Johannesburg – I recently participated in a reflective political consciousness project simply termed, ”DETOX”.
Beyond the deceptive simplicity of this name is the imperative for black people to free themselves from spiritual and mental slavery.
In this project, the process of decolonisation is likened to the act of detoxification. Politically. I therefore consider it timely for the cantankerous socio-political dynamics in South Africa today which dictate that we undo, redress and flush out the junk of colonisation and white supremacy.
We are in serious trouble on many fronts. So, we terribly need a leadership that should, once and for all, help to debunk myths and stereotypes conceived or fabricated about us.
At the core of this noble venture is the rediscovery of our consciences to enable us to maintain our sense of vigilance, anger and outrage at the painful black condition. In this way, I argue, we wouldn’t sell our people to other races.
I argue that it’s only through our consciences that we can bring about meaningful transformation on our journey to true liberation after the disappointment that followed the post-independence Afrika and, indeed, the “post-apartheid” South Afrika.
We need a constant reminder as to why the struggle was fought, why our heroes and martyrs paid the ultimate price, and then interrogate why the conditions of black existence remain bleak. Perhaps, we will stop singing the songs of cowardice and melodies of victimhood, and thus learn to appreciate the power of real power.
We’d certainly not find ourselves caught up in embarrassing situations where, in our perceived power, we cry for sympathy in the face of white arrogance, disrespect and denigration. By the way, I am not even thinking about Police Minister Bheki Cele’s encounter at a community safety meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday.
I have, vexingly, questioned how we have ostensibly normalised the state of abnormality wherein the natives are essentially rendered foreigners in the land of their ancestors. It becomes even more painful, if not bewildering, to observe black leaders perpetuate the selfsame conditions that have immersed black people in the merciless sea of poverty and suffering.
For me, it’s as if black leaders have been the best students of white attitudes and templates of domination and humiliation of their own people. In my book, that’s the manifestation of non-whitism or house negroism.
I have subsequently longed to get into the mind of a colonised black leader, or to undress the mind of a sellout in order to cure my curiosity, express my emotional turmoil, and manage my untamable perplexity.
Perhaps, we will get answers to questions pertaining to the origin of tendencies of seeking white affirmation. It’s strange that we have affiliated to the project of the degradation of black souls and dehumanising black people. With amazing grandeur! This madness can only be cured by doses and doses of Black Consciousness and Pan Afrikanism. It’s gone so bad that we don’t respect our struggle heroes and heroines, our martyrs and ancestors. For if we did, we wouldn’t be so complacent about our political power and commitment to serve our people.
Our mere acceptance of being (un)led by non-whites or stooges of white capital makes us complicit in our own oppression and colonisation. Do we deserve any sympathy?
Whilst on this, some recent incidents have caused me to ponder on this, and other painful questions. In the final analysis, they all foreground the contributions that our heroes and heroines of our liberation struggle.
The refrain, which should predominate our minds, should be “what did they die fighting for?” And this must be answered with utmost honesty in whatever spaces we may find ourselves in, be it in the ivory towers of academia, in the corridors of parliaments and the cosmopolitan offices of corporations, and so forth. We should individually ask ourselves whether our actions serve to honour or dishonour their contributions.
Is it not an insult to our struggle heroes to have a leadership that is in the pocket of white monopoly capital (WMC), for instance? How does corruption and mis-governance, poor services to black communities and disunity of the Afrikan continent serve as a tribute to the glorious history of our struggle for freedom?
In Lusaka, Zambia, former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, delivered the first Memorial Lecture of Zambia’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda, to mark the commemoration of the first anniversary of the passing of this hero of the liberation struggle on the continent.
In his moving tribute, Mbeki, made the important point that Kaunda could have chosen to look the other way, and not help the cause of our liberation struggle. He made reference to Kaunda’s assessment, after the so-called freedom of South Africa, of all the sacrifices made that “it was worth it”.
Now, I ask myself, do our political leaders, in all honesty and clear conscience, think that what has become of this country, with the sustained anti-black condition, landlessness, poverty, racial inequality, and skewed economy that favours white monopoly capital (WMC), say, “it was worth it?”
I don’t think it’s worth it; it’s actually “worse it” in that through proxy or “Trojan horse politricks”, our oppressors have not only kept the land and wealth of this country, they have captured the very liberation movement that Kaunda and the Zambian people had risked and sacrificed a lot for.
It’s, in fact, too painful to contemplate that the blood that our martyrs spilled in the name of liberation was spilt so that the same oppressors can finally get the “glorious movement” in their pockets.
So, if this analogy were to be extended, for as long as the WMC controls the movement, it means all members thereof, including the former soldiers, the stalwarts, veterans and former presidents are, through proxy, “led” by our white oppressors. Or the Broederbond even! Hard as it is to say, it would be a shameful thing that our enemies have been gifted Afrika’s oldest liberation movement on a platter.
This, incidentally, brings me to the eloquent remarks by the President of the Azanian Peoples Organisation (Azapo), Nelvis Qekema, at the commemoration of the June 16 Revolution at Regina Mundi Church in Soweto.
Like Mbeki’s, his remarks took an honorific sentiment, except that his were unapologetically dismissive of the sellout rainbow arrangements of the post-1994 South Africa.
In a “spiritual conversation” with Tsietsi Mashinini, Khotso Seathlolo and all our martyrs of the liberation struggle, he poignantly reported to our fallen national heroes of the June 16 Uprising that their sacrifices have been betrayed by those who would have been expected to liberate our people.
“Tsietsi and Khotso, you know that you died demanding that our country should be officially called Azania because that is the name recognised by the liberation struggle…28 years into democracy, the ruling party continues to snub your sacrifices by preferring the name ‘South Africa’ which was coined by the colonialists who are your murderers”, cried Qekema.
He reminded the fallen heroes that they died vowing that they would never sing Die Stem. “You made that conscious vow because Die Stem is the song that robbed us of our land Azania… Die Stem is the song that colonised and enslaved black people…and stripped black people of their humanity and dignity. Yes, it is Die Stem that killed Lembede, Tiro, Biko, Sobukwe and Hani. You, yourselves, were killed by Die Stem. Yet those who are ruling are forcing us to sing Die Stem”, he added.
He gave more painful examples of how the obnoxious structure called the Union Buildings has been embraced by black leaders after 1994. “I am ashamed to reveal to you that those who are ruling us … inherited the ‘Union Buildings’ and continued to proudly call the structure by the same name the colonialists and racists called it”, he emphasised.
“You won’t believe, Tsietsi and Khotso, that 28 years into democracy we still sing the struggle songs you used to sing. Yet you sang those songs so that we sing them no more in a democracy where power is in black hands”, he added.
I have had to liberally refer to Qekema’s soulful cry to highlight the huge disappointment of the 28 years of false freedom under the ANC government.
As we speak, we have been distracted by useless and foolish antics of electoral politics which have induced a serious obsession with downright corruption, nepostism, selfishness and gluttony. The politics of the stomach, which have caused principle and ideology to vanish from the face of the earth. This mission of true liberation is lost.
There is no hope that Black people will be liberated by the ANC. It’s frustratingly painful to learn that, after the so-called state capture report, the ruling party is contemplating abandoning the policy of “cadre deployment”.
How do you hope to use political power to implement your programmes when you are shy to assign people you trust to execute the mandate in government and public service? I must restate, here, that cadre deployment must not be confused with corruption.
But what the ANC has done is to soil and bastardise this necessary aspect for any transformational project. It’s interesting that some parties opposed to this vehicle themselves deploy their “cadres” where they govern without calling it “cadre deployment”.
What is the point of fighting hard to win black votes to put you in political office while you are not prepared to use that power to serve them? What’s the point of winning elections? Politicians in this country are ironically made to hold hollow political power, whereas real power is held by white capital and the judiciary. It’s sad.
Let me steal from Qekema and say, “We have had enough as black people on this earth”. What makes it even more painful is that “the repeated amputation of the vital parts of our soul” is done “under the noses of our political rulers…who are urinating on the tree that is irrigated by the blood of the Azanian martyrs”. Mayibuye iAfrika. Izwe Lethu!
David Letsoalo is a Sankarist, an activist and Law academic
