“If we want to
abolish our powerlessness, if we want to abolish our poverty, the theme or
objective of Pan- Africanism has to change from African Unity to Black African
Power and Prosperity; if Pan-Africanism is to become once again relevant to the
ordinary people, it must return to its 1958 ethos and become the champion of
the reforms that will give the ordinary Black African a life of prosperity and
dignity.” – Dr Chinweizu (www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/site)
Section
1: People and Power
The word Power, like democracy has
become dishonourable and stigmatic. It no longer denotes strength and valour or
capability, but it carries now carries the negative connotations of avarice,
corruption and abuse.
To say that one or certain people have
power is easily construed as meaning they have a certain authority or that they
are better than others.
It is a power over other human beings
and not just over situations or conditions.
One has to then qualify or even quantify
this power. There is traditional power which is usually associated with rulers,
such as that attributed to monarchs, chiefs, magistrates and the like.
Then there is the power of the
religious, the super-natural the charlatans and the crooks.
All such power is assumed and presumed and
at most times rightfully earned either through excellent service, study or
display of extraordinary tenacity or courage.
Even in this modern time many people
still assume that Kings or Queens are divinely placed in their high and mighty
positions, either through ancestry or by a higher power.
The reverence that is given to the Queen
of England, the King of the Zulus and the many other monarchs and royal
individuals from Africa all the way to Japan is nothing short of mesmerizing.
The royals are thus feted, pampered and
given special treatment even via the taxes received from ordinary people who are
not even their subjects. One wonders how such people managed to be elevated to
such high and mighty status.
Whether there are those who question,
refute and deny that these people possess any significant power at all becomes
irrelevant. The lavish lifestyle of the ordained powerful and aristocratic
appears natural and it’s even protected in the constitutions of various
democratic governments.
One can then be justified in thinking
that such power is something that is not only shared but it is also regulated
and allowed to flourish. Like energy, power is something that can be stored,
preserved and discharged whenever it’s required. This is called the exercise of
power.
Well, if some people have got the power
and are recognizable by their wealth, ability or position; does that mean that
others who are without such power are subjects or subservient?
Let us take a look at two kinds of
power; that of royalty and that of modern governments.
At a recent workshop on organizational
behaviour and management today, one of the facilitators posed this question: “Why
is it that the Queen of England is not called a traditional leader and yet in
Africa, our Kings and Queens are called traditional leaders, chiefs and
Induna’s?”
Among the mostly young people (under 30’s)
who attempted to answer him, some pointed out that kingship in Africa still
implied some connection with our primitive past, customs and traditions.
The very word tradition was considered
as something indigenous and analogous to Black Africans.
The facilitator was not satisfied. These
were deeply flawed and presumptive answers; they showed that even as young
Africans we had a limited knowledge of our own past and indeed of the cultural
and political traditions of other peoples.
But by no means can this be considered
the view of all the people of Africa; it us just an indication of the
assumptions held by a few young people in a single room.
What the questioner was insinuating and
what he was probing is our general acceptance of Western terms, labels and
general social positioning which often connoted a prejudice or biased view of
Africans and our gradually diminishing social systems and customs.
He meant that we as Africans are also to
blame for perpetuating the very negative stereotypes and prejudice aimed to
demean us.
Our complicity can also be exemplified
by the manner in which the so called Democratic values are accepted or at least
allowed to permeate in our social lives.
The question of the efficacy of democracy
as an acceptable model of existence in our society has been raised numerous
times, yet the fact that the appropriate answer has not prevailed indicates
that we also have not offered a feasible or adequate alternative.
Many Black people, when asked whether
they chose democracy or not would usually say that they prefer their
traditional ways, often tempered with a bit of the accepted Christian values.
While some may claim that there is no
need to seek for an alternative since democracy essentially caters for both the
rulers and the ruled; it is clear that this is a serious contradiction.
If the basic interpretation of the word
democracy means ‘Power for the people, by the people’ or ‘the governing of the
people by the people’; one has then to contend with the nature or general
disposition of such people.
Matters such as the level of literacy,
education, degree socio-economic participation, politics and knowledge of
international trends – among a few factors all play significant roles in the
nature of a democracy, if indeed democracy we must maintain.
It is a fact that the majority of South
Africans had no real knowledge of what democracy meant, let alone whether it
was needed.
To many, the word was known for the
first time just prior and at the formation of the United Democratic Front in
1983 while most of our liberation parties were banned and their leaders and
supporters were jailed or exiled.
Clearly this was a system or culture
which was favoured by the intellectuals and the politically literate among our
population.
This showed in the fact that none of the
struggle songs which emerged and were mostly sung from the grassroots people
who suffered the brunt ravages of systematic White racism.
This is very telling in many ways. If
our songs were about freedom, liberation, the rights to roam and build our
prosperity freely in our native land, then how did all these simple aspirations
culminate in becoming a democracy and having a right to vote?
Yet we are still largely landless,
impoverished in almost every conceivable way and we remained largely
disempowered by any modern standard.
Now is a good time to question the
powerful and also ask ourselves whether we are being led in the desired
direction.
It is highly possible that democracy is
just another well-meant Western effort to further alienate us from ourselves,
our customs and communal ways of life.
As the Tunisian born writer Mohamed
ElhachmiHamdi notes in Islam and Liberal Democracy:
“Why
on earth should the entire world convert to Western norms? Would it not be
better to preserve fruitful pluralism in the world, by which nations can
express themselves in different ways, while respecting the basic values that
are essential for all human beings?”
What we knew for sure was that apartheid
had to end and total liberation from racism and all its discontents had to come
by any means necessary. Many of our local and exiled political leaders were
self-confessed communists, Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyists and socialists.
Thus, places such as the Soviet Union,
Cuba and Maoists China were seen as the beacons of modern civilization where
people enjoyed freedom and economic equality.
Needless to say, at the fall of the
communist system in Eastern Europe and the Soviets, this utopian vision was
dealt a crushing blow.
Emerging from being a liberation movement
towards being at the helm of national leadership, the African National Congress
had to deal with the implications of altering its foundational ideologies and
adhering to the seemingly natural order of the day, the ubiquitous word at the
time was of course Democracy. Thus neo-liberalism and free-market capitalism
was reluctantly yet wholly adopted and we all were forced to tow the
party-line.
A degree of disorientation followed after
the 1990’s. Some intellectuals on the left transferred their allegiance from
the authoritarian socialism of Moscow to the authoritarian capitalism of
Seoul/Korea. As the ANC came under increasing pressure from local and
international corporations to declare its economic policies in detail, the old
habit of referring to the Freedom Charter of 1955 was no longer enough. In
1993; it produced a few drafts of a new plan, called the Reconstruction and
Development Programme (RDP) whose final version was produced as the parties
election manifesto in 1994. We can say that this is the period in which
democracy in South Africa was inaugurated as the document reads:
“The
RDP is an integrated coherent socio-economic policy framework. It seeks to
mobilize all our people and our country’s resources toward the final
eradication of apartheid and the building of a democratic, non-racial and
non-sexist future.”
Today, 18 years after the RDP has been
tested in the fires of experience, it is abundantly clear that many of its
promises and plans are unmet. In fact many have called it a resounding failure,
an indictment of the ruling party’s inability to listen and thus meet the real
needs of the majority.
The willingness of the of the ruling party
and even the elites who act as its opposition, to adopt neo-liberal economic policies
and the privatization of many state resources, slow land redistribution and
general corruption within the state (leading to lack of adequate utilization of
available state funds) are just a few indications that democracy is not
properly understood in our country.
Even the State president J.G. Zuma
himself has recently been caught sleeping at the steering wheel. When he was
grilled by MP’s at a parliamentary Q&A session, he clearly demonstrated his
ignorance and that he too had no real idea what democracy really meant. But
perhaps the crudeness of his statements is just an indication of the leading
party’s unfitness to spearhead democracy.
The party has recently adopted a new growth
plan (The New Growth Path/The Second Transition); but critics and even certain
members within the ruling party have found fresh ammunition to attack the very
notion that the first transition ever occurred. The truth is that there has not
occurred a real Revolution or significant change in South Africa…
Certain comparisons to South Africa’s
transition from apartheid National Party to the ANC with the French Revolution
are misplaced, yet they may have a smidgenof truth – however stretched. We know
that the transfer of political power has not meant much transformation in the
lives of majority Black people; in fact the same conditions that were apparent
under apartheid are now glaring.
The same inferiority complexes still abound
and a greater number of landless Blacks still dwell in shacks, receive inferior
education, have to endure poor service delivery, are largely unemployed and
continue to be massacred in the wealth producing mines in which they have no
share or hope of ever transcending. Thus democratic change has been nothing
more than cosmetic glossing, a dream that did not come true for them.
While older histories of the French
Revolution stressed the static, extractive nature of the ancien regimeand the misery of the peasantry and urban poor, more
recent studies – for example, Simon Schama’sCitizens – have found mid-century French society to have been in a
ferment of economic and social change. On the newer analysis, the monarchy fell
because it could not manage the political consequences of this dynamism, rather
than because of an explosion of wretchedness or poverty. There are some
parallels in the South African experience.
Herbert Adams saw as early as 1970 that the
National Party, far from being locked in a 17th century worldview (as
earlier liberals had thought); was intending on “modernizing racial domination”.
More recently, John KaneBerman’s South
Africa’s Silent Revolutionchronicled the many ways in which South
Africa adapted to the coming political transition years before it took place.
Notwithstanding the impact of the UDF and international pressure against
apartheid in the 80’s, it would be fair to assert that the ANC was allowed to
assume some sort of manageable power in the 1994 compromise – while we The
People were tricked into thinking that our majority votes and rage mattered
much.
The real powers of white supremacy and
black subjugation still exist in the New SA. One cannot honestly say that a few
hundred thousand RDP houses, being allowed to integrate into white society and
being able to draw an X in a box constitutes real power. As a people, it is
clear that we are still landless, visionless and powerless.
With all that said, no one ever said that
democracy is a perfect system; its promoters often state that it has its flaws
and it depends much on how it is adopted and utilized by citizens. Yet again
the concept of citizenship has not been fully appreciated understood by
traditional African leadership – further compounding their perplexity with the
institution of democracy. Many traditional leaders who are still treating
people as if they are their own estranged children are adamantly and
vociferously opposed to any notions of democracy as they see it; so much so
that they even attempt to stamp their own authority in often absurd and
unconstitutional ways – ( a good example is on ILanga Newspaper – where a
chief/king of the AbaThembu clan has been forcing his ‘subjects’ to shave their
hair, abstain from sexual intercourse and the women must avoid wearing trousers
for three months while observing a period of mourning for the passing of his
grandfather.) But even academics who are stern protectors of the rights of
kings and queens have urged these rulers to accept the changing times; citing
proverbs that state that even tradition is should not be stagnant.
One then has to wonder just how long
democracy will take to infiltrate traditional societies from South America, the
Middle East, Africa, Asia and even Capitalist-Communist China. Perhaps it is
just a whimsical dream, a benchmark or an aspiration towards a standardized and
easily manageable world order, one that requires us to be more educated about
each other. One thing is for sure, if it is imposed and enforced as the US
often does, the repercussions are always deadly.
Section
2:
“No matter how exotic human
civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the
complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of
lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends
upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals.” – Frank Herbert, from The TleilaxuGodbuk (Page 103, Vol.2 of the
Dune saga)
Crawford Young has argued: “If we have learned anything about identity
politics in recent decades, it is the importance of flux and change. No
formulas are permanent. If we assume that democratization in Africa will be
slow, uneven and uncertain, yet will remain a defining element on the agenda of
change and recovery, then constitutional formulas that embody these aspirations
will need to remain open ended, experimental and responsive to evolving
cultural realities.”
Earlier, I mentioned that democracy was
and still remains mostly understood by the learned.
The general majority has mainly been
told what it is and how it is good for them, yet aside from NGO’s and other
institutions that aim to deepen understanding and democratic engagement between
citizens and the rulers – we are yet far from achieving desirable
socio-economic conditions necessary for real participatory democracy.
So does it make any sense to pursue something
that we cannot realistically achieve?
Perhaps the way for South Africa is to
go through the Socialist route, especially the Socialist-Democratic models that
take in to consideration much of the environmental implications of all economic
decisions.
All of this has something to do with
access and levels of high quality modern education.
This type of education should
necessarily take into consideration much of the Indigenous Knowledge Systems
that many of our academics have been putting a lot of work into.
This is one way of involving traditional
societies into the national economic platforms, from the grassroots levels all
the way up to the frontlines of technological advancement.
Even the so called traditional societies
have historically maintained ‘higher education’ among aristocrats, the elite
and monarchs. It was not until the emergence of missionaries during the
colonial periods that the ‘light of education’ finally filtered down among the
general population.
But even if it’s merely a matter of
affordability; a good education still remains mired in the socio-economic
realms of classism.
After so many promises of free
education, aspirations of the Freedom Charter, the aspirations of Negritude,
Black Consciousness and many lives lost in the trenches of Socialism, the
ideally educated Black African is still a rarity.
There are pockets of improved lives here
and there, yet the general social conditions of Black people are still as
wretched as Fanon, Du Bois and Marcus Garvey found them 50 to 100 years ago.
Note the following historical
development among Ancient Egyptians of the writing system:
“The
Egyptians called hieroglyphs ‘MdwNtr’, the ‘Gods Words’ and considered them to
be the creation of Thoth/Tehuti who is often shown in scenes of the ‘Weighing
of the Heart’ making a written record of the judgment of the deceased. In the
earliest periods the use of writing was closely linked to the kingship. The
king and his closest officials could demonstrate their authority by having
their possessions and monuments labelled with their names. This implied that
the upper echelons of society were, to some degree, literate or at least that
they had servants who could both read and write. There seems to have been an
inbred need to record ownership and to keep records, not only of the kings
achievements but also of the day-to-day business of the temples and palaces.”
– (Page 96, Understanding Hieroglyphics, a Quick and Simple Guide, by Hilary
Wilson)
This clearly shows that education and
literacy was highly valued in Ancient North African society, so much so that
even writing was linked to divinity.
But it did not just remain the exclusive
privilege of the gods/neteru (a word
which essentially means powers), the elites and the powerful, as attested here:
“In
theory even the lowliest peasant boy if he showed talent, could aspire to an
education as long as he could bring himself to the notice of someone who was in
a position to help him. The Egyptian governmental machine depended on a vast
army of clerks, taxation officers, recorders and accountants.” – (page 100)
This was not just true of Ancient Egypt,
but higher learning was valuable in many African civilizations even before the
emergence and the predominance of the Abrahamic religions.
Some of these indigenous knowledge
systems are still intact today, long after the damage done by colonialism.
The education was available in written,
oral and ritualistic forms. The value of Initiation, the so called Sacred and
Mystery Schools and apprenticeship has shown that fromMaphungubwe, The banks of
the Zambezi, The Kalahadi, Ghana, Nigeria, Kush, Mali, Nubia and Senegal to
name but a few, learning was highly valued by Africans before we were disturbed
by the destroyers or our practical and environmentally harmonious ways.
Let us note what I think is an important
point made by a columnist in the South African newspaper called The New Age:
“The popular uprisings in North Africa cannot
be narrowly defined along the dictum of ‘left’ and ‘right’ wing politics. A
wider confluence of social and class forces has emerged to oppose the basic
character of undemocratic regimes in that region (North Africa and the Middle
East). However, it is the outcome of such popular struggles that requires more
attention, because even such revolutions can reproduce reactionary social
phenomena if not guided by a progressive political ethos embedded within the
values of social solidarity and African unity.” – (page 23, The New Age
SipheloNgwangu’s Opinion: Lessons from Wretched of The Earth, 50 years on)
The viewpoint expressed by this columnist
is so important to understand if we wish to appreciate the value of African of
Black people’s power and the possibilities of African unity.
As Chinweizu states in the beginning;
Africa has to transcend the long striven for struggle for Unity, but we have to
set our sights on a kind of Power that will ensure our prosperity and dignity.
If we wish to earn the respect and admiration of other peoples in this world,
we must follow the examples of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Thomas Sankara and
even the Emperor Haile Selassie I, we must become a force to be reckoned with.
Haile Selassie I advises that we must ‘become larger than ourselves, we must
become something we have never been.’
Hutuapo!
Menzi Maseko ©
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