Thursday, February 19, 2015
The Price Of Not Thinking Freely - Ideological Hunger and Land Hunger
MOTHERLAND OR DEATH!!! This was the battle-cry of the Burkinabe people under the grand leadership of the greatest president Afrika has ever seen.
Thomas Sankara would chant this mantra repeatedly and the people of Burkina Faso who rallied around him would echo the call. Until the people of Southern Afrika realize that the land of their Mother and Father is still under colonial and even black colonialist rule, there will be no end to the violence we inflict against each other, and there will be no end to the poverty we experience everyday. We need to see ourselves with new eyes, out of the ashes of the old dying world of exploitation and greed, we have to create NEW Values and New Systems -
" A change of values - that means a change in the creators of values. He who has to be a creator always has to destroy." -F.N.
What Ever happened to the value and inalienable right of free thinking and speaking?
Indeed, can we even dare to speak any kind of Truth the the powers that pretend to be without risking our very own lives?
In what one of the main opposition political party spokespersons has called "A Broken Country led by a broken man", can we even afford the luxury speaking effectively of true freedom of expression? Or is freedom just another charade. Another parade?
It seems to me that the very notion of Freedom needs further investigating.
While chatting about the transformation of educational institutions today, a sister reminded me that the greatest challenge for Afrikan self determination and progress today is that of "selective memory". She said that we the younger Africans in the South suffer from a lack of connectivity, a deficit of pan-Afrikan memory. If we knew what it means to be part of the Afrikan story from slavery, to colonialism and apartheid to now, we would not violate any fellow Afrikans right to belong and work anywhere in the continent.
Instead of fighting against one another and struggling for the crumbs that fall from the masters table, we would definitively call our leadership to account and demand restorative justice.
Essentially all our woes are tired multifariously to the problem of foreign invasion and occupation of what was once our birthright, our source for wealth, cultural expression and dignity.
If we are to speak clearly and frankly, We must begin with the question of Afrikan people's landlessness and impoverishment while a handful of foreigners lord it over them. If we do not have clear plans and a vision about our Land, then we might as well cease all other human rights.
We simply cannot create any value or even values if we speak from a place of landlessness.
We must use all our powers and all faculties to occupy and utilize the land for every conceivable progressive means and ends. Without land we are dehumanized and unmade. There is no culture without land and therefore there is no language and therefore there is no such entity as an Afrikan. The Afrikan becomes a creature attempting assimilation and integration to whiteness. Whiteness itself is a void when there is no blackness to exploit. We can end all forms of exploitation as soon as we deal decisively with the matter of land.
I heard someone on the radio, repeating the old false mantra that the question of land is an emotional matter. This is far from the truth.The question of Land is a LOGICAL matter, it is the crux of all political and sociological engagement.
We are led by a government which glorifies a constitution that defends the rights of thieves and criminals over justice and redress of pressing matters such as Who Are The Right Custodians of the Land and the true Sons and Daughters of the Soil?
Many deliberations have continued fruitlessly in half-hearted attempts to reshape the ownership, stewardship and tenure of the land called South Africa. But it appears as if after 21 years of wayward and neo-liberal policy choices concorted in cahoots with imperialist powers, the question of land ownership continues to be a sore point in this country.
This clearly indicates that there can never be any kind of social cohesion before economic freedom and guaranteed economic opportunities.
The celebrated constitution which was drafted more to appease the foreign stakeholders of the wealth of the land more than the original peoples of the land is loosely and carelessly based upon a troubling document called the Freedom Charter.
In this Freedom Charter there are numerous preposterous claims about who the land belongs to and many Southern Africans have been hard-pressed to question the validity of these claims.
Here is an excerpt from the Freedom Charter:
" The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished."
Yet after 21 years of African National Congress misrule, the indigenous peoples of this country are still imprisoned in white owned farms, they are forced to labour for 10 years before they can have meagre shares in the produce of the land formerly owned by their fore-mothers and forefathers. The blacks of this country remain the most poor and most wretched people and they are terrorised whenever they attempt to occupy any land they may choose.Since much of the good land if owned by foreigners and private capitalists and white farmers, they cannot access their true wealth.
The state supplies mostly genetically modified seeds to poor black farmers and meagre support for small traders, while focusing on assisting large scale farming projects which sap the states resources for little or no profit.
We remain a people who are far from tasting the fruits of true freedom and we are spoonfed. Even our notions of freedom are deeply troubling. Phd students and other educated blacks continue to display a saddening inferiority complex to whiteness and to capital.
Leaders appear to lack a clear vision on what is to be done and those who step up with programs of action are quickly compromised by their lust for power and money.
What we need today are more unselfish leaders and the potential for that kind of leadership is within all of us. We can no longer afford demigogues and demigods. We Must become those whose character is shaped by the fire of truth rather than the blood of vengeance.
We are the ones we have been waiting for!!!
Thomas Sankara would chant this mantra repeatedly and the people of Burkina Faso who rallied around him would echo the call. Until the people of Southern Afrika realize that the land of their Mother and Father is still under colonial and even black colonialist rule, there will be no end to the violence we inflict against each other, and there will be no end to the poverty we experience everyday. We need to see ourselves with new eyes, out of the ashes of the old dying world of exploitation and greed, we have to create NEW Values and New Systems -
" A change of values - that means a change in the creators of values. He who has to be a creator always has to destroy." -F.N.
What Ever happened to the value and inalienable right of free thinking and speaking?
Indeed, can we even dare to speak any kind of Truth the the powers that pretend to be without risking our very own lives?
In what one of the main opposition political party spokespersons has called "A Broken Country led by a broken man", can we even afford the luxury speaking effectively of true freedom of expression? Or is freedom just another charade. Another parade?
It seems to me that the very notion of Freedom needs further investigating.
While chatting about the transformation of educational institutions today, a sister reminded me that the greatest challenge for Afrikan self determination and progress today is that of "selective memory". She said that we the younger Africans in the South suffer from a lack of connectivity, a deficit of pan-Afrikan memory. If we knew what it means to be part of the Afrikan story from slavery, to colonialism and apartheid to now, we would not violate any fellow Afrikans right to belong and work anywhere in the continent.
Instead of fighting against one another and struggling for the crumbs that fall from the masters table, we would definitively call our leadership to account and demand restorative justice.
Essentially all our woes are tired multifariously to the problem of foreign invasion and occupation of what was once our birthright, our source for wealth, cultural expression and dignity.
If we are to speak clearly and frankly, We must begin with the question of Afrikan people's landlessness and impoverishment while a handful of foreigners lord it over them. If we do not have clear plans and a vision about our Land, then we might as well cease all other human rights.
We simply cannot create any value or even values if we speak from a place of landlessness.
We must use all our powers and all faculties to occupy and utilize the land for every conceivable progressive means and ends. Without land we are dehumanized and unmade. There is no culture without land and therefore there is no language and therefore there is no such entity as an Afrikan. The Afrikan becomes a creature attempting assimilation and integration to whiteness. Whiteness itself is a void when there is no blackness to exploit. We can end all forms of exploitation as soon as we deal decisively with the matter of land.
I heard someone on the radio, repeating the old false mantra that the question of land is an emotional matter. This is far from the truth.The question of Land is a LOGICAL matter, it is the crux of all political and sociological engagement.
We are led by a government which glorifies a constitution that defends the rights of thieves and criminals over justice and redress of pressing matters such as Who Are The Right Custodians of the Land and the true Sons and Daughters of the Soil?
Many deliberations have continued fruitlessly in half-hearted attempts to reshape the ownership, stewardship and tenure of the land called South Africa. But it appears as if after 21 years of wayward and neo-liberal policy choices concorted in cahoots with imperialist powers, the question of land ownership continues to be a sore point in this country.
This clearly indicates that there can never be any kind of social cohesion before economic freedom and guaranteed economic opportunities.
The celebrated constitution which was drafted more to appease the foreign stakeholders of the wealth of the land more than the original peoples of the land is loosely and carelessly based upon a troubling document called the Freedom Charter.
In this Freedom Charter there are numerous preposterous claims about who the land belongs to and many Southern Africans have been hard-pressed to question the validity of these claims.
Here is an excerpt from the Freedom Charter:
" The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and farm prisons shall be abolished."
Yet after 21 years of African National Congress misrule, the indigenous peoples of this country are still imprisoned in white owned farms, they are forced to labour for 10 years before they can have meagre shares in the produce of the land formerly owned by their fore-mothers and forefathers. The blacks of this country remain the most poor and most wretched people and they are terrorised whenever they attempt to occupy any land they may choose.Since much of the good land if owned by foreigners and private capitalists and white farmers, they cannot access their true wealth.
The state supplies mostly genetically modified seeds to poor black farmers and meagre support for small traders, while focusing on assisting large scale farming projects which sap the states resources for little or no profit.
We remain a people who are far from tasting the fruits of true freedom and we are spoonfed. Even our notions of freedom are deeply troubling. Phd students and other educated blacks continue to display a saddening inferiority complex to whiteness and to capital.
Leaders appear to lack a clear vision on what is to be done and those who step up with programs of action are quickly compromised by their lust for power and money.
What we need today are more unselfish leaders and the potential for that kind of leadership is within all of us. We can no longer afford demigogues and demigods. We Must become those whose character is shaped by the fire of truth rather than the blood of vengeance.
We are the ones we have been waiting for!!!
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