PRESS ALERT: PALESTINIAN SPOKEN WORD ARTIST AND POET, REMI KANAZI, TO TOUR SOUTH AFRICA
- 17 to 25 September
- Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Soweto
- Interviews with Remi Kanazi can be arranged by contacting Khulekani Chiya (0781432908)
The New York based Palestinian poet, spoken-word artist, activist and author, Remi Kanazi will tour South Africa between the 17th and 25th of September.
Remi Kanazi will be in South Africa as a guest of the upcoming
Tri Continental Film Festival (TCFF). Kanazi's participation in the festival is courtesy of South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture. Kanazi will be a guest speaker at several of the TCFF screenings and, in addition, Kanazi will also be doing public performances, presentations and talks with BDS South Africa at community venues in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria and Soweto.
Event details will be distributed shortly.
To arrange a media interview with Remi Kanazi kindly contact Khulekani Chiya on 0781432908 / media@bdssouthafrica.com
Kanazi is the editor of "Poets For Palestine" (find on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/Poets-Palestine-Remi-Kanazi-Editor/dp/1930083092/ref=pd_sim_b_1) and the author of the newly released collection of poetry, "Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance and Palestine" (find on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/Poetic-Injustice-Writings-Resistance-Palestine/dp/0615421660). Alexander Billet,
writing for the Electronic Intifada, likened Kanazi's recent book, "Poetic Injustice", to the work of Gil Scott-Heron in its exploration of identity, oppression and resistance.
The Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges has commented about Kanazi's poetry, saying: "There is more truth, and perhaps finally more news, in Remi Kanazi's poems than the pages of your daily newspaper or the sterile reports flashed across your screens.” Remi Kanazi's poetry was similarly praised by former South-African Government Minister, Ronnie Kasrils, who has said: "
Repression creates resistance. It also generates beautiful artistic works, which become a cultural weapon in the struggle for the realisation of dreams. [Remi Kanazi's] book of poems is a shining example of tomorrow’s Palestine.” Novelist and Booker Prize winner John Berger has said: "[If] you want to hear a voice which refuses to be silenced, and only such voices carry the deep truth about what's happening these days...[then] listen to Remi Kanazi and the lucidity of his anger.”
Remi Kanazi's political commentary has been featured by news outlets throughout the world, including Al Jazeera English, GRITtv and BBC Radio. His poetry has taken him across North America, the UK, and the Middle East, and he recently appeared in the Palestine Festival of Literature as well as Poetry International. Approaching his work from a humanist perspective, Kanazi says:
"I’m not a nationalist, I’m not an ethnocentrist. This isn’t about me being a Palestinian or me being an Arab. It’s about a system of oppression and what’s being done to a people. So whether you’re talking about police brutality or the US-Mexico border or Afghanistan or the war in Iraq or the plight of Palestinians, what they’re going through and the injustice that’s being perpetrated against them is what matters. And that’s what we’re working against – systems of oppression [...]".
ISSUED BY MUHAMMED DESAI ON BEHALF OF BDS SOUTH AFRICA.
Khulekani Chiya: 0781432908
Muhammed Desai: 0842119988
BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAEL in SOUTH AFRICA (BDS SOUTH AFRICA)
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"We want to step up our support of the Palestinians and are investigating a number of peaceful ways to upgrade this support. We have no problem with supporting the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel..."
