The End Of Politics

How to Deal With Unrepentant Thieves

“The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a bomb is to annihilate a peoples belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them want to identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle.” – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in his Introduction to Decolonizing the Mind (1986)

South Afrikan society is under a double or triple threat of dilemmas. There is the massive backlog of scarcely delivered electoral promises: everything from the ‘stolen’ or ill begotten land, to regular delivery of basic services and guaranteeing that the resources of the land are adequately distributed; there is the matter of social cohesion, a project that cannot be realised while there is so much wealth disparity and general psycho-social division. Well the leading government easily and affectively blame apartheid and even neo-colonialism for most of the above. But then there is the matter of power, or to put it strictly, the sharing and proper exercise of political and economic power.

While South Afrika boasts the ‘best’ constitution where everyone’s rights are guaranteed by law, the reality is that there is increasing violation of this constitution by the very ones that are meant to uphold it. The thing that confuses many people is this very naïve assumption that a ‘black government’ is guaranteed to deliver in everything that it promises. Nothing could be more suicidal that to give a person power and then expect them to share it fairly with you. But this is exactly what a lot of Southern Afrikans have done and the political elites, the business over-class and all those who blindly aspire to emulate them are laughing all the way to the bank and some are even helping themselves with large hectares of lucrative land.

We basically are living at a very volatile time and we have allowed ourselves to be ruled by a thievery corporation. What Ngugi said in 1986, is nightmarishly prophetic and even though he may have been focussed on the East Afrikan or Kenyan problem, it is quite clear that both the intellectuals, civil society and even the political class have learned nothing since then. Our people appear to have no appetite for common sense and we seem to have a pathological aversion for actual Revolution. That word again. Ever-since it re-appeared on our TV screens it seems to have been patented and repackaged by AlJazeera, CNN and all the other major broadcasters and media houses. For better or for worse, Revolutionary zeal has been placed on the spotlight since the so called Arab Spring. But the nature of peoples struggles appear to have stayed the same. There is not much clarity of analysis or an ideological campus among ‘strike leaders’ and community based organisations ( if they really and truly exist).

While ‘service delivery’ protests, police brutality are vehemently condemned by sections of our communities, the real culprits and the source of the problems is ignored. But there is hope. A show on the embattled RSA state television channel SABC2 called The Big Debate seems a huge step in the right direction. By placing politician, opinion makers and other people in power in the same room with civil society, the public and of course a global audience, it allows for some direct ‘commentary’ and the much needed transparency. But even though the show is in its infancy, I have noticed that so many people are planted by their respective organisations in the audience in order to drive their own agenda’s.

It is obvious that there is so much work to be done. There is severe cultural erosion that is taking place in Africa and the blame cannot all be laid at the feet of governments. What is important to consider is that we all have a responsibility to develop a distinctly pan-Afrikanist democracy here, beginning in Southern Afrika. Yet to even speak of pan-Afrikanism is seen as counter revolutionary among die hard ANC members. There was even a specific state of the nation address where the state President Jacob Zuma made fun of the name Azania by rubbishing it as a dream of an ‘imaginary country’. He has even been charged with not understanding the basic principles of democracy by categorically stating that what the majority party says or does or says is irrefutable since they are the majority. Clearly that was a kindergarten understanding of what the democracy they claim to uphold really is.

This is not another criticism of a single person and his party, it is rather an indictment on how we the citizens of a Southern Afrikan country have capitulated to state dictatorship and mediocrity. We appear to not have a clue how to mobilize ourselves effectively towards co-creating a better country for ourselves and coming generations.

There is a painfully accurate poetry-song by the infamous Last Poets; it’s called ‘Niggers Is Scared Of Revolution’; nothing could be truer and yet nothing can be more ironic. We as a Afrikan people have had so many revolutionary leaders during and before colonialism, and even now in the neo-colonial setting we can count many truly intelligent and transformative speakers, motivators and revolutionary writers, but their impact hardly seems to trickle down to the ones who suffer most from today’s imperialism.

While poor and mostly black people are continually under siege from what is increasingly becoming a police state, from economic uncertainty and global chaos, there are those in power who still feel the need to screw around with blatantly reckless promises and destructive policy decisions.

At a time like this, even a peace loving Rastaman such as myself finds himself fraternising with communists, socialists and even anarchists, all in pursuit of the right formula to ending this unrighteous world. Civil disobedience is a well-known revolutionary tactic, yet the recent socio-political realities in Egypt and other volatile areas clearly shows that neither violence nor change of heads of state is still no guarantee to state repression. Freedom remains just as elusive as it was yesterday. To make it even worse, the technological implements that are supposed to help us become more aware, more secure and communicative are the very instruments used by governments to ensure that every conceivable city is a policed state. Yes BIG Brother is watching us via our chosen tools, the Internet is being used for Cold War era types of spy-wars. No one is safe.