Turning to SGI publications, Johannesburg member and storyteller Nomsa Mdlalose recounts her experiences in the latest SGI Quarterly, an issue devoted to poetry. Friend of President Ikeda and of SGI South Africa, poet Oswald Mtshali, discusses “The Light of the Poetic Spirit”. And our recent commemoration of the life of Steve Biko is described.

My Revolution will include a performance by poet Khosi Xaba. The venue is the SGI South Africa community centre in Johannesburg, corner of Dudley and Wells streets in Parkwood (the former bowling club, entrance for secure parking on Dudley.)

You can read more about Steve Biko on the Steve Biko Foundation website.

About 15 women and young women members, and a couple of friends, drove out to Sweetness’ home. We brought lots of compost, plants, garden tools, and a fence for the new garden; and soup, bread and juice – some of the members made lots of sandwiches to share with all the people there.

We began the day with chanting – all crowded into Sweetness’ very small house – and then started digging the small plot (2m X 2m square). We had to take out lots of grass and weeds and bits of rubbish. This was hard work but lots of fun, and many neighbours – mostly women and children – came to watch the work. Some of them joined in to help, and there was a wonderful feeling of camaraderie.

We then dug the compost into the earth, and planted the new seedlings and cuttings – some vegetables and some flowers. Finally we erected the fence around the little plot and everyone cheered and clapped! We left space in the garden for a small bench where two people could sit and talk, or read, or just be peaceful together.

The garden looks lovely, and it is right on the street so anyone passing by can benefit from its beauty. The community seemed very pleased to have us there creating something useful as well as nice to look at. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and felt victorious in our activity!

Written for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, SGI Quarterly describes the peace-building activities of SGI and other organisations and persons with similar philosophies. The article on South Africa describes the context in which SGI-SA started in the 1980s, and how it has developed up till the present day alongside tumultuous changes in the life of the ‘rainbow’ nation.

The same issue carries the experience of a South African member of building dialogue between opposing political parties during the stormy period of negotiations leading to South Africa’s 1994 political settlement.

The 11th of September 1906 witnessed the birth of a peace movement in South Africa, an event that had resonance throughout the world. On this date, Mahatma Gandhi launched Satyagraha, a movement for non-violent activism in protest at racist laws proposed by the South African administration. In celebration of this centenary, SGI-South Africa, in partnership with the Gandhi Development Trust, hosted events in 2006 in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The ‘Gandhi, King, Ikeda: A Legacy of Building Peace’ Exhibition highlights the commitment to human rights and world peace by men and women of different cultures, personalities, and ethnic backgrounds - each advocating the use of non-violence, dignity for all and a universal respect for life. The purpose of this exhibition is to show ordinary South Africans how these individuals, each of whom had humble origins, was able to overcome great obstacles to effect peaceful change.

In the words of Dean Lawrence Edward Carter Sr. of the Martin Luther King Jr International Chapel at Morehouse College, who conceptualised the exhibition:
… It is within the mundane realm of daily living that Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Daisaku Ikeda have sought to forge an existence filled with dignity, freedom and happiness for all people.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Martin Luther King Jr International Chapel at Morehouse College and has toured, in adapted versions, through many countries, including Germany, Canada, the USA, France, Italy, Jordan, India and New Zealand. It has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Around 3 000 people attended the exhibition at venues in Johannesburg and Cape Town.