Mbuso Khoza Eshowe

「Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan」 -Battle System Overview-

Between A Rock and A Hardened Place

Deviant Thoughts and Defiant Lifestyles in the land of the Unfree



I am currently challenging my own position or thoughts regarding the place of homosexuals in Afrika. I am searching my own soul even before I even delve into any research or analysis of homosexuality and what is called LGBT/Queer issues.
"Without our past the future cannot be reflected; the past is our mirror." So wrote Derek Jarman in 1997.
This is not an intellectual exercise, but it is just a self-introspective act between me, myself and I and I. This introspection is partly inspired by the current buzz within Black Radical formations in Azania/RSA as the we engage with emerging discourses surrounding the visiting Dr Umar Johnson during his Azania Speaking Tour. The Afrikan American educator/psychologist and proclaimed 'Prince of pan-Africanism' has been accused of being defiantly homophobic. Known for not mincing his words in his talks and declaring without equivocation that homosexuality is a disease.
An infuriated member of the Black House Kollective,one of the many activist based Black Consciousness/Pan-Afrikanist think-tanks wrote this morning:
"This has been my question all along. If I am queer and I have queer friends and we go to a Black House Kollective event where Umar says we are sick which BHK in words of Rithuli (a member of BHK) does not see this as violence.Are we safe in BHK events? Can we argue as the mentally ill ones? I've been asking; I am getting answers that say its complicated. I don't see what the complication is. I just want to know if BHK is for heterosexuals only? Furthermore what does it mean to be queer in BHK spaces when it seems like hate speech directed at queers cannot be questioned or contested because we will be attacking Umar?
That's what Zandi said. I just need clarification so that i can make up my mind about BHK and its events."
I contributed some of my thoughts to this topic but realised quickly that I need to take a principled stand and basically choose which side I am on. Am i a progressive Black Consciousness activist who is pro-All-Black peoples right to life or am I a nationalist or pan-Afrikanist who has narrower views regarding the rights of others?

I subsequently shared the BHK members post from my whatsapp to my KwaZulu based group at the Institute for Afrikology, as we will be hosting the controversial Dr Umar Johnson very soon in Durban, in partnership with EThekwini Municipality.
There was not much response from the members of the Institute of Afrikology, but the Director with whom we have had robust discussions on the subject of sexual freedoms/rights and responsibilities answered by writing:
"Afrikology Lectures are open to All." and then she added our motto,"Liberate the Mind and Affirm Afrikan Genius and Greatness"
And significantly, she also added "We have not had any anti-Dr Umar persons at our events..." stating that this was the message from the organizers from other parts of the country where the Dr has done his presentations.

Perhaps all this is just a distraction from the other really important issues that Dr Umar deals with, and we should perhaps just focus on the regenerative work he offers to the global Afrikan/Black family. Perhaps we have to deal with all this in a manner of priorities. Should we as Black Consciousness activists support someone who is partial regarding sexual rights or should we ignore that and reduce it to a matter of personal prejudices?

Let us take a wider view, South Afrika is regarded as the only Afrikan country that has adopted a progressive legal position towards LGBT people. In many Afrikan countries from Zimbabwe to Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, homosexuality is still considered illegal.

What really then informs the South Afrikan constitutional position, and have South Afrikans been thoroughly consulted in its promulgation?
Dspite the pervasiveness of homophobic discourse, ethnographic accounts suggest that in Afrika generally, and in South Afrika specifically, traditional forms of same sex-sexual expression occur alongside the fulfillment of the social imperative to marry and procreate.
These bisexual behaviors can be analysed with respect for their cultural specificity, but also as they are illuminated by global theorizing about LGBT issues and queer theory.
In South Afrika, no established notion of a bisexual identity exists, and bisexual behavior falls outside of the familiar heterosexual/homosexual binarist divide. For this reason it represents mutability and the unknown, particularly associated with the current time; however, it also represents for some an area of scandal and disgust, which is linked with deep-seated social anxieties about borders, excesses and the regulation of appetites. ( Eadie 1997).

Even as I write this, I feel as if I am somehow eluding the point, I am not stating where I stand. My poetic/philosopher/Black Conscious radical friend Mphutlane Wa Bofelo wrote an email to me today, still dealing with the subject of whether it is right to stand on the fence regarding this subject. He did not beat around the bush in stating that there is no space for neutrality in Black consciousness, you either reject something or you allow it to take its natural course,in other words, he said that one cannot be a true Black Consciousness advocate and still deprive other people of their sexual freedoms.
This is when I found myself re-thinking my position as a Rastafarian person, whose lifestyle is based on the celebration of what we call "Balance of Creation" which signifies the sacred and even divine union of Man and Woman (Hueman and Wombman). In this conceptual scheme of references there seems to be no place for same sex intimacy or eroticism. While I may denounce any acts of violence against any person due to his or her personal sexual preference/tendency or apparently natural disposition, I still find it difficult to accept all homosexual behavior as natural.
But then again, who can tame the impulses of love?
Who am I to say to another person, your choice of partnership is un-Godly when I also believe that God is in everything. That God is the All.
I must also add that being raised in a Pentecostal christian household and growing up in a patriarchal society has also contributed to my disposition. Although I have deviated a lot from the Christian worldview when I became a Rasta and subsequently a pro-Bantu/Kemetic naturalist, the hetero-narrative remains ingrained.
However, I have tended to reject all the attempts by Rasta's and pro-Afrikanists who use the Bible or religion as their basis for discriminating gay people. I have not done enough research into the histories of Afrikan sexuality to fully confirm that alternative sexual practices existed or flourished unchallenged and thus constituted an legitimate social norm.

We are now living in a somewhat democratic society, one which sociologist/philosopher Homi Bhabha termed a 'hybrid moment of political change.' With all the changes that are occurring in our environment and society, shouldn't we also follow-suit by changing our biased views of others?
We should be freer by now to accept each others differences and free to'negotiate and translate their cultural identities in a discontinuous intertextual temporality of cultural difference.'

In simpler terms, I am learning to accept others differences, but do I have the right or the audacity to also dictate to others whether they should accept what I accept or to reject what I reject? This to me seems quite reactionary and anti-progressive, even regressive.
I can just recall how I reacted when I found out that one of my favorite writers, James Baldwin was Gay. Of course I had not yet read Giovanni's Room, but when I read his biography i had to sympathize with this very Black Conscious and queer brother who opened my mind to so many progressive thoughts.How then could I judge him for his sexuality?
There are many examples. I am learning ...

Let us close with a poem by Durbanite poet and lover of the arts Jillian Hamilton:
Its called Coming Out

with time
has come a deviation
from the straight

and the narrow

that which was once
black or white
is now richly rainbowed
almost magical
in its diversity
and limitlessness

as the rainbow
curves
i swerve to round
upon myself

some might say err
and find my need is other
inclined now toward the distaff
the more unusual case
of like attracting like. ( 2001: 188 -9, English Academy Review)

Poetry somehow just manages to say it all.
Yet I still find myself asking, how liberal should I allow myself to become just so I can be a true and unbiased lover of all humanity without prejudice?
Is it even liberalism to accept that which one cannot and should not even attempt to change?
Even His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I said "Every one has a right to decide his own destiny." He also wrote that "We must become larger than our baser selves and overcome petty prejudices."
Perhaps all this so called homophobia is just one of those petty prejudices, albeit with dire consequences for all involved. Yes indeed, the Eternal Reflection rappers were right when they offered that "Even our condition has been conditioned."
So if you live in a glass house, don't throw rocks.

Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation: #FeesMustFall

We Don't Need Another Hero?

"The pages of history are full of heroes who created for themselves roles of glorious valor which they played at decisive moments. Likewise the pages of history are also full of heroic roles which never found heroes to perform them. For some reason it seems to me that within the Arab circle there is a role, wandering aimlessly in search of a hero."- Egyptian President Nasser, 1970's

A few years ago a friend and I started working on a clothing brand we called Wholegan aka Who Will Lead the People Again.
My man Zee-Lion had been strongly inspired by the music of Bob Marley and the sounds we would listen to included Burning Spear among others. Marley's chant in his song "Exodus": - HERE COMES ANOTHER BROTHER MOSES ACROSS THE SEA ...had a strong effect on black young men who were born in apartheid era townships where there had been few opportunities for well-being, for progress, for redemption from the traps of colonialism and capitalism.
And Burning Spear's "Follow Marcus Garvey" was just one of those songs that caused us to reflect on what we could possible do for ourselves without succumbing to materialistic over consumption. How could we work as black business men without being 'corrupted'by lures of greed and consumerism which we could see was ravaging some of the consciences of our former leaders.
Essentially we felt leaderless, socially and politically. It appeared as if all our leaders with any backbone were either dead or operating as managers of anti-black institutions which were not transforming our lives in any significant way ...

This morning I was listening to a radio dj interviewing some independent political analyst, the topic was the aftermath of the #FeesMustFall student protests currently gripping occupied Azania aka RSA. Their shocking conclusion was that these protests are being rendered irrelevant due to the "fact"that most of the students being produced by these untransformed universities come from Middle Class backgrounds and they will not change the world anyway because they don't even vote. The point was that these students do not have a strong ideological foundation where upon to base and sustain their struggles ...

TBC

An Ideal World: On Social Movements and the Efficacy of Protests Without Ideology

Recently intrigued by a paper written by a fellow black comrade, China Ngubane in a journal called Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies www.tandfonline.com/loi/cpsa20, titled Occupying Umlazi; Hesitant Steps Towards Political Ideology in a Durban Township; I have been moved to thinking how some Black Radical comrades have already debunked the efficacy of social movement, especially those ideologically 'led' and misled by white liberals.

Here is the link to the article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2014.975930 ...

A recent article written by fellow activist Bandile Mdlalose, also a colleague of comrade China did a lot to deal with this perpetual problem of white do gooders who do their utmost to either police the black voice or to steer our common struggles towards certain ideological or policy directions. Usually it is towards a policy of non-racialism as opposed to anti-racism; towards a cosmetic transformation of social conditions rather than total destruction of the very system that they thrive on. The do gooders tend to steer the landless and oppressed ones towards whatever dominant ideology that they find lucrative, especially in lieu with their academic interests.

I don't remember who said the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, the class that is the ruling material force of society ( read White society in the context of RSA), is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
So Comrade China's paper made me really anxious to find out exactly which Ideology he was referring to. But even though his paper is a good or accurate portrayal of what transpired when a community rose up against authority, I was still left wondering just what kind of political ideology the author had in mind.

But my focus is not really the matter of white liberals determining the trajectory of black struggles per se, what concerns me most is the shortcomings of black activists and leaders of movements to convince the masses of oppressed and landless people to make that final push to really effective revolution, by any means necessary.
Yes, I am part of those movements too, I have been part of the September National Imbizo since the year 2011, and i have agitated within Economic Freedom Fighters and now I have committed myself to the Black First Land First movement.
Yet each time I am confronted with the "lived experiences" of the my people, the 'wretched of the Earth', it becomes increasingly difficult to keep asking them to THINK. Think and break the mental chains so that we can all take that great leap towards liberation and achieve Biko's vision of a True Humanity.

To convince the hungry and unemployed and vulnerable to think beyond their service delivery concerns, their joblessness and the state of crime, and work collectively to banish the forces that perpetuate their desperate conditions is no easy task. It may be easy for one to sit at the computer typing up 'social commentary', writing to the newspapers, and urging thousands of listeners on radio to revive Steve Biko's Black Consciousness, to think and act on Robert Sobukwe's pan-Afrikan ideals and to bravely rage against imperialism in the indomitable spirit of Thomas Sankara.
But striving to do these things in a society which is constructed on apartheid divisions, class hierarchies and white monopoly capitalism makes it ever more difficult. But as I said to the people of Illovu this weekend, "Change may be very difficult, but it is not impossible, especially once you have had enough of abuse."

Let us now turn to ideology before we take a closer look at comrade China's well researched paper which still somehow fails to display the authors ideological standpoint. Perhaps he did this on purpose, as am activist who refuses to pick a side in the name of intellectual objectivity, I may not know his motivation, but I will soon find out.
In his monumental work of selected essays,African Sociology,Towards A Critical African Sociology: Selected Works, Bernard Makhosezwe Magubane has a chapter titled Ideological And Theoretical Problems In The Study Of Modernization In Africa. In this chapter Magubane intricately gives an proper perspective of how various political and economic theories and ideologies have altered the destinies of African people through-out the 20th and 21st century.
It is not difficult to tell that Magubane writes from a Socialist and Marxist ideological foundation, even though he does not shy away from sharp yet well apportioned criticism of the limits of cut-and paste socialism in Africa and the rest of the "third world". He quotes C/L.R. James in the beginning of this chapter: "The cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression." ( From the Black Jacobins)
Such are the pearls of Black intellectual wisdom I often wish to drop (in my Mother tongue) whenever I am called to speak on Community and National radio stations, but, we are often subjected to mundane questions and time constraints.
Magubane adds this:

"To break the neo-colonial noose, Nkrumah was forced to adopt a socialist strategy, "capitalism had already had its turn in Africa, for 50 years, 100 years or more, and Africa [ was still ] underdeveloped. In other words, capitalism, as far as development [was] concerned, [was] seen as having failed." (p.205). It goes without saying that for leaders like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Sekou Toure and others, the choice of a socialist road of economics is dictated by historical necessity. Their policies confirm Fanon's (1967:78) observation that:

The concrete problem we find ourselves up against is not that of a choice, cost what it may, between socialism and capitalism as they have been defined by men of other continents and other ages. Of course we know that the capitalist regime ... cannot leave us free to perform our work at home, nor our duty in the world. Capitalist exploitation and cartels and monopolies are the enemies of underdeveloped countries. On the other hand the choice of a socialist regime, a regime which is completely oriented towards the people as a whole and based on the principle that man is the most precious of all possessions, will allow us to go forward more quickly and more harmoniously, and thus make impossible that caricature of society where all economic and political power is held in the hands of a few who regard the nation as a whole with scorn and contempt."

Reading this makes me think that Comrade China Ngubane and many other activists was mainly highlighting a specific node of hopeful community solidarity. The matter of whether the occupation of a Councillors office was effective or whether their demands were met is neither here nor there, especially when one considers the fact that the whole country is under the control of a government that is both gullible and contemptuous.
I say gullible because it is really difficult to ascertain exactly what ideological foundation the African National Congress acts from. Even though its Freedom Charter is said to have been penned by Communists who had 'consulted with the oppressed people". The truth remains that this vainglorious organisation has thrived on the 'willful ignorance' of the masses.

Comrade China notes that "Ward 88's Community Crisis Committee included members from the ruling ANC, as well as from the main opposition political parties such as the DA, IFP and NFP. Those not politically affiliated included activists from faith-based organisations. ...they agreed to actively participate in this process to resist authority, even to the extent of using civil disobedience, in the face of the states willingness to use violence. Ideological development occurred during this period, as some ANC members threatened to withdraw their membership and the majority withdrew their allegiance to authority."

This is very interesting and it makes so much sense why the populist commander of the Economic Freedom Charter strove so hard to garner a following in this large township of Umlazi, surely he was aware of this gap or opportunity to win over disgruntled voters. Due to the EFF's own lack of ideological clarity and genuine concern for the fate of the black oppressed, the problems plaguing all townships still continue and there is no political education programs currently in place to equip the people with the right tools to build themselves out of the mire of liberalism and exploitation by black askaris or petit bourgeoisie.

One shining example of sound ideological clarity in this article comes via Black Conscious and socialist activist Bheki Buthelezi, who is quoted as saying: "We are doing this as residents, not political parties. There are four political parties in the ward - the ANC, Black Consciousness Party, National Freedom Party and Inkatha Freedom Party - and we have all come together to raise issues of unemployment, housing, the landless and informal settlements.

Let me close with a quotation that appears at the beginning of this paper: " The ideological deficiency, not to say the total lack of ideology, within the national liberation movements - which is basically due to ignorance of the historical reality which these movements claim to transform - constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses of our struggle against imperialism, of not the greatest weakness of all."

Yet somehow I am still compelled to re-investigate Fanon's statement that as Africans we find ourselves warming up theories and ideologies that emanate from another era and from another continent, yet he also adds in a sort of admission that as black people we are in a Catch 22 situation where we ought to choose the best of two evils. The other evil seems like a wolf in sheep's clothing, but what choice do we have? Choose we must.
But the wisened professor Magubane cautions: "The socialist solution is a historic necessity; necessitated as much by the historic facts that underdevelopment in the former colonies begins with the intervention of the colonial factor as by the advances made by socialist countries and those former colonies that chose a socialist path. The transformation of countries along socialist lines has been prompted not by subjective decisions of isolated personalities, but by historical necessity." (p.143, Ideological and Theoretical Problems In the Study of Modernization I Africa.

The Afrikan Music Experience Night taking place today 5pm