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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