Sizophum’eLokishini – Getting Out of the Location
An RE-Introduction to Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness for Wellbeing
In this document, I aim to point out once and for all, that there is an urgent need for South African/Azanian people in particular to understand the urgency and practicality of Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism. This is the only means by which we all can work together to address the inequalities and poverty that keeps dividing us even further. I write this mainly because there are many who make the mistake of likening the practice of Pan African-ness for being a purely political thing. In every conversation about the value of Pan Africanism, someone is most likely to bring in the subject of the failures of political parties such as the Pan Africanist Congress- PAC, Azanian Peoples Organisation – AZAPO, the Socialist Party of Azania – SOPA and finally the Black Consciousness Party. Most rationalists will offer that Pan Africanism has not worked due to its impracticality, even some Black people will go as far as to say that it is wholly a racist policy that has no place in our multi-racial society.
It is important to see the distinction between individual or everyday Pan Africanists and the broader aspirations of such political parties, for herein can one understand that the former may seek a totally different solution compared to the latter. Here I must say that I am merely stating my opinion, yet I shall strive to qualify my opinion by offering some enlightening examples from elsewhere.
What people have to understand is that even though these organisations were formed to represent the Black Southern African majority, they failed to capture a large number of people merely due to the fact that they were operating within an economically, politically and ideologically unequal field.
We must first understand that all of these ‘break-away’ political parties were merely seeking to revolutionise the methods of their former organisations. The histories of how all of the above parties emerged from the African National Congress is well documented, yet what is not clearly defined is the fundamental differences in approach and how it is that the nationalists were able to survive and capture the peoples minds and hearts of the striving masses, while the Africanists became weaker and weaker still.
To really appreciate these differences, we have to step out of the Africanist / Nationalist points of view and interrogate how both these liberation movements took to Socialism and Communism or rather to the teachings and analytical methods of European thinkers such as Marx, Lenin to name but a few. Even a superficial perusal of the speeches and interviews of people such as Robert Sobukwe and Steve Biko reveals that the African National Congress and the PAC have always had different approaches to Communism and Socialism, yet in earlier times there was a unity of purpose as expressed clearly by Biko:
“Clearly, black people know that their leaders are those people who are now either in Robben Island or in banishment or in exile – voluntary or otherwise. People like Mandela, Sobukwe, Kathrada, M.D. Naidoo and many leaders of the people. They may have been branded communists, saboteurs, or similar names – in fact they have been convicted of similar offences in law courts but this does not subtract from the real essence of their worth. We may disagree with some things they did but know that thy spoke the language of the people.” ( From I Write What I Like )
And on socialism, here’s what Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe has to say:
“Sobukwe and the Africanists always saw the struggle for national freedom as an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle. They believed that national liberation is intertwined and inseparable from social emancipation or the struggle for socialism.”
‘Africanist therefore have always rejected the two separate stage theory of our revolution – where there will be a separate national democratic revolution or stage 1, led by one political entity and later a second socialist or stage 2, led by yet another political formation.
Finally, Sobukwe, like all Pan-Africanists, believed that a United Africa must project an African personality by making a positive contribution to the affairs of humankind.’ – From IKHWEZI
So briefly, although the ideas of socialism were shared by both the Pan Africanists and the Nationalists, there was a difference in their approach to how capitalist imperialism exemplified by pro-western ideals had to be tackled. One could say it was and still remains a question of whether blacks negotiated a settlement with their common enemy or they demanded full emancipation, which is complete independence and autonomy. It is clear today who the ones who decided for a negotiated an peaceful settlement and who refused the falsified divorce papers.
There is also the question of democracy. The Africanists continue to shout that 'Africa is our country’ and the Nationalists say that we are all working towards a ‘better life for all’.
To put it simply, the Africanists and the Nationalists differ in their interpretation of what a real and earnest revolution entails. While both fought and continue to agitate for African sovereignty and self-determination, the meaning of revolution is like East and West for these parties, and so it is for the ordinary people, the so called proletariat and the working classes which make up the majority of African people.
There needs to be a common understanding amongst We Black people of what it means to be truly free and what it is that We have striven to be free from. There is a tendency to forget that Pan Africanism is not about politics at all, but a wilful attitude change that an African undertakes in order to put Africa and all things essentially African first in their life.
We also must understand that the enemy of all our progress is a common one and that all true revolutions must take us from a position of lack into a place where we can have the power to determine our destiny. Yet how can one determine ones future when the leaders of expected progress continue to waste both our resources and fail to bequeath the masses with a unique ideological framework – a progressive and practical roadmap for our total emancipation. When we act as if we do not believe in our own ability to even produce the most basic goods and we are made to depend on far away nations who are still free to purchase and own private property in the land that in which we rightfully belong?
What I mean is that the current governments neo-liberal policies are both impractical and unsustainable merely due to the fact that the no matter how much industrialisation occurs on our soil, the native will always rise up and revolt in demand of his natural inheritance. On this matter of sustainability which speaks to the manner in which the Republic of South Africa treats matters of nationalisation and land acquisition let’s hear what Karl Marx himself had to say:
“From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation or al simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth, they are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations as good heads of households.”- (Capital Volume 3)
As much as I am loathe to quote from the European giants while trying to explain African challenges, it is clear that we have been dealing with problematic systems that we have inherited from them; hence they also know better how we and them have been mired in such a dilemma.
So here we can see how Marx eloquently maintains that there is a deeply flawed understanding of what society’s purpose is on planet Earth. He makes it abundantly clear that we are not owners of the earth. Everything we found when we were born we shall also leave here, this includes most of our inventions. So all this competition over the ownership of lands and resources that have been naturally bestowed upon native beneficiaries is a complete waste of both resources and valuable time, time that would be best utilised in creating a less competitive and more sustainable human condition. I dare say that the essential work of all Pan Africanist is to help realise this very ecological land economically sustainable world. This is what is meant above when we say that Sobukwe and others were eager to see Africans contributing positively to the affairs of humankind. And this is also expressed clearly by Biko when he writes:
“Freedom is the ability to define oneself with one’s possibilities held back not by the power of other people over one but only by one’s relationship to God and to natural surroundings. On his own therefore, the black man wishes to explore his surroundings and test his possibilities – in other words to make his freedom real by whatever means he deems fit.” ( Biko – I Write What I Like )
Pan Africanism and Black Consciousness then simply seek to enable black people to determine their own fate, to move away from such dependency on Western civilization. The more we depend on others for our own freedom the more enslaved we shall become, the more impoverished shall be our cultures and we shall end up not having anything to give to the world beside songs, sporting excellence and our embittered lamentations. Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism takes an unbiased and fearless look at the causes of our poverty and prescribes a cure that will once and for all root out the problems. Pan Africanism is not merely a demand for jobs, benefits and better salaries, just like Black Consciousness; it is a total revolutionising of the mind and a way of life.
Here, an explanation is required.
“Poverty is defined as being more than a lack of income. Poverty exists when as individual or a household’s access to income, jobs and or infrastructure is inadequate or sufficiently unequal to prohibit full access to opportunity in society. The condition of poverty is caused by a combination of social, economic, spatial, environmental and political factors.
During apartheid, African people were made poor through urban management, and revoking racially exclusionary policies did not level the playing fields. Instead, a superficial sense of equality was created. The effect has been the inability of most of the population to claim their socio-economic rights. (Parnell & Boulle – 2006) further argue that the entrenched patterns of inequality arising out of human settlement management have resulted in the rich being able to reproduce the conditions of their privilege in an environment that is superficially equal.”
This lengthy introduction has simply explained the reasons why I took up the task of writing this.
The mess in which the majority of African peoples are in can only be described as wretched, yet this is not a call for self pity, it is also not a reason to become any more agitated than we all already are.
There is a need for African peoples to recognise that the world can still be a better and brighter place for them and that they are the perfect agents for that change, that revolution. My aim is to show Our people that the revolution is in their hands and that it will not come from politicians or from prophets who promise them a heaven on earth. The poverty We are in should not diminish our longing to be self-sufficient, we are able to be better than We currently are.
But it requires an honest re-examination of how we ended up so far down the turning wheel of civilization and that has to be a totally fearless look at ones history and abilities.
Chinua Achebe’s statement in his paper, ‘The Novelist as a Teacher’, is instructive:
“If I were God I would regard as the very worst our acceptance – for whatever reason – of racial inferiority. It is too late in the day to get worked up about it or to blame others, much as they may deserve such blame ad condemnation. What we need to do is to look back and try and try and find out where we went wrong, where the rain began to beat us. Here then is an adequate revolution for me to espouse – to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement.” –P.44, Morning yet On Creation Day
It is clear from the above statement that Achebe is calling for the same revolution that the likes of Steve Biko were calling for when they recommended Black Consciousness for the masses of Africans worldwide.
While I have already dealt with the reasons why Black Consciousness is even more relevant today in my other writings, it must be made more clear that there are many forces, both national and global that are threatened by any serious rise of such a consciousness.
It has been written by many activists that the ruling party would rather keep the masses of the Black majority ignorant rather than provide a proper education system that is relatively free or affordable since the more people are in the dark the less likely are they able to see that they are being stolen from and lied to by their own political representatives.
A revolution is something too far fetched and even seen as unnecessary to a people who do not read, who are un-educated and therefore unaware of the causes of their misery. Hence we still find cases of Black on Black violence, a matter which is more economically based rather than xenophobic.
So a revolution is not only necessary but it is at hand, but let’s see whether we are all on the same page regarding what this very word means.
In democratising the struggle: revolution by “structural reform” and popular empowerment, John Saul writes:
“One final term we need to interrogate is the word “revolution” itself. It is a tempting word since we know just how big and aggressive is the capitalist enemy that must be overcome. But perhaps, despite this, it’s just a bit too tempting – and somewhat too romantic – a notion. For what we have seen so far suggests that the “socialist revolution’ will not spring easily from some sudden social upheaval nor be consolidated quickly or well, even under the leadership of some unusually wise vanguard. – A structural reform must not come from on high: instead it must root itself in popular initiatives in such a way as to foster further empowerment. It must lead to growing self consciousness and organisational capacity for the vast mass of the population who thus strengthen themselves for further struggles, further victories.” – John Saul in Marxism & renewal in the 21st Century – new challenges, new thinking.
With all that said, I would like to once again (still reluctantly) use the example of the politically ubiquitous Marx, albeit through the pen of another analyst:
“Marx’s vision of ‘communism’ was that of sustainable human development, where human beings lived as part of nature, not separate and above it. His ‘communism’, clearly, was not the state-dominated authoritarian experiment in ‘actually existing socialism’, where ‘democracy’ was emptied of its content.” – ( Devan Pillay – associate professor in Department of Sociology at Wits University)
And in conclusion I shall re-quote what this same writer has quoted from Bolivia’s ex-president Evo Morales whose green socialist development strategy is worth emulating for We Africans.
“For us, what has failed is the model of ‘living better’ (than others), of unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our Mother Earth.” (Quoted in Foster, 2009:35)
Pan Africanism taken beyond the anti-racial paradigm and towards its natural conclusion seeks a similar human condition, where White Supremacy has been defeated and wanton industrialisation has been put in check. “We know we shall win for we are confident of the victory of good over evil.”-HSI
