The neo-colonial reconstruction of reconciliation has destroyed the soul of Black people. As a result, Black people are obsessed with being peaceful and nice to both oppressors and collaborators.
In his analysis of current political devevloments and electoral trends where there are hundreds of political parties, outspoken author of the best-selling autobiography, The Oddessey : Memoir of a Rebel Advocate, Muzi Sikhakhane argues that Blacks have become the biggest problem to their own liberation.
He was telling Sizwe Mpofu Walsh on a podcast that Blacks have given up and stopped in the fight for the return of the land, among other just causes. Many, especially the middle class, have bought into the lie that Blacks dont need the land.
As a result, Blacks have become tolerant of oppression and injustice. They have allowed their leaders to be manipulated by material benefits they gain from ministerial positions and sitting on corporate boards.
The SC has called for a Black Convention to reclaim the struggle for liberation that will first demand the natural death of the ANC. He insists that the ANC cannot be renewed.
It is dead. It must die.
In this day and age, he joins to call for the Second Republic where the whole society goes back to the drawing board to redraft the constitution among other things. It must be treason to work within the current political and economic system or to do anything that deepens land dispossession, economic exploitation and oppression.
I am not sure if this country still has people with appetites and intellects for socalled revolutionary work. There are no men and women of courage, of honor. Instead, many people between 30 – 65 years have been retrained and conditioned by the status quo to adapt or die.
In fact, they’re suffering from Struggle Fatigue. They now want the easy life that makes them soft in the belly, heart and mind. The preoccupation now is to get your pension, to live comfortably and be safe in an exclusive estate. People only want to make it. And they are willing to fake it. So, behaviour and attitudes are driven by the manipulative desire to calculate everything according to self-interest and defend nothing, except individual greed and selfishness.
You must give it to the Advocate. He is correct to say Blacks have inherited Apartheid’s dysfunctional moral laws, if ever there was such. As a result, Blacks have become professional agents of an unjust and unequal economic system. They are managers of an unjust economic system.
Sikhakhane insists that Blacks may be free, but they are not liberated. Everything has been shaped by neo-colonial thought and propaganda that puts Whites first. He says Whites have become arrogant and fearless. Blacks are afraid and live to impress White bosses.
Over the last 30 years or so, it has become difficult to believe that we still have black men and radical voices that pride themselves in speaking unvarnished truth. The thing is, the Advocate himself has risen to the highest echelons within this system he condemns. You can say he is a product of this system, too.
Much as the things he says are relevant and perhaps important, well, they do not change much. Or do they?
Talk is …er, talk, without action. Thus, he has called for yet another Black Convention and wants to see a peaceful revolution. Well, it is very difficult to decipher what he means. Maybe he holds two opposing thoughts in one head.
What this means is that he is, in principle, opposed to the economic system. But he, too, is its creation and benefits from it. After all, they say Advocates earn over R25K per hour. Thus, justice is for the rich.
There is no denying that the Advocate’s insight is brutal. Colonialism of a special type and Apartheid have produced educated and clever cowards. They have the freedom to speak as they please. But they’re still subjected to the political governance of puppets or technocrats. Worse, they cannot act or do anything. They are trapped in the pincers grasp of racism and capitalism.
At this point in our political evolution, there is nothing worth dying for. Every man has his own price. It seems the new struggle is to find security and comfort for one’s family in this unjust economic system.
After all, it is every man for himself, now.
Thus, according to Sikhakhane, everything becomes negotiable… including human dignity. And leaders are ready to sell their people.
