permit for somebody to come and mine our land, disregarding our right to self-determination as Indigenous people. So, we had to go to court.
Fortunately, there were enough laws. It's important for Indigenous people all over the world to understand that those principles: your FPIC—free, prior and informed consent are very important. People should not be allowing multinational corporations to come and do as they please in their territory. We say [to those people that] if your courts in your country don't work, you can actually go to claim your right, because the United Nations has [set up that declaration] for Indigenous people, [to claim] their right to self-determination.
It cannot be right when multinational corporations travel from wherever they come from, from Europe or from the Americas or from Asia, and trash the very basis of livelihood that we're dependent on and then leave like that.
The biggest lesson is for people everywhere and anywhere on this planet [to learn is that they can] stand up, [and] defend first and foremost their rights, [and] to defend, more than anything, the rights of the future generations who have yet to [have been] born. When you go to court and you litigate and claim your rights, you are creating the precedent that could be used by those who are yet to be born to defend the planet. [And] you are also helping even your very same enemy [who is] fighting you, who [is destroying] your land. You are helping them because you are trying to find the means and ways to sustain life on this planet of ours called Earth.
Kamea Chayne: More recently, you've been working alongside many partners to fight against big oil companies and Shell's exploration of oil and gas on your shores.
According to the Africa Report, Shell argues that its procedures for managing the impact of seismic activities are in line with the latest global industry standards. The hydrocarbon reserves, which its seismic survey aims to uncover, have the potential to, “significantly contribute to South Africa's energy security and the government's economic development programs,” the company says.
How does this promise of economic development and energy security for the country at large, conflict with human scale, rural development as defined in this more bottom-up way by local communities? What more about Shell's oil and gas surveys or the process of attempting to get approval and consent would you like to share?
Sinegugu Zukulu: We have many problems with that statement from Shell.
One, we are challenging Shell on the fact that both Shell and our government made no effort—even PASA, which is the Petroleum Agency of South Africa, made no effort—to consult with the Indigenous people who are living adjacent to the very ocean that they want to do seismic exploration on, the very people that would be directly affected by the by Shell's operation.
This is our land.
In our traditional way of life, no one comes in, builds and then makes your home without you giving consent. We said, if Shell is going to come and now be a neighbor with us in this ocean, we have every right to be heard, and to have a say on that. We have to be consulted.
[Separately,] allowing for Shell to come and explore for oil and gas in the name of “economic development”, one thing that the corporates and their shareholders fail to get is the fact that we cannot continue to grow the economy for an indefinite period, if this planet has got limitations. We cannot trash every ocean. This planet is made mainly of the oceans, and people are dependent on the oceans. Our weather systems are dependent on them. The ocean, coastal communities, and livelihood are dependent on the ocean.
What about all of those things? The corporates focus on one thing—gathering profit for their shareholders. Even if this was going to create jobs, the truth of the matter is that once you allow for oil and gas to be explored, you are allowing for the ocean to be destroyed. Because whenever there is drilling for oil, their oil spills when they change valves. They are uncontrollable spills, which they call “wastage” in their language. There are terrible oil spills in the African continent and places, even here in our neighboring country, Mozambique: the challenges that are facing Mozambican people due to the oil and gas industry.
You go up to Nigeria, in the Niger Delta, the people of Ogoniland today are unable to fish. People for thousands of years who have lived off the ocean fishing, today, they cannot fish because of the oil spills. There have been court cases that Shell took to court. Recently, there was a judgment that was ordering Shell to pay billions to the people of Ogoniland as compensation for the destruction of their livelihoods.
Shell is appealing [the judgment ordering it to compensate the people of Ogoniland], at a time when [they are] touted as having made the biggest profit ever. But they don't want to use some of that profit to compensate the people who have lost their livelihoods!
But what makes me mad, of all of these things, is the fact that globally, all the countries and all these big corporates, they meet in what we call the Conference of Parties, and they talk about the impact of fossil fuels. [And then a] month later, they met and after that Shell is in South Africa and wants to start exploring for more oil and gas. Shell has just lost a case in the Netherlands where they were ordered to cut down their emissions, their carbon footprint by 40%, [and] they are coming to South Africa to explore for more oil and gas!
The terrible thing with climate change is that the severe weather and the severe storms and the heavy downpours—those who watch the news must have seen recently in April in South Africa, in areas of Durban, we had the worst flooding that we've ever seen, close to 500 people drowned—[it’s become] very clear [that they] affect mainly the poor people. The poor people are the most directly affected. The rich people are able to bounce back quickly because they have insurance, even if their houses are washed away. Not a single rich person drowned in these recent floods.
Why should we, as poor people, be allowing these people to cause more harm for us? We are the ones who are directly vulnerable to climate change. Whatever way you look at it, they will be touting economic development. The truth of the matter is that they are going to make a profit for their shareholders. The benefits accrue to the people who are already rich, and the poor people become poorer, while the lands are destroyed. [The poor] have no source of livelihood, nothing is going to be done to compensate those people who would have lost their livelihood.
Because of seismic exploration, we have been able to demonstrate in court that it affects the base of the food chain, within the ocean. The people will suffer the most are the fishing folks, who are not going to be able to find fish. There is nothing good about allowing seismic exploration. We are prepared, as Indigenous people, to go as far as we could go to stop seismic exploration and the drilling for oil and gas in our ocean.
Because [seismic exploration] threatens our immediate livelihood, and it is not fair.
Governments in all of these countries should have started a long time ago to move away from fossil fuels. But they didn’t, because some people stand to benefit. [Specifically, it’s] those companies—and they are more influential than politicians all over the world! Because they are raking millions and billions from these operations, they don't want to stop. Should we, therefore, fold our arms and allow them, when we know that our lives are at stake?
Our livelihoods are being destroyed and the life of this planet is being cut short due to profiteering. Should we be keeping quiet? No, we can't. It is better to die fighting for that than to fold your arms and watch when you can see that future generations are ultimately going to have no future because we are sitting and doing nothing.
Kamea Chayne: What this leads me to also think about is how when extractive industries come in from the outside and conduct their cost-benefit analyses or environmental impact assessments, they cannot know the true extent of the cost of what they want to do if they do not really know the land and their place, specific knowledge and the role of a variety of especially endemic species and characteristics.
You coauthored the book Medicinal and Charm Plants of Pondoland, in which you helped compile knowledge about a wide variety of medicinal and charm plants, many of which are found only in this region. I'd be curious to hear about your lessons and inspirations from the elders, healers, and herbalists you've engaged with for this project and what they tell you about the role of place-based knowledge that may not be valid as much in mainstream educational institutions or even considered in these sorts of cost-benefit assessments.
Sinegugu Zukulu: Yes. It is important to understand that wisdom...
Wisdom rests in places on the land.
That's why Indigenous people give every piece of the land names. Because they are recording and documenting the oral history and things that have happened. The people who understand the land better are those people who live in it. But unfortunately, the Indigenous people in their territories are always invisible to these multinational corporations and to the governments.
Indigenous people know [the land]. They know where you find a particular species, a particular medicine. Their knowledge has been collected over many centuries, and passed down orally. It is an amazing source of knowledge. When you explore the medicinal uses, you begin to see the intricate interrelationships between the people and the environment, the people and biodiversity, and the people and plants. You begin to realize you cannot separate people from the land, from biodiversity, from nature, and how people need nature to thrive. They need biodiversity. People do not live on the land. They live in the land.
They are so intertwined and interconnected with so many things, whether you're looking at their livestock, where they are looking at their waters, when they are looking at the sacred sites, you are looking at the medicinal plants… They are so interconnected that life becomes impossible when you've got a multinational corporation that comes to an area or territory that they do not know, and yet they already know what they want to do—they destroy the sense of place, they destroy the people's culture, then they destroy the social fabric, they rule and divide the people.
What if people are left to live their lives?
Then we are able to preserve knowledge about everything, [preserve] the Indigenous knowledge of that land, which is passed down [through generations]. I don't think they will ever get it in terms of how much and what is at stake when people come and disturb the peace and harmony, in an area where people live in harmony with the environment.
Kamea Chayne: These sorts of knowledge can't be universalized or quantified in that really reductionistic form of monetary currency. There's a lot that goes missing when we use that as the ultimate measurement of how we determine value.
As we are nearing the end of our main discussion here, I would love to invite you to share anything else that I didn't get to ask you about and any calls to action you have for our listeners.
Sinegugu Zukulu: We in Pondoland do not only fight against these unacceptable [actions by corporations], but we also do proactive work in terms of response. I'm engaged in a whole lot of work in ecotourism development where we are establishing the homestays for tourists. We've got a hiking trail that goes down the entire Pondoland coastline. [We work with farmers to showcase] agroecology work, [teaching about] how we can farm in a manner that protects the land.
We are doing a lot of work on youth capacity building—we are trying to [get] young people [to] become stewards. [We have been] training our youth on how to make films, to tell our own stories and to raise awareness about the challenges that we face, in order to encourage debates about the issues that affect us within our community.
We're doing all sorts of things just to fight against these unacceptable developments. [And] we are doing a lot of proactive work in order to make sure that life goes on. I work with two particular NGOs to do all the things I mentioned—with the Siyazisiza Trust and the SWC—Sustaining the Wild Coast, where we are trying to get all of this work done in order to make sure that our communities are able to preserve the Indigenous knowledge, and also to preserve those that would be useful for the younger people.
*** CLOSING ***
Kamea Chayne: What has been an impactful book that you've read or a publication that you follow?
Sinegugu Zukulu: I love reading all the books that document Indigenous knowledge. I'm currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass.
Kamea Chayne: What is a motto, mantra, or practice you engage with to stay grounded?
Sinegugu Zukulu: Taking young people back to the future. In other words, learning from Indigenous knowledge in order to find better paths as we go forward. Learning from the wisdom of the elders of the Indigenous knowledge.
Kamea Chayne: What are your biggest sources of inspiration right now?
Sinegugu Zukulu: Listening to the elders, to the wisdom of those who have never been to school, who has never been tainted with the education system. Listening to the trees, to the bay, to the insects of our land, and be able to see what an amazing place [it is] and how the wisdom of our ancestors was actually more clever than any other science that you have ever come across. When you look into how they were able to do this research and be able to find the medicine that you actually do, you start wondering, how did they manage to find all of these?
Indigenous wisdom is something that is yet to be explored, that is yet to be integrated into the mainstream of academics on this planet.
Kamea Chayne: Sinegugu, thank you so much for sharing about your community activism and work with us today. It's been an incredible honor for me to speak with you. But for now, what final words of wisdom do you want to leave us with as green dreamers?
Sinegugu Zukulu: We have to uphold our Indigenous wisdom. If we don't do it, nobody else will.
