ZAYAAN KHAN on the Place of Sweet Waters, Part 1 /83

Photo by Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko

Zayaan Khan masterfully weaves a deep understanding of what forms a true relationship to land, and how this informs the culture lived out upon it. The foundation of a people is the land that sustains them, even today. Our discussion with Zayaan centers around the southwest of Africa, one of the most biodiverse places on earth, and not coincidentally, an origin place for human life. It is a telling and poetic tragedy that the source of human life, is today one of the locations most disproportionately impacted by inequality and oppression. Apartheid severs the connection to homeland, waters, and to the interconnectivity of the landscape. Strategically working to erase people from the land that grew them. 

Supremacy can be recognized by its definitive disconnectivity– dehumanizing people in subtle or overt ways, industrializing how people meet their needs from the land and from each other, treating the living plants and creatures of a place as mere resources to be bought and sold. Zayaan Khan is a force to be reckoned with, as a seed librarian, researcher, artist and Indigenous food revivalist. Zayaan is from Cape Town, and has been interested in making space for Indigenous methods of knowing and preparing food, foraging and finding fresh ingredients and promoting food literacy and security. Her approach is two pronged; challenging repressive food systems while also finding joy and inspiration through the trauma of our history as a way to reconcile and heal. Khan holds a NDip landscape technology, a BTech horticulture and is working towards a Master’s in environmental humanities at the University of Cape Town. 

Zayaan Khan by Toby Murphy

Through our discussion with Zayaan, we trace the ways that the white colonization of South Africa not only destroyed the complexities of the human-to-land relationship, but also continues to ignore the intricacies and connectivity of the landscape, leading to today’s dire drought. Further, we learn how South Africa is still living within the echo chamber of a shockingly repressive colonial system. 1 in 4 people go hungry every day. The land is farmed unsustainably and wastefully. Very few people control the majority of the land. The exploitation that black South Africans experience in their own homeland today clearly illustrates white supremacy in action through institutionalized racism poisoning global economies and national psychologies. Without a formal restorative healing process that is reconciliatory, and sincere in its efforts to rework the fabric of inequality, little structural change will be achieved. 

Supremacy mentality will continue to bend itself into any form, that keeps it alive, simply to maintain and justify itself. Join us as we learn from Zayaan the importance of being vigilant in resisting supremacy. We must continue to speak the truth with clarity to combat it, and to weave a reality that is inclusive, connective, informed by ecology and history, and create true solutions that serve all life.

♫ Music is "Tonal Bath for Bubbles" and “Blind Contour Drawing for Piano" by Gregg Kowalsky.

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