Why Do I Love The Economic Freedom Fighters?
I have worked in various industries in South Africa including some overseas stints with the British Council program Global Xchange. I have been an entrepreneur, co-founding a Travel and Tourism company which still makes large profits although I have distanced myself from it; I have co-founded a successful brand and pan-African apparent company Urban Zulu and sold books and music via my company Broken Seeds Productions … I have worked within the Arts and Culture sector and I still do.
I have even worked as a Black Economic Empowerment consultant and marketer. I have been unemployed, self-employed – rich and poor. All of the above have taught me invaluable lessons about the nature of Work, and what it means to have a goal, a vision and a mission that benefits more than yourself.
I have been a social commentator, an environmentalist, a Pentecostal, a Rastafarian and even entertained some anarchist ideas. Although I have never joined a political party formally before I began associating myself with the September National Imbizo around 2011, and had been attending some Socialist Party of Azania rallies and meetings a few years before that. All of this was done in pursuit of the best way in which I could make a contribution in Transforming the lives of my people. What Steve Biko’s son Hlumelo calls The Great African Society, which is nothing more than a dream for now.
This transformational work requires personal and organisational discipline and excellence and that is something that one is striving to achieve. It is easier said than done.
When the EFF started many of my comrades had already begun speculating about whether or not we would ‘assist’ Julius Malema to make good of his rants about Nationalisation and other issues that he so boisterously keeps putting out to the mass media.
But how do we deal with such a cantankerous and volatile character? How do we reconcile our frustration and utter denouncement of the current regime which the young leader has been such a vocal advocate of with our Black Power Pan Afrikanism? Surely we would be committing political suicide if we began to fraternise with “Charterists” and suspected fraudsters and tax evaders.
But our socialist instincts and reading of the revolutionary moment had us reasoning that we should take the bitter with the sweet and that anyone who champions our course for a Revolutionary Southern Afrika should be our mate no matter how imperfect they may seem.
The subsequent meetings that we had at the Afrikan Freedom Station with the EFF team was interesting to say the least. After discussing our mutual terms of engagement as SNI/EFF and the delegation of other social movements that we had met with to chart a way forward, it emerged that we had more similarities than differences and that our unity would serve us all. The fact is that there have been too many false starts and too much talk and not much effective action from the Left in SA politics.
While the Unions and other organisations that purport to seek a Socialist solution to our countries socio-economic woes keep selling workers, miners, farmers and unemployed people false promises; the imperialists and ineffectual elitist government and administrators continue to plunder our resources.
A change was bound to happen and sooner than later. Although it is still early to tell just how this youth led popular organisation will fare in the greater scheme of things; I am confident that the Economic Freedom Fight must be waged TODAY and that no other party is capable of ensuring that this is done sooner rather than later. 20 years of promises of a “Better Life For All” are enough. We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For. And I have selected just some key points from the Economic Freedom Fighters Founding Manifesto to emphasize my point: Do READ:
43. Food production, packaging, transportation, marketing, advertising, retail, and trade should constitute one of South Africa’s biggest economic sectors. With a growing global population, and the growing capacity of Africans to buy food, South Africa needs to produce agricultural output through provision of subsidies to small-scale farmers, and open packaging and retail opportunities for these farmers.
44. A structured state support and agricultural-protection mechanism should be applied to all food products, including beef and other meats’ production and processing. The same applies to fruit, maize, and other essential food items produced by small-scale farmers. To boost sustainable demand domestically, the South African government should pass legislation that all the food bought by government for hospitals, schools, prisons, and the like should be sourced from small-scale food producers.
This in itself will create sustainable economic activity, and inspire many young people to go into food production because there will be income and financial benefits to boost other economic activities out of it. The economy of food production needs well-structured protection mechanisms and subsidies in order to protect jobs and safeguard food security. Most developed and developing nations are doing the same.
45. With a clearly defined and well-structured mechanism, South Africa, which is, oddly, a net importer of food, can realise the development of the food economy in a manner that exceeds Brazil’s. This will add sustainable job creation, not the kind of short-term jobs created through infrastructure development. This will, of course, require land reform to be expedited and water supplies to be guaranteed for the sustainability of the this important sector of the economy.
2) Nationalisation of mines, banks and other strategic sectors of the economy.
46. Owing to the character of the South African economy and the aspirations of the people for economic freedom, state ownership and control of strategic sectors of the economy should be the foundation for sustainable economic transformation in South Africa. A supposition that the South African economy can be transformed to address the massive unemployment, poverty and inequality crisis without transfer of wealth from those who currently own it to the people as a whole is illusory.
The transfer of wealth from the minority should fundamentally focus on the commanding heights of the economy. This should include minerals, metals, banks, energy production, and telecommunications and retain the ownership of central transport and logistics modes such as Transnet, Sasol, Mittal Steel, Eskom, Telkom and all harbours and airports.
47. The ownership of mineral wealth should be considered through various means, prime being the expropriation of the current minerals-production processes in South Africa, and the commencement of extraction, processing and trade on new land. The ownership of minerals beneath the soil could in effect entail the discontinuation of total private ownership of production means in the production of mineral wealth in South Africa. The route towards total transfer of mineral wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole should include the creation of an efficient and impactful state-owned mining company. It will be efficient and impactful because a state-owned mining company should contribute to job creation, while being efficiently managed and administered in a manner that will raise the levels of public confidence in the capacity of the state to do business and contribute to economic development.
48. Nationalised mineral wealth will in effect constitute a very firm basis for the beneficiation of these products in both heavy and light industrial processes in South Africa, which could be left to industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives and small and medium enterprises, so as to develop the productive forces of the South African economy, which is still reliant on the production of primary commodities. Instead of relying on neoliberal mechanisms to attract industrial and manufacturing investments to South Africa, such as a narrow fiscal stability, and decreased labour costs, the state, in the ownership of mineral wealth and metals, could provide incentives to reduce prices for the primary and raw commodities, which will be industrialised and beneficiated in South Africa.
49. Minerals and metals beneficiation will constitute a very firm, sustainable and labour-absorptive industrial process, which will feature both import-substituting and export-led industrialisation. Various other areas of an increased, sustainable and labour absorptive industrial process could be explored within a situation where the production of metals and minerals are nationalised for the benefit of all. Industrial and manufacturing entrepreneurs, co-operatives, and small and medium enterprises from outside and inside South Africa could then be allowed to industrialise the South African economy, with guaranteed rights, and regulated through transformation charters which will lead to skills transfer at all levels of corporations’ structures.
50. This process should conspicuously be coupled with an effective skills-development, training and education strategy, which will directly feed into a growing industrial and manufacturing process.
Importantly for this process to happen, the South African liberation movement and the state should mobilise massive support of the working class, some sections of the middle class and established industrial entrepreneurs and corporations behind a consolidated national economic-developmental plan, which will address the social challenges characteristic of South African society. This is one revolution that requires support from various sections of South African society and should be understood within such a context.
51. Certainly, the nationalisation of minerals and metals might ignite international condemnation by global imperialists, institutionalised in the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and, notably, the World Trade Organisation. A broader mass movement should be mobilised in South Africa in defence of these massive economic reforms, because they constitute the core of our economic emancipation programme. Mass campaigns on what nationalisation (people and state ownership and control) of minerals, metals and other strategic sectors of the economy will entail should be conducted to garner support from the people as a whole.
52. The benefits of nationalising strategic sectors of the economy will include, but not be limited to, the following realities: a. An increased fiscus for, and therefore more resources for, education, housing, healthcare, infrastructure development, safety and security and sustainable livelihoods for our people.
b. More jobs for our people because state-owned and controlled mines will increase the local beneficiation and industrialisation of mineral resources. This will, in turn, reduce the high levels of poverty consequent of joblessness.
c. More equitable spatial development because state-owned and controlled mines will invest in areas where mining is happening.
d. Better salaries and working conditions in mines because state-owned mines will increase the mining wage and improve compliance with occupational health and safety standards.
e. Greater levels of economic and political sovereignty, as the state will be in control and ownership of strategic sectors of the economy, which produce mineral resources needed around the world.
53. It is important to highlight that, as part of this programme, the transfer of wealth to the ownership of the people as a whole is not limited to mines only, but should necessarily extend to monopoly industries. The creation of a State Bank and the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank constitute an immediate task and essential to the development of the South African economy, as it can be progressively positioned to improve the existence of state-owned development finance institutions, in order to finance new industries. The State Bank will also provide enterprise finance, housing finance and vehicle finance for all South Africans in a manner that promotes development, not the narrow pursuit of profits.
54. The EFF-led government will establish a State Bank, which should be accompanied by the transformation of the financial sector as a whole, particularly banking and insurance industry practices and norms. Finance capital dominates the world economy and carries with it the potential to undermine all efforts to build a better life for all people. Vigilance and greater state participation in the financial sector is therefore a vital component of efforts to build a sustainable and better life for all the people of South Africa.
55. The EFF will limit foreign ownership of strategic and monopoly sectors, where the state does not exert full ownership, in order to protect South Africa’s sovereignty and to limit the repatriation of profits, so that these can be used for the further development of our people.
3) Building state and government capacity, which will lead to the abolishment of tenders.
56. For a successful state that seeks to drive real economic and industrial development and provide better services, an inspired, skilled, and well-compensated public service is required. The public service should be strengthened for a sustainable transformation of the economy. The ethos of such a state should be developmental and very strong and, hence, consistent with anti-corruption measures. This is emphasised because the task of fundamental economic
57. This should, essentially, be a state that has the capacity to marshal all progressive social forces in society, particularly the working class, towards developmental objectives. The state should build internal capacity to construct and maintain infrastructure such as roads, railways and dams and basic services such as schools, houses, hospitals and recreational facilities. The state’s dependence on tenders has massive political implications and often reduces the quality of work provided because of corruption and the corruptibility of the whole tendering system. In addition, the reliance on tenders limits the capacity of the state to directly industrialise the country by deliberately building value chains through direct state procurement.
58. The state’s capacity to perform these functions will entail that the public service and its servants be properly maintained, serviced and adequately remunerated at all levels. At the centre of a strong developmental state should be a motivated, inspired and well-remunerated public service that shares in the developmental vision of the country. These interventions should be coupled with an increased capacity to aggressively fight corruption and criminality within the state.
The fight against corruption should not be a side issue, but a fundamental component of the state apparatus in order to increase public confidence in the state. In this context, the EFF will place a premium on strengthening the revolutionary trade union movement in the public sector, which should establish a practical and immediate bridge through which the working class exercises its power over the state apparatus.
59. A strong developmental state should necessarily have political power and technical capacity to give developmental mandates to state-owned enterprises (SOE) and private corporations. SOE and private sector compliance with the state’s developmental targets should not be voluntary, but a mandatory, crucial factor around which the state should be able to use a carrot-and-stick system to enforce.
It can never be correct that the state operates only with the “hope” that the still colonial and foreign-owned, and thus unpatriotic, private sector, in particular, will voluntarily underwrite the developmental agenda and pursue the agenda of job creation, poverty reduction and sustainable development with the same vigour that should define government.
60. As concrete steps forward, which the state should initiate, establish and give strategic and financial support to, are the following:
a. A state housing-construction company. b. A state roads-construction company. c. A state cement company.
d. A state pharmaceutical company. e. A state-owned mining company. f. A state food-stocking company (to regulate prices of basic foodstuffs and guarantee food security for all).
61. These state companies will be buttressed by state ownership of critical parts of the value chains in which these companies operate, e.g. petrochemicals (Sasol), steel (Arcelor-Mittal), etc, so that they produce essential inputs into the economy on a non-profit-maximisation basis.
62. Within this context, the state will employ engineers, quantity surveyors, project managers, and builders for sustainable tasks. Their responsibilities will include the construction of houses, roads, bridges, sports facilities, dams, sewerage systems and more. These should be subjected to strict standards of quality assurance to ensure that, at all times, state-constructed entities are of good quality. State-owned companies will not be driven by principles of profit maximisation, but by the need to provide cheap and affordable services to the people and the economy at large.
4) Free quality education, healthcare, houses, and sanitation.
63. Education: Education will be free up to undergraduate level and all pupils and students will be provided with adequate learning and teacher-support materials. For successful and sustainable economic development and growth, South Africa requires a concerted focus on the attainment of skills, education and expertise in various fields. The attainment of skills should necessarily respond to the massive skills shortages that define existent industries, but the education system should also be positioned to assist with new industrial developments.
The approach to realising this noble objective should include, but not be limited to, the alignment of skills to industrial sectors, the expansion of post-secondary education and training, the transformation of higher education and training and the introduction of a new scholarship system that will provide educational and training opportunities to South African youth studying outside the country so that they can return after learning more than would have been possible within South Africa’s borders.
64. The alignment of skills to industrial sectors should be done in a manner similar to the approach adopted by developed economies, but in a more focused and properly resourced model that would necessarily include the establishment of focus universities. South Africa should establish and resource sector-focused institutions of higher learning. The EFF will encourage tertiary institutions to expand and deepen their qualitative focus in terms of course offerings and research, with a view to create centres of excellence across the tertiary education spectrum.
Skills, education and expertise are an important feature of sustainable industrial and economic development for any economy.
The South African government, in collaboration with industrial and manufacturing investors and practitioners, should put in place industry-linked training authorities, which will train, particularly, young people for various responsibilities in new industries and factories. Various sectors, including minerals beneficiation and industrialisation (eg diamond cutting and polishing) are highly labour-absorptive sectors and a training agency should be established for this sector to supply labour to this particular sector.”
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Thinking Up A New World
An Investigation Into Appropriate Revolutionary Methods For Southern Afrika
“Regime and economic transitions have produced massive political, social and economic dislocations – some temporary and others long lasting in many parts of the world. Among the dislocations observed, the erosion of state capacity is arguably a defining characteristic of transition; as the examples of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe; China and other countries in the developing world demonstrate...The central argument is that it is not the increase of state predation, but the emergence of decentralised predation that has been largely responsible for declining state capacity in transition countries.” - The Nation State In Transition: Rotten from Within: Decentralized Predation and Incapacitated State by Minxin Pei * (NB. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in Newly Industrialized Countries by Stephen Haggard
20/08/2013
Southern Afrika has reached a critical point in its revolutionary evolution. From the time of the earliest anti-colonial, anti-imperialist to the anti-apartheid struggles, the people of the South have waged effective resistance against oppressive forces from without and even from within. The notion of whether we have been released from our shackles through some pacific negotiation is absurd to say the least and unhistorical.
The Black person in Southern Afrika has undergone some of the most insidious violence ever inflicted upon the body, mind and spirit of human beings. So bludgeoned and defeated has s/he been and for so long, that even her/his homeland begins to resemble an alien territory.
What has happened to the revolutionary spirit, the will to be free of the majority, do they perceive this partial socio-political kingdom as the destination or the liberation long fought for, or are we content with gradual and moderate freedoms?
Perhaps this is a question that is best aimed at policy makers, opinion makers and the vanguard of the ruling class.
But when one considers the dire situation that the poor and working class citizens find themselves in, it is difficult not to try and experiment with alternative or innovative ways of social organisation or even leadership.
When leaders have clearly shown that they do not view themselves as servants of the people, perhaps it is high time that they are reminded – by any means necessary.
The role of individuals and the means through which balances of power can be configured must be thoroughly investigated. The question of whether South Afrika is a becoming or is capable of becoming a developmental state is also quite pertinent.
In my previous essays I have often asked whether South Afrikans are ready for any kind of revolution; and the disquieting answer is that they are not.
How then can they expect to be anywhere near the standard definition of a developmental state when we are they are generally ill prepared to undertake radical changes in their thinking, their everyday actions and current world-view?
Of course one is merely generalising here; the fact of the matter is it has never been the work of the masses to lead in their own national re-evolution, that work is usually done by a few dedicated socio-political vanguard.
Now in order to identify that cadre of community, political and even working class hero some few basic criterion have to be established.
Since we are dealing with a society which still retains the reactionary hangups inherited from an era of repression, patriarchy and traditionalisms, we tread carefully though forcefully in defining the character of women and men required to carry the cherished visions of true liberation. The visions of Sobukwe, Nyerere, Biko, Malcolm X …
It is no secret that some of the young leaders that we currently see in the front-lines of our political sphere are no saints. But then again, who is really expecting angels to fight human battles?
Yet our moralising sentimentality driven society demands that such polite and all-embracing individuals be the ones who guide us towards Mandela's land of infinite possibilities where race, creed and injustice is swept under the red carpet of martyrdom.
We Southern Afrikans seem to find it very difficult to forgive our youth yet we have no issues celebrating the efforts of our elderly heroes and heroines who sacrificed for our basic human rights. We must investigate these sacrifices and see whether they had a choice or not and whether the congratulations are not a bit overzealous.
The fact that they too have blood-money on their hands and estates seems irrelevant. We appear very keen to discipline the unruly and lascivious young leaders even though we agree that what they speak about is exactly what we Need. So the general population appears to be enjoying the fruits of our rainbow nationality and basking in the promised freedom, why agitate them with all this talk of revolution, ending the anti-black world and correct sounding political jargon?
Why not allow the people to find their own paths and pursue the various avenues of entrepreneurship and other forms of wealth creation that the free-market makes available?
Indeed why do we bother with trying to make a revolution when it is clear from looking at Egypt, Libya, Algeria and other shaken nations that this revolution business is dysfunctional?
Naysayers will tell you straight that revolutions are bad for business and they are good for nothing. Even people that have spend half their lives studying political systems, transitions and global trends appear to be in no hurry to make revolution, some even warning against any radical changes – opting for steady-state economics with or without Marxist theory.
This is all strange considering the fact that what the likes of Marx, Engels, Gramsci and many others after were simply asking for a world permeated with justice for all. A world that
had been curtailed by the greed and superimposed global hegemony of free-market capitalism. Sure their learned discourses were not fool-proof but what is? The fact that some of their own disciples used the very principles of scientific socialism and theories to impose their own subversive powers on weaker nations is proof that there is nothing new under the Sun. It is simply the proverbial story of Moses striking instead of touching the rock in the desert for life-giving water.
And who said that in politics there are no miracles? As the Rhythm and Blues singer crooned “Little miracles happen every day” - so it is within the rigid structure of political life; some things that some may believe should not happen actually do and history is made.
I will offer some examples of the unexpected and the uncanny and the immeasurable later, but before we take our attention back to South Afrikan politics, please think on this:
“If one can apply the term bio-history to the pressures through which the movements of life and the processes of history interfere with one another, one would have to speak of bio-power to designate what brought life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations and made knowledge-power an agent of transformation of human life.” - Michel Foucault
Without labouring the point, let me just say what I mean by this quotation. Firstly I had written it another essay that I did not get to publish, in it I meant elaborate that humanity and nature are intertwined by the very fact of their co-creation, co-dependence and therefore indivisible Oneness.
Every human endeavour, every human struggle is clearly taking place within the natural realm even that which is deemed by some as supernatural is nothing more than the ethereal manifestation of natural phenomenon.
While there are those things that cannot yet be sufficiently explained through science, it is now public knowledge that there is such a thing as Intelligent Design. But that subject alone is one that put off many rational thinkers, especially the radically politicised – yet that does not mean that it has no place in politics. If politics, economics and even religions are about human organisation and disorganisation then every conceivable theory is usable.
We live in interesting times and these are times where materialist competition has triumphed over any type of natural selection. Traditions and mores which were thought to stand the tests of time are gradually becoming obsolete and new ones are being established albeit on atypical and temporary foundations.
Still, certain archetypes persist and specific natural laws are applicable in almost every theory. The fact is that everything seeks to survive, to perpetuate itself, its species and its race. In this struggle for survival there are certain written and unwritten rules, these rules ensure that a semblance cosmic balance is maintained and that injustices are not left unchecked.
So the question is, whose work is it to maintain or organise that social, national and cosmic order? When all the theoretical frameworks have been tried and tested to no substantial benefit to nature and humanity, when all of recorded history reveals that mankind has been amiss in all its organisations and idealism?
What moment in history would proof to us that we have failed Adam, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Ausar, Akhenaten, Marx, Hegel, Adam Smith, John Locke, Aristotle, Imhotep, Mother Teresa or Ma'at?
It is clear that just as Biko said, Black man is on his own. But how do we separate that desertion from the existential abandonment of the entire human race?
While we are aware and sure that our economic and social dispossession has come as a result of special kind of subjection, a peculiar type of hatred which is based on race, we also happen to find ourselves impoverished from within and without. From without we have been robbed of the basic means of our survival and our self-sufficiency – the land we once possessed, or were we possessed by it?
From within we appear to have generally lost the very will to be completely liberated. Most of us black peoples have inherited what Marcus Garvey termed 'a disorganised spirit', which he said was the prerequisite for the fall of any nation and government. This disorganisation has obviously been craftily imposed upon us from without. The black personality has been subdued and replaced with a sham, a bamboozled and socially displaced caricature of a rootless entity.
Many among us are merely workers, servants and slaves to a system that does not even try to conceal its evil intentions. This system is bad enough for every other human being because it thrives on the desire of everyone to be free from want, whilst it paradoxically creates more superficial wants that end up superseding what can be called our natural needs. While capitalism is anti-people, anti-animal and anti-nature it is intensely anti-black. Thus black people are globally subjected to all types of nervous conditions.
In Southern Afrika as already mentioned, there have been many attempts to rid ourselves of the tyranny of imperialism. The problem is that the struggle has been left to a few people on the coalface; thus we have not had a mass revolution, we have not experienced a truly cataclysmic moment or stage wherein masses of people in every city rise up to declare what kind of society we seek.
There are many voices, organisation and figures which rise up and articulate what is known and accepted as true, and some even define the How of the much needed revolution – but then the majority of our people appear to simply just want to get by and not rock the boat, to not cut off the hand that seems to feed them.
Somehow we seem to have chosen reconciliation rather than justice and total economic freedom. The very notion of freedom or liberation appears questionable and vague.
So much can be said; so much can still be done and is being done. Yet freedom for many of us remains a dream. Let us close with the words of the Sanusi of Takoradi, Ghana, one of Afrika's would be Healers:
“'We all have our dreams,' the man said.
'And our trouble, too. How can I think I am doing the right thing when I am alone and there are so many I have run from?
Who is right at all? I know I have chosen something but it is not something I would have chosen if I had the power to choose truly. I am just sitting there and if you think I am happier than you driving out there, you just don't know how I feel inside. I had so much hope before … so much hope … All I remember clearly these days is that I have been walking along paths chosen for me before I had really decided, and it makes me feel the way I think impotent men feel. You can't tell me you feel the same way. You have this freedom, Teacher. You have your freedom.
It makes no difference. If we can't consume ourselves for something we believe in, freedom makes no difference at all.'” - Ayi Kwei Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
TBC
Some of the various readily available methods/ideas/organisations in brief summary:
On the political front:
On the economic front:
On the cultural front:
On the spiritual front:
At the International arena:
“Regime and economic transitions have produced massive political, social and economic dislocations – some temporary and others long lasting in many parts of the world. Among the dislocations observed, the erosion of state capacity is arguably a defining characteristic of transition; as the examples of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe; China and other countries in the developing world demonstrate...The central argument is that it is not the increase of state predation, but the emergence of decentralised predation that has been largely responsible for declining state capacity in transition countries.” - The Nation State In Transition: Rotten from Within: Decentralized Predation and Incapacitated State by Minxin Pei * (NB. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in Newly Industrialized Countries by Stephen Haggard
20/08/2013
Southern Afrika has reached a critical point in its revolutionary evolution. From the time of the earliest anti-colonial, anti-imperialist to the anti-apartheid struggles, the people of the South have waged effective resistance against oppressive forces from without and even from within. The notion of whether we have been released from our shackles through some pacific negotiation is absurd to say the least and unhistorical.
The Black person in Southern Afrika has undergone some of the most insidious violence ever inflicted upon the body, mind and spirit of human beings. So bludgeoned and defeated has s/he been and for so long, that even her/his homeland begins to resemble an alien territory.
What has happened to the revolutionary spirit, the will to be free of the majority, do they perceive this partial socio-political kingdom as the destination or the liberation long fought for, or are we content with gradual and moderate freedoms?
Perhaps this is a question that is best aimed at policy makers, opinion makers and the vanguard of the ruling class.
But when one considers the dire situation that the poor and working class citizens find themselves in, it is difficult not to try and experiment with alternative or innovative ways of social organisation or even leadership.
When leaders have clearly shown that they do not view themselves as servants of the people, perhaps it is high time that they are reminded – by any means necessary.
The role of individuals and the means through which balances of power can be configured must be thoroughly investigated. The question of whether South Afrika is a becoming or is capable of becoming a developmental state is also quite pertinent.
In my previous essays I have often asked whether South Afrikans are ready for any kind of revolution; and the disquieting answer is that they are not.
How then can they expect to be anywhere near the standard definition of a developmental state when we are they are generally ill prepared to undertake radical changes in their thinking, their everyday actions and current world-view?
Of course one is merely generalising here; the fact of the matter is it has never been the work of the masses to lead in their own national re-evolution, that work is usually done by a few dedicated socio-political vanguard.
Now in order to identify that cadre of community, political and even working class hero some few basic criterion have to be established.
Since we are dealing with a society which still retains the reactionary hangups inherited from an era of repression, patriarchy and traditionalisms, we tread carefully though forcefully in defining the character of women and men required to carry the cherished visions of true liberation. The visions of Sobukwe, Nyerere, Biko, Malcolm X …
It is no secret that some of the young leaders that we currently see in the front-lines of our political sphere are no saints. But then again, who is really expecting angels to fight human battles?
Yet our moralising sentimentality driven society demands that such polite and all-embracing individuals be the ones who guide us towards Mandela's land of infinite possibilities where race, creed and injustice is swept under the red carpet of martyrdom.
We Southern Afrikans seem to find it very difficult to forgive our youth yet we have no issues celebrating the efforts of our elderly heroes and heroines who sacrificed for our basic human rights. We must investigate these sacrifices and see whether they had a choice or not and whether the congratulations are not a bit overzealous.
The fact that they too have blood-money on their hands and estates seems irrelevant. We appear very keen to discipline the unruly and lascivious young leaders even though we agree that what they speak about is exactly what we Need. So the general population appears to be enjoying the fruits of our rainbow nationality and basking in the promised freedom, why agitate them with all this talk of revolution, ending the anti-black world and correct sounding political jargon?
Why not allow the people to find their own paths and pursue the various avenues of entrepreneurship and other forms of wealth creation that the free-market makes available?
Indeed why do we bother with trying to make a revolution when it is clear from looking at Egypt, Libya, Algeria and other shaken nations that this revolution business is dysfunctional?
Naysayers will tell you straight that revolutions are bad for business and they are good for nothing. Even people that have spend half their lives studying political systems, transitions and global trends appear to be in no hurry to make revolution, some even warning against any radical changes – opting for steady-state economics with or without Marxist theory.
This is all strange considering the fact that what the likes of Marx, Engels, Gramsci and many others after were simply asking for a world permeated with justice for all. A world that
had been curtailed by the greed and superimposed global hegemony of free-market capitalism. Sure their learned discourses were not fool-proof but what is? The fact that some of their own disciples used the very principles of scientific socialism and theories to impose their own subversive powers on weaker nations is proof that there is nothing new under the Sun. It is simply the proverbial story of Moses striking instead of touching the rock in the desert for life-giving water.
And who said that in politics there are no miracles? As the Rhythm and Blues singer crooned “Little miracles happen every day” - so it is within the rigid structure of political life; some things that some may believe should not happen actually do and history is made.
I will offer some examples of the unexpected and the uncanny and the immeasurable later, but before we take our attention back to South Afrikan politics, please think on this:
“If one can apply the term bio-history to the pressures through which the movements of life and the processes of history interfere with one another, one would have to speak of bio-power to designate what brought life and its mechanisms into the realm of explicit calculations and made knowledge-power an agent of transformation of human life.” - Michel Foucault
Without labouring the point, let me just say what I mean by this quotation. Firstly I had written it another essay that I did not get to publish, in it I meant elaborate that humanity and nature are intertwined by the very fact of their co-creation, co-dependence and therefore indivisible Oneness.
Every human endeavour, every human struggle is clearly taking place within the natural realm even that which is deemed by some as supernatural is nothing more than the ethereal manifestation of natural phenomenon.
While there are those things that cannot yet be sufficiently explained through science, it is now public knowledge that there is such a thing as Intelligent Design. But that subject alone is one that put off many rational thinkers, especially the radically politicised – yet that does not mean that it has no place in politics. If politics, economics and even religions are about human organisation and disorganisation then every conceivable theory is usable.
We live in interesting times and these are times where materialist competition has triumphed over any type of natural selection. Traditions and mores which were thought to stand the tests of time are gradually becoming obsolete and new ones are being established albeit on atypical and temporary foundations.
Still, certain archetypes persist and specific natural laws are applicable in almost every theory. The fact is that everything seeks to survive, to perpetuate itself, its species and its race. In this struggle for survival there are certain written and unwritten rules, these rules ensure that a semblance cosmic balance is maintained and that injustices are not left unchecked.
So the question is, whose work is it to maintain or organise that social, national and cosmic order? When all the theoretical frameworks have been tried and tested to no substantial benefit to nature and humanity, when all of recorded history reveals that mankind has been amiss in all its organisations and idealism?
What moment in history would proof to us that we have failed Adam, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Ausar, Akhenaten, Marx, Hegel, Adam Smith, John Locke, Aristotle, Imhotep, Mother Teresa or Ma'at?
It is clear that just as Biko said, Black man is on his own. But how do we separate that desertion from the existential abandonment of the entire human race?
While we are aware and sure that our economic and social dispossession has come as a result of special kind of subjection, a peculiar type of hatred which is based on race, we also happen to find ourselves impoverished from within and without. From without we have been robbed of the basic means of our survival and our self-sufficiency – the land we once possessed, or were we possessed by it?
From within we appear to have generally lost the very will to be completely liberated. Most of us black peoples have inherited what Marcus Garvey termed 'a disorganised spirit', which he said was the prerequisite for the fall of any nation and government. This disorganisation has obviously been craftily imposed upon us from without. The black personality has been subdued and replaced with a sham, a bamboozled and socially displaced caricature of a rootless entity.
Many among us are merely workers, servants and slaves to a system that does not even try to conceal its evil intentions. This system is bad enough for every other human being because it thrives on the desire of everyone to be free from want, whilst it paradoxically creates more superficial wants that end up superseding what can be called our natural needs. While capitalism is anti-people, anti-animal and anti-nature it is intensely anti-black. Thus black people are globally subjected to all types of nervous conditions.
In Southern Afrika as already mentioned, there have been many attempts to rid ourselves of the tyranny of imperialism. The problem is that the struggle has been left to a few people on the coalface; thus we have not had a mass revolution, we have not experienced a truly cataclysmic moment or stage wherein masses of people in every city rise up to declare what kind of society we seek.
There are many voices, organisation and figures which rise up and articulate what is known and accepted as true, and some even define the How of the much needed revolution – but then the majority of our people appear to simply just want to get by and not rock the boat, to not cut off the hand that seems to feed them.
Somehow we seem to have chosen reconciliation rather than justice and total economic freedom. The very notion of freedom or liberation appears questionable and vague.
So much can be said; so much can still be done and is being done. Yet freedom for many of us remains a dream. Let us close with the words of the Sanusi of Takoradi, Ghana, one of Afrika's would be Healers:
“'We all have our dreams,' the man said.
'And our trouble, too. How can I think I am doing the right thing when I am alone and there are so many I have run from?
Who is right at all? I know I have chosen something but it is not something I would have chosen if I had the power to choose truly. I am just sitting there and if you think I am happier than you driving out there, you just don't know how I feel inside. I had so much hope before … so much hope … All I remember clearly these days is that I have been walking along paths chosen for me before I had really decided, and it makes me feel the way I think impotent men feel. You can't tell me you feel the same way. You have this freedom, Teacher. You have your freedom.
It makes no difference. If we can't consume ourselves for something we believe in, freedom makes no difference at all.'” - Ayi Kwei Armah – The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)
TBC
Some of the various readily available methods/ideas/organisations in brief summary:
On the political front:
On the economic front:
On the cultural front:
On the spiritual front:
At the International arena:
Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Work Of The 'Concerned' Writer
“I would say that no African who writes about society in present day Africa can avoid being committed and political, not in the sense of party-politics but in the sense that every attempt to reorganise society in Africa is a move which affect everybody, the figures at the top and the bottom. I would think that the African writer who condemned colonialism because it made for social and political systems which prevented real contact between individuals of different races, because it led to exploitation and a loss of human values, is hardly likely to be satisfied if the old systems are retained with the only difference that Africans have replaced Europeans.” - Peter Nazareth, Modern African Poetry And The African Predicament by R.N. Egudu, 1978.
The concerned or empathetic human being cannot function wholly as an individual, satisfied within a system that incapacitates others. Perhaps we should rephrase that statement a bit and specify just what type of human being is implied here.
The kind of being we are dealing with here is the Black African personality, one that has been dealt so many destabilizing blows that s/he can no longer be fully convinced that s/he is still considered human. Yet many of us do consider ourselves human.
One of my favourite Rock bands sings “Just because you feel it doesn't mean its there” - (Radiohead)
Human beings exist within a certain standard of dignity, cultural and socio-economic sovereignty. Whenever these basic prerequisites are taken away or deformed to such an extent that that being no longer has control of their own mind or means of production, surely that person is no longer fully human, let alone a citizen. Citizenship means that each individual has certain degree of power, franchise and a voice in the government of their day.
A citizen has specific rights which are protected and secured through various laws that relate to the values system of that place or era. The Black person living in the post-colonial and post-apartheid era is not yet a citizen, although s/he may enjoy certain constitutional rights and particular paper freedoms, the true emancipation from foreign powers is as yet unattained.
The least we can say is that we are working on it and thus we can keep on monitoring and evaluating our situation, not according to any alien standards, but within commonsensical reasoning or Humane-Nature.
The concerned African then has even a tougher job ahead of them if they happen to be artists, writers, public servants and engaged in any type of social contact. One cannot simply do as one pleases; they must consider the needs and wants of others.
This is not to impose any type of religious or moral obligation upon the individual, but it is simply an acknowledgement that we are social beings and therefore we are responsible for each other.
A responsible writer can definitely write for pleasure or sport, she can enjoy the successes or the challenges that come with publishing or languishing in fame, infamy or obscurity, or she can belong to organisations or fraternities which influence her work.
All this can be done without being necessarily over mindful of the social impact or role ones work plays in society, one may simply be expressing oneself and doing it because its just one of their talents or even as an occupation.
The world is not so simple though, the African world and world-view even more so. Africanism
suggests that one is oneself because of the other ones, Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu (I am Because We Are) applies in so many ways it is almost inescapable.
The moment that one opens their mouth or does something in public, the scrutiny of the other ones and the impact that their action has on them is palpable. Many artists, sportsmen, public figures and writers of fiction have experienced the severe backlash or the public.
At face value this can be judged as merely the overzealous reaction of a predominantly traditional or customary society, but the reality is that every society has its communal mores, ideals and taboos.
When the Nigerian author and professor Ben Okri wrote that “The freeing on one vision is the freeing of all.” He did not just imply that the will of the individual should be imposed upon the many, what the whole book … connoted was that each person should be able to have their individual voice, vision and freedoms respected.
This is similar to the socialist saying that “An injury to one is an injury to all”.
Nothing in this suggest that the will of one human being is more important than the other, it simply means that each one must be seen as as equal and that we all deserve to be free and we also should live for one another and not be selfish.
tbc
“I would say that no African who writes about society in present day Africa can avoid being committed and political, not in the sense of party-politics but in the sense that every attempt to reorganise society in Africa is a move which affect everybody, the figures at the top and the bottom. I would think that the African writer who condemned colonialism because it made for social and political systems which prevented real contact between individuals of different races, because it led to exploitation and a loss of human values, is hardly likely to be satisfied if the old systems are retained with the only difference that Africans have replaced Europeans.” - Peter Nazareth, Modern African Poetry And The African Predicament by R.N. Egudu, 1978.
The concerned or empathetic human being cannot function wholly as an individual, satisfied within a system that incapacitates others. Perhaps we should rephrase that statement a bit and specify just what type of human being is implied here.
The kind of being we are dealing with here is the Black African personality, one that has been dealt so many destabilizing blows that s/he can no longer be fully convinced that s/he is still considered human. Yet many of us do consider ourselves human.
One of my favourite Rock bands sings “Just because you feel it doesn't mean its there” - (Radiohead)
Human beings exist within a certain standard of dignity, cultural and socio-economic sovereignty. Whenever these basic prerequisites are taken away or deformed to such an extent that that being no longer has control of their own mind or means of production, surely that person is no longer fully human, let alone a citizen. Citizenship means that each individual has certain degree of power, franchise and a voice in the government of their day.
A citizen has specific rights which are protected and secured through various laws that relate to the values system of that place or era. The Black person living in the post-colonial and post-apartheid era is not yet a citizen, although s/he may enjoy certain constitutional rights and particular paper freedoms, the true emancipation from foreign powers is as yet unattained.
The least we can say is that we are working on it and thus we can keep on monitoring and evaluating our situation, not according to any alien standards, but within commonsensical reasoning or Humane-Nature.
The concerned African then has even a tougher job ahead of them if they happen to be artists, writers, public servants and engaged in any type of social contact. One cannot simply do as one pleases; they must consider the needs and wants of others.
This is not to impose any type of religious or moral obligation upon the individual, but it is simply an acknowledgement that we are social beings and therefore we are responsible for each other.
A responsible writer can definitely write for pleasure or sport, she can enjoy the successes or the challenges that come with publishing or languishing in fame, infamy or obscurity, or she can belong to organisations or fraternities which influence her work.
All this can be done without being necessarily over mindful of the social impact or role ones work plays in society, one may simply be expressing oneself and doing it because its just one of their talents or even as an occupation.
The world is not so simple though, the African world and world-view even more so. Africanism
suggests that one is oneself because of the other ones, Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu (I am Because We Are) applies in so many ways it is almost inescapable.
The moment that one opens their mouth or does something in public, the scrutiny of the other ones and the impact that their action has on them is palpable. Many artists, sportsmen, public figures and writers of fiction have experienced the severe backlash or the public.
At face value this can be judged as merely the overzealous reaction of a predominantly traditional or customary society, but the reality is that every society has its communal mores, ideals and taboos.
When the Nigerian author and professor Ben Okri wrote that “The freeing on one vision is the freeing of all.” He did not just imply that the will of the individual should be imposed upon the many, what the whole book … connoted was that each person should be able to have their individual voice, vision and freedoms respected.
This is similar to the socialist saying that “An injury to one is an injury to all”.
Nothing in this suggest that the will of one human being is more important than the other, it simply means that each one must be seen as as equal and that we all deserve to be free and we also should live for one another and not be selfish.
tbc
Songs of Dust, Lust and Trust
1.
each generation inherits the dust
of stagnant remnants from the past
unhinged ideals unfinished wars
gold-dust and bloodstains on checkered floors
2.
let us propose a toast to virtue
and to all the qualities that civilize us
we drink our fill of religious democracy, philosophy and economics
subject ourselves to the vagaries of the humanities
after the cocktails and mental debaucheries
we can succumb to confessions, absolution's
and more excess
and if we are so blest with degrees of success
we may crown our efforts with some more mind-sex
until we are all spent on trust as latex
3.
we are citizens of the wilderness
denizens of a star crossed planet
loved by one sun and one resplendent moon
given to the graces and gravity of jealous gods
our dreams are but shadows in the mists of times dawning
whilst some of us do awake to see the morning
to many more this life is a fateful dance in the dark
4.
Yet
each generation writes its own story
tells its own white-lies to mask the bitter black truth
to sweeten this tragic and strange fruit of a life
existing between impermanence and nothingness
seeding the stars
yet generating the dust
1.
each generation inherits the dust
of stagnant remnants from the past
unhinged ideals unfinished wars
gold-dust and bloodstains on checkered floors
2.
let us propose a toast to virtue
and to all the qualities that civilize us
we drink our fill of religious democracy, philosophy and economics
subject ourselves to the vagaries of the humanities
after the cocktails and mental debaucheries
we can succumb to confessions, absolution's
and more excess
and if we are so blest with degrees of success
we may crown our efforts with some more mind-sex
until we are all spent on trust as latex
3.
we are citizens of the wilderness
denizens of a star crossed planet
loved by one sun and one resplendent moon
given to the graces and gravity of jealous gods
our dreams are but shadows in the mists of times dawning
whilst some of us do awake to see the morning
to many more this life is a fateful dance in the dark
4.
Yet
each generation writes its own story
tells its own white-lies to mask the bitter black truth
to sweeten this tragic and strange fruit of a life
existing between impermanence and nothingness
seeding the stars
yet generating the dust
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Black, Green and Untold
Seeds of Slavery
Genetically Modified Organisms and the Role of the Black Revolutionary In the Struggle for Food Security
Introduction:
The notion of democracy in Afrika and indeed throughout the so called Third World is clearly a mixed bag of optimism, gullibility and dubious policy decisions. The questions I will to raise here are; who really controls the conversation, the flow of information, public relations, political will and whether there is any form of participatory democracy here in Africa and in Southern Afrika in particular?
Further, I will ask whether the ordinary Black Southern Afrikan is knowledgeable enough to understand the impact of GMO’s and globalization in his own life and that of his family and land. What kind of politics if any is required of us in order to achieve self-determination and satisfactory use of our resources e.g. Water, soil and renewable sources of energy?
Matters of global chaos (so called Global Warming); land ownership; nationalization, redistribution and progressive politics of Black Consciousness will be touched upon with a conscious effort to examine the role of radical political activism in the fight against White Supremacist ideas and actions. We will begin by determining the role of the ‘State’, civil society and the Afrikan individual in general.
Part 1: A Stateless mind-state
“We find ourselves at an intersection that presses us to consider, once again, the character of the state that we have created. The task for the immediate future is no longer the reconstruction of the fundamental principles, tools and institutions of democracy and a free market economy. All that has already been accomplished.
I do not believe that our future goal should be merely the creation of an efficient capitalist democracy. We need something more: we need to begin a serious discussion about the character of the democracy that we wish to cultivate – its roots, spirit, and direction.
With equal seriousness, we should also consider what needs to be done at the different levels of the reconstructed market economy so that its fruit may be enjoyed by the general public. We need quite simply, a new vision. One that is mindful of the future role of citizens, local government, and state– Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus in Rival Visions, in Journal of Democracy ( Vol.7, number 1 – January 1996: Civil Society After Communism)
Let us get one thing clear and out of the way as soon as possible. Afrikan governments and Afrikan leadership has generally failed in its mandate to liberate us and wrest Black people from the mire of the neocolonialism. There is very little to prove that the Afrikan continent consists of truly independent states or nations. There is still an appalling dependence on Europe, Amerikkka and the rest of the industrialised world for the most basic goods.
The infrastructure of many if not all Afrikan countries is made in China, India, Scandinavia, USA and in some places the residue of Portuguese, German and British colonialism. In a word, we are still slaves who are socially, politically, economically and somehow – culturally dead.
We are not yet men and women; we are still sophisticated and egotistical beggars. Slaves to a depressingly fatalistic and materialist system.
But what is it that we arebegging for? This is the central theme of this paper. Precisely, what makes a wealthy person beg from a poor person? Or to put it in Peter Tosh’s melodic lamentation: “Africa is the richest place yet it still has the poorest race” – These are questions that are raised daily, in drinking spots all over the continent and indeed worldwide.
The question is raised in thousands upon thousands of academic journals, books, theses, seminars and convention centres. The Black person who is even the least bit conscious of her and his condition, is pursued by this nagging question daily.
But is there an answer? If so where can it be found; perhaps in a ‘political solution’, a supernatural dimension – in church, mosque or at the ancestral shrine? Whatever the case may be, it is abundantly clear that the answer must come sooner than later, since our problems are piling up, our governments are messing up and the gods and ancestors also seem clueless.
We must do what is best for the grandchildren and their children and that is to Think, thinking clearly and realistically about whether any idea of Africa is indeed required or not at all. WE must dare to think beyond the limits that have been set by either past ideologies or ethnocentrisms. As the comedic parody of modernity, The Gods Must Be Crazy shows, there is no such thing as the end of the world, without a conscious decision for us to consciously make it happen.
I say this about the gods and ancestors not because I mean to be disrespectful, for many are the active traditionalists, spiritual leaders, and ministers of the gospel who have offered humanity some formulae and suggested that we either return to the principles which prevailed in pre-colonial, pre-slavery Afrika or that we should heed the prophets who preach personal righteousness which would then translate to community improvements and national favour with the divine.
It is clear that we have generally heeded neither the messiah nor the messengers of the great ancestors. This means that people have not found any solace in their sacred groves, rituals and dogmas, the corrosive appeal of capital has turned everything into a commodity, a credit trap from which very few ever manage to escape.
Our situation seems far from any resolution, therefore the only option is a complete revolution – the form of which must begin in our minds, hearts and most specifically in the manner in which we produce, distribute and regulate what and how we eat. Yes, the Afrikan revolution is primarily in the land, the soil, the water and the type of seeds we choose to sow today. It is that simple. So the current role of global and Afrikan politics and business is a nothing more than a series of costly compromises, hypocrisy and downright delusion. We are essentially being fed poisons and the more silent we are on these issues, the sicker and more dis-empowered we shall become.
Our leaders have successfully put many of us under a spell and the Black Afrikan exists in a state of wretched duality. Once a modern worker-slave yet also a proud but land-less, vision-less shadow of the white person. In fact it is much more than a duality, but a catch 22.
Now let us look at the role that GMO’s and their multinational propagators have on the present and future prospects of Black Afrika and indeed the entire planet. We must question ourselves and the world we live in, how can we realize our fullest human potential when we are utilized as guinea pigs in a global scientific experimentation of forbidding proportions?
They may call it the Green Revolution for Africa but whose Afrika are they talking about,who is the one profiting from third-world peoples exploitation yet still destroying their livelihood?
If we fail to think and act and find a way to end the seemingly perpetual subjugation of our lives and lands, we will continue being used, but what kind of new thinking should we use to liberate ourselves?
"Thinking was for me as important as blood, perhaps more important. I had no intention of being a tribal being or a colonial being. I wanted to be an African, to think as an African, to live as an African.
"When I looked into my psyche, what I saw was a consciousness desiring first of all to bond with all Africans, to live out that desirable bond, thinking of the most creative ways in which Africans might be brought together, and bending my work deliberately, consciously, toward that aim. Such an aim is easily reduced to nothing by the realities of a status quo designed to make it seem impossible."
~ Ayi Kwei Armah
in "The Eloquence of the Scribes": (Published by Per Ankh: Popenguine, Senegal. 2006).
Genetically Modified Organisms and the Role of the Black Revolutionary In the Struggle for Food Security
Introduction:
The notion of democracy in Afrika and indeed throughout the so called Third World is clearly a mixed bag of optimism, gullibility and dubious policy decisions. The questions I will to raise here are; who really controls the conversation, the flow of information, public relations, political will and whether there is any form of participatory democracy here in Africa and in Southern Afrika in particular?
Further, I will ask whether the ordinary Black Southern Afrikan is knowledgeable enough to understand the impact of GMO’s and globalization in his own life and that of his family and land. What kind of politics if any is required of us in order to achieve self-determination and satisfactory use of our resources e.g. Water, soil and renewable sources of energy?
Matters of global chaos (so called Global Warming); land ownership; nationalization, redistribution and progressive politics of Black Consciousness will be touched upon with a conscious effort to examine the role of radical political activism in the fight against White Supremacist ideas and actions. We will begin by determining the role of the ‘State’, civil society and the Afrikan individual in general.
Part 1: A Stateless mind-state
“We find ourselves at an intersection that presses us to consider, once again, the character of the state that we have created. The task for the immediate future is no longer the reconstruction of the fundamental principles, tools and institutions of democracy and a free market economy. All that has already been accomplished.
I do not believe that our future goal should be merely the creation of an efficient capitalist democracy. We need something more: we need to begin a serious discussion about the character of the democracy that we wish to cultivate – its roots, spirit, and direction.
With equal seriousness, we should also consider what needs to be done at the different levels of the reconstructed market economy so that its fruit may be enjoyed by the general public. We need quite simply, a new vision. One that is mindful of the future role of citizens, local government, and state– Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus in Rival Visions, in Journal of Democracy ( Vol.7, number 1 – January 1996: Civil Society After Communism)
Let us get one thing clear and out of the way as soon as possible. Afrikan governments and Afrikan leadership has generally failed in its mandate to liberate us and wrest Black people from the mire of the neocolonialism. There is very little to prove that the Afrikan continent consists of truly independent states or nations. There is still an appalling dependence on Europe, Amerikkka and the rest of the industrialised world for the most basic goods.
The infrastructure of many if not all Afrikan countries is made in China, India, Scandinavia, USA and in some places the residue of Portuguese, German and British colonialism. In a word, we are still slaves who are socially, politically, economically and somehow – culturally dead.
We are not yet men and women; we are still sophisticated and egotistical beggars. Slaves to a depressingly fatalistic and materialist system.
But what is it that we arebegging for? This is the central theme of this paper. Precisely, what makes a wealthy person beg from a poor person? Or to put it in Peter Tosh’s melodic lamentation: “Africa is the richest place yet it still has the poorest race” – These are questions that are raised daily, in drinking spots all over the continent and indeed worldwide.
The question is raised in thousands upon thousands of academic journals, books, theses, seminars and convention centres. The Black person who is even the least bit conscious of her and his condition, is pursued by this nagging question daily.
But is there an answer? If so where can it be found; perhaps in a ‘political solution’, a supernatural dimension – in church, mosque or at the ancestral shrine? Whatever the case may be, it is abundantly clear that the answer must come sooner than later, since our problems are piling up, our governments are messing up and the gods and ancestors also seem clueless.
We must do what is best for the grandchildren and their children and that is to Think, thinking clearly and realistically about whether any idea of Africa is indeed required or not at all. WE must dare to think beyond the limits that have been set by either past ideologies or ethnocentrisms. As the comedic parody of modernity, The Gods Must Be Crazy shows, there is no such thing as the end of the world, without a conscious decision for us to consciously make it happen.
I say this about the gods and ancestors not because I mean to be disrespectful, for many are the active traditionalists, spiritual leaders, and ministers of the gospel who have offered humanity some formulae and suggested that we either return to the principles which prevailed in pre-colonial, pre-slavery Afrika or that we should heed the prophets who preach personal righteousness which would then translate to community improvements and national favour with the divine.
It is clear that we have generally heeded neither the messiah nor the messengers of the great ancestors. This means that people have not found any solace in their sacred groves, rituals and dogmas, the corrosive appeal of capital has turned everything into a commodity, a credit trap from which very few ever manage to escape.
Our situation seems far from any resolution, therefore the only option is a complete revolution – the form of which must begin in our minds, hearts and most specifically in the manner in which we produce, distribute and regulate what and how we eat. Yes, the Afrikan revolution is primarily in the land, the soil, the water and the type of seeds we choose to sow today. It is that simple. So the current role of global and Afrikan politics and business is a nothing more than a series of costly compromises, hypocrisy and downright delusion. We are essentially being fed poisons and the more silent we are on these issues, the sicker and more dis-empowered we shall become.
Our leaders have successfully put many of us under a spell and the Black Afrikan exists in a state of wretched duality. Once a modern worker-slave yet also a proud but land-less, vision-less shadow of the white person. In fact it is much more than a duality, but a catch 22.
Now let us look at the role that GMO’s and their multinational propagators have on the present and future prospects of Black Afrika and indeed the entire planet. We must question ourselves and the world we live in, how can we realize our fullest human potential when we are utilized as guinea pigs in a global scientific experimentation of forbidding proportions?
They may call it the Green Revolution for Africa but whose Afrika are they talking about,who is the one profiting from third-world peoples exploitation yet still destroying their livelihood?
If we fail to think and act and find a way to end the seemingly perpetual subjugation of our lives and lands, we will continue being used, but what kind of new thinking should we use to liberate ourselves?
"Thinking was for me as important as blood, perhaps more important. I had no intention of being a tribal being or a colonial being. I wanted to be an African, to think as an African, to live as an African.
"When I looked into my psyche, what I saw was a consciousness desiring first of all to bond with all Africans, to live out that desirable bond, thinking of the most creative ways in which Africans might be brought together, and bending my work deliberately, consciously, toward that aim. Such an aim is easily reduced to nothing by the realities of a status quo designed to make it seem impossible."
~ Ayi Kwei Armah
in "The Eloquence of the Scribes": (Published by Per Ankh: Popenguine, Senegal. 2006).
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