Dreaming Beyond Democracy

Alternative Title: Can Southern Africans Dream Again?

“Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” – HIM Haile Selassie 1st

“This modern risk management paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year."

- Alan Greenspan, 2008

“Professors of economics who over the years have protected the neoclassical monopoly should be held responsible and accountable. Advocating a specific ideology in the name of science can hardly be defended.” - Peter Söderbaum [Mälardalen University, Sweden]

“Unless mainstream economics takes heed of these warnings and proves its relevance for the understanding of the most severe crisis of the capitalist system since the 1930s, then it will be doomed to irrelevance. My suggestion is that a world protest of academic, student and business economists be organised to drive home this point.”

- Geoffrey M. Hodgson [University of Hertfordshire, UK]

“The neoliberal indoctrination of young economics students in universities around the world all starts with one textbook - N. Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Economics.”

– Toxic textbook.com

“The problem is in our internal maps, and rethinking these can require some vilification of outmoded views. But we must remember that we’re vilifying the value system of wealth discrimination – not the wealthy themselves. And as we broaden the potential to attain wealth, we should also change the mechanism by which much concentration of wealth arises, which is inheritance. Wealth should not be dispersed entirely, as communism attempted to do. Communism aimed for equality of outcome, when the more proper remedy is equality of opportunity. Communist theory did correctly identify property (wealth) as the source of the problem, but in seeking to eliminate private property altogether, it eliminated incentive. Without the engine of self-interest, the system foundered (failed).

The point is not to do away with wealth but to change the system design that gives illegitimate power to wealth – just as in the fight against sexism, the point was not to do away with men but to change the system that gave illegitimate power to men.”

– (P.100 – The Divine Right of Capital by Marjorie Kelly)

The above notable quotations are written in order show that a diverse number of people are tired of the old system of doing things and they are fully convinced that a real and revolutionary transformation has to happen sooner than later.

I have been reading Marjorie Kelly’s book which is sub-titled ‘Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy’ quite religiously in the past few weeks. There are basically two reasons for this, firstly I wanted to familiarize myself with certain economist terms in order to write my own essays, and secondly I just had to see how to voice my discontent with Capitalism.

David Slew Goliath, with a donkey jaw bone?

During my younger days I always thought that it would be fairly easy for me to become a billionaire or at least a multi-millionaire. I just never looked at money as a very difficult thing to acquire, as long as one got the right education and the basic drive to succeed, it didn’t seem that hard to just keep rising and rising above social circumstances.

Besides, I was motivated by other things which I have always rated as being far superior to that piece of paper. But the reality happened to be very different from the imagination.

As they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I am now half-educated, experienced yet penny-less and unemployed 33 year old who has to keep sending CV’s everywhere in order to earn a living and fulfill my dreams. I also seem to be incapable of finishing a proper business plan, even the one I did get to finish happened to get lost through my notoriously inglorious experiences. But the clock is ticking and I still have dreams to fulfill, some are realistic while others may be a bit far fetched, but I am still a believer.

I wish that I was writing this as someone who owns at least 2 motor vehicles, a home, a small farm just outside the city and also taking financial care of an extended family.

Only then would these writings truly appear like objective views from a taxpaying and responsible citizen of South Africa rather than as the ranting of a bitter and dissatisfied man, but then again, this is what free speech is for, right?

One always has a choice though, and that choice is one of the fundamental human rights, the right to self determination which is also inviolable.

I am also writing this in what I hope is the spirit of what the Kamau (the people of Ancient Egypt/Kamit) called Maat, which is the principle of Truth, Justice and Righteousness. In the back of my mind I am thinking that very few people will even find or make time to read these words, but I also have confidence that who ever does will find inspiration and begin or continue to strive to live a life of Love, a life that is governed by the principles of Maat.

This concept is explained in my other writings, but there are experts who have made it their vocation to deal with these ideas, words and principles, my primary wish is to put it to practice and also to show others that a better world is possible and that it does not require much money or fancy Western technological innovations.

Like most citizens of the Western world*, I too was raised on a large diet of Christian literature, ritual and symbolism, likewise, my life has followed that predictable trajectory ever since.

Yet there was something that happened to me when in my late teens I began reading some of the other literatures of the world, from the secular works in novels that were I came across or that were recommended at school.

While the first ever book I can recall reading was uMasihanbisane during the primary school days, the first real novel I ever read and really identified with was something I got from the Durban city library, I can’t remember its title but I recall that it dealt with a young girls coming of age in the war torn and strictly religious Middle East, I think it was Lebanon.

The story made an impression on me because of its many similarities to the township I then resided in. There was very little hope for the girls and boys there, just like the so called Middle East, the township was a place where human suffering and the many faces of poverty existed side by side with many signs of prestige and power; the rich neighbor – poor neighbor paradigm.

I was raised within a family that was relatively well off, we were not poor, we did not get everything we wanted, but having at least two parents meant that one received everything that was needed with much gratitude.

The same couldn’t be said of many of my neighbors, children who either had to deal with parents who were destroyed by alcoholism or plain old ignorance, and by ignorance I do not mean the lack of education, but the inability to imagine another possibility for ones self.

Imagination is a very important factor in the life of the township youth, not only does it allow one to rise above the pain of lacking a father or someone to look up to, but it also helps the mind to expand beyond the limitations set up by systematic structures.

While it did not only take imagination to topple the apartheid government, it did require the concerted efforts of armed struggle, consistent diplomatic and international lobbying and also the various works of imaginative artists to bring it into reality.

Although there is a lot of effort put into recognizing the work of pre-apartheid visual artists, musicians and other types of imaginers in South Africa, there still remains a lot of work to be done when it comes to giving them their proper place and creating platforms wherein they can pass on their knowledge to the younger generation.

But this paper is not just about artists or simply about books and how they can shape a young mind, the essential point is that Africa needs to find a way to look to itself without the spectacles of the European world.

This will sound backward to the liberal democrats, the rainbow nation dreamers who still don’t see the necessity of addressing the racial inequalities that haunt all our institutions from the banks, education, heritage, music industry, arts and even the religious community.

While SA is being celebrated as the archetype of constitutional democracies, there is a great poison going through our veins and it has a lot to do with our inability to see ourselves as Africans or Abantu in the fullest sense of the word.

But what does being Umuntu mean and what other form of government, education can we really have without referring to the European models?

These are some of the questions that I hope to answer through out the writings and works in this book. They say that if you wish to hide something from a Black person, simply put it into a book, but I aim to change that, it will not be an easy thing neither can I hope to achieve it single handedly. Ever-since our enslavement and colonialization, the strongest and most influential institution in the Black community has always been the spiritual business called the Church.

This institution is in actual fact far more than just an institution for us; it has provided a job and even a haven for many souls who were lost and needed something that would make them forget the constant physical and psychological struggles of the week.

The question is, has the church really helped to liberate the minds of Black people from the perils of mental slavery, has it helped to inform us about the true purpose of our lives, why we went through what we have gone through and how we can hope to totally overcome it without depending on our former tormentors?

The real answer is no.

There has been real violence committed against Black people and that violence still continues in our everyday reality. I am reminded here by the title and horrific story of Sello Duiker’s novel ‘The Quiet Violence Of Dreams’ which to my mind was an excellent reminder of the dark place that Black youth still find themselves in while our governments still assume the missionary position to the Missionaries of Democracy.Here’s what one of Africa’s most perceptive and innovative teachers – Ra U Nefer Amen - has to say about Democracy, which will be revisited later.

“Almost 2000 years ago Plato remarked, commenting about democracy, that the only virtue that the masses could express as a group was violence. The correctness of Plato’s observation is verified in the system of representative Democracy which states that the people lack the skills and knowledge required for exercising government and must therefore be represented by those who meet the requirements. Two things are fundamentally wrong with this. If you don’t really know how government and economics work, and don’t know much about history- in fact, real history, how can you intelligently choose the proper leadership. The other things that is wrong is the fact that the majority the of actions taken by the representatives (presidents, congressmen, senators, bureaucracies, etc.) are never discussed with the people prior to or after election.” *

TBC