The heritage of many is defined by a few.

The heritage of many is defined by a few.

The National Heritage is meant to be inclusive and representative of the indigenous and native peoples of a particular land; it is meant to observe, cherish and preserve that which defines the peoples of that land, and by default, the heritage of the majority should dominate proceedings.

In South Africa, however, this does not seem to be the case. I was surprised when I learned that the National Heritage Day has now been termed the Braai Day. Really? What the hell is this? To me it seems as though we have relegated the meaning of heritage to narrow representations of foreign traditions. Many will argue that Braai is a South African tradition but I say the heritage of a people begins at the very beginning.

"The very beginning" in the South African context, I feel, should begin at the time when Colonizers and Apartheidites were not here. The heritage of the people whose traditions and identities had been distorted and stolen by the groups mentioned above should take the forefront. They should be the center of the national heritage month. I am not saying white people should be ignored and their heritage not celebrated but I am saying such blasphemies as the Braai Day are only constituted to distort and contaminate the heritage of the many.

How our heritage is purported makes us look like some meat-eating savages whose culture revolved around eating flesh and drinking alcohol. What bullshit. Same is the notion of inclusive heritage; I think it is also an attempt to mix water and oil and expect that they blend. South Africa is a place with people of various nationalities and it cannot be expected that the National Heritage represent all of these people, given that some only arrived here when we had already had a rich heritage of our own. The National Heritage month should represent the heritage of the oppressed and the depressed; Black people and other people whose traditions, cultures and heritage had been downtrodden for 400 years without remorse nor conscience.

Picture: Ndebele women in traditional dress.                                     Photo: Dreamstime.com

The ideas like Braai Day seek only to further obliterate from memory the glory of the African Heritage. They seek to return our land to the image it had when we nearly forced the Apartheidites and Colonizers back to the sea, all thanks to the ANC that did not materialise. Of course, White people are very much a part of our history, and in most cases a history we are not proud of. But that should not mean they must be treated as outcasts as some of our political leaders have pronounced.

There should be distinctions between the native heritage and the Braai day so that these meat-eaters will have their day and those of us who take our heritage seriously will have a piece of our heritage to enjoy, lest it is completely obliterated from the mind of the oppressed.

Let's chat!!

Who is fooling who?

 So, it has now become our tradition that when we fail to realise our own failures we start blaming the youth for our errors.

The Black youth is screwed and if we fail to awaken at this time, we will forever lament the opportunity that would have passed us by: the opportunity to correct the wrong. Most Black children continue to be taken care of by their parents' television sets, while both parents are out there, working. Many Black women continue to work as domestic workers for white people.

A Black woman wakes in the wee- wee hours of dawn and prepares to go to work. She leaves her home before her children awaken and returns much late into the day, tired and shooting straight to bed. During the whole day that she works, she takes care of her madam's children; washing their clothes, feeding them and teaching them how to behave among other people. She instills discipline in them so that when the madam returns from her own job, her children are well-fed, they are clean ad their manner of behavior has altered a bit. Gradually, this improves until the youth is grown and can now take the good manners further out into the world.

The Black woman whose work it is that sees this youth into this state, is happy to be told that her job is well-done and that an increase is due her way. She returns home with this good news to find her own children asleep and she decides against waking them, considering the late hour. On the morrow of that day she will again take the 05h00 train to the white woman's home. Here, as her kids wake to prepare for school, they feel no disappointment from the absence of their mother to prepare their uniforms and lunch boxes and morning kisses and daily guidance, because they know their mama is at work.

Instead, they turn on the TV set before going to school. They are faced with various challenges at school and need somebody to speak to but mama is not there, she is talking to the kids of the employer, totally oblivious to the realities faced by her own child. So our sisters and brothers are therefore the only babysitter for this kid is Takalani Sesame and whatever else is out there on TV. Mommy returns tired and carries gifts and toys and we are happy because we can behold with our eye the fruit of mommy's labour.

Because mommy grooms the white kid into someone of respect and honour, her work is admirable but the realistic result of such labour is that she has invested little time to groom her own children and thus their upbringing is unlike that of a white kid.

Our kids are TV addicts because of this notion.

Let's chat some more!

Parents vs Children

Some people will be shocked to read today's post as the subject discussed is not one I am known to understand, but, like I said, people will be shocked.

I will deal with the Black parent here and see what contribution s/he has on his child spiraling out of control; into a bully and one whose reasoning capacity is always obstructed by the confines of culture and traditions.

It is known that many Black people subscribe to the notion that a kid's word can never overruled that of an elder. This is problematic because of the reasons to be discussed here. It is also known that it is these parents, out of love or ignorance, who buy toys and other goodies for their kids.

And it is known that parents watch television with their kids, day or night, but they do. Now an array of problem arise in all these contexts and the parent is assumed to be there, seeing what unfolds before them.

I will start at the beginning. Black parents hate it when their kids argue with them, regardless of how knowledgeable the kids is of the subject in question. A Black parent speaks and expects that we all agree that his/her version of the subject is true and absolute. S/he sends a kid to school and varsity so as to develop their cognitive facilities and reasoning capabilities, and when the kid returns it is joy all over. Until the time when a matter of intricacy must be dealt with, the parent is proud of the kid.

They speak, misinformed and sometimes clueless of the subject, and when the kid they sent to school for such purposes rebukes what is being said on the grounds of its truths and factuality, the kid is dismissed as "youthful and inexperienced". I make an example of a young man who graduated Cum Laude in the fields of Social Work and Social Development whose rural Eastern Cape upbringing had turned him into a man of principle and honour; having observed the traditions and teachings of his fore-bearers.

He returns home from University and finds a dilemma where children are ill-treated, where children are being used as labour at a construction site. He questions this development and is told not to worry about such things as he, himself, had been brought up in that way. He tries to reason to the effect of protecting the child from exploitation but he is told that "the elders" of the village had constituted that it be so. Because he is a man of principle and his village respects him for they way he conducted himself among the elders as he was growing, thus he ceases to question these actions because he wishes not to be perceived as disrespectful to the elders. He does as he is told. The parents' word is final, regardless of the implications it has legally and otherwise.

He keeps quiet and watches as children are enslaved; doing that which ought to have been done by the very parents who constitute "elders" in that village. He ceases to engage with his parents on any matter because they will get angry over "the million questions" and perhaps a physical disciplinary action might be employed against the poor guy. The younger kids observe and learn that when you are a parent your word is final and that no engagement is further necessitated after such violent responses.

Black parents; engage you kids in complicated subject such us community building, they might surprise you.

And then the Black parent goes to town and buys toys for his/her kids. As the parent and the kids stroll in the streets of town, a toy gun is spotted by the kid and is immediately in the list of demands, somewhere below the chocolate bar on the shopping list. Gladly, the parent will purchase this toy because she "wants to give her children all that they want and need". The boy will love the gun so much so that the day of purchase of such a toys will linger for a while in the mind of the kid (and those who will live to the complete manifestation of that kind of playing).

However, the kid will soon realise that this gun is not very effective in "eliminating his nemeses" and he, with friends, will discuss other means of getting the job done. Because they grow so fast, the parent is oblivious to the fact that the toy is no longer interesting for it fails to execute the desired duties. The kids used to certain ideas and if they love them and are not monitored, they take them up as a hobby or way of life, much to the happiness/sadness of the parents.

Kids learn! He will get himself an illegal pistol and the parents will not know until the pistol gets him into trouble. And from there trouble will never stop again. Stop buying toy guns for kids, you are turning them into the criminals that the system has already painted them into being. Stop beating your kids up because they disagree with whatever it is that you are saying: Nobody can be right at all times and kids have learnt the science of reasoning because you sent them to school precisely for that reason. Change your parenting methods from those of your grandparents because the times and systems no longer accommodate for such.

Love your kids and burn anyone who throws a kid in the dustbin and burn them that commit murder by way of abortion, especially if you asked for that pregnancy. And by "ask" I mean voluntarily going and sleeping with men in the absence of protective measures.

I am not well-verse in parenting as I am only a nine-month old parent but, this, I have observed and I have testament to this effect. Love your babies, people, and teach them good from evil, their future depends on it.

Let's chat if unesbindi

Tales from the Mines

I learnt, with relief, that the miners at Lonmin have reached a settlement with their employers.

I was particularly relieved because the plight of these hard-working men from our African continent had become subject of political footballing from both the ruling party and its oppositions. The situation, regardless of who is at fault, had turned the plight of honest men into a joke, a public relations exercise for some and a place to score political points for the politicians (ruling and opposition).
People went there to show "solidarity" to the miners, others went to "strengthen the positions of the Union", other went to attempt to resolve the dispute and others went to negotiate. It was interesting to watch the ANC cadre sweat over Julius Malema's presence there, you'd swear they were seeing god they way that they shivered and trembled in anticipation of what he would say.

As usual, the 747 Booeing Airbus, Julius Malema, did not disappoint; he landed right at the spot. He told them exactly what he thought of them and their interests in mines and the white people who own these mines, and how he would be in and among the revolution that seeks to obliterate all forms of exploitation. Others also spoke there. UWC Chancellor and Bishop of Cape Town, The Most Rev Dr Thabo Makgoba also went there to seek to implant peace and harmony throughout the process of negotiation.

And not for the first time in our history, the liberals were also all over the show; "giving support and political advice" to many exploited and hard-working Black people, whose current condition is a direct result of a 400 year old tradition of Black oppression and economic side-lining. They were also there when revolutionaries wanted to cleanse our land of the vile capitalist and racist systems through bloodshed. They raised the "voice of reason" and negotiated that we, today, may continue living the life they had designed and planned for us.

The non-White, in Biko's terms, was also involved. But he came in much later; after the massacre. He raised points relating to how much "Black people have suffered as a collective" and how "we Black people should come and stand together" in this fight. But the thing with the non-white today, and in the context of Marikana and other mining areas that face the same problem, is that the "collective" he speaks of only began feeling the pain that the miners feel everyday, after the cops/soldiers had executed the people there. He was never there all along and only when the full manifestation of the capitalist evil is revealed does he come.
I heard them speak yesterday after it was announced yesterday that miners have reached and agreement with their employers, saying things like: "Again, the capitalist gets his way.", others said "those miners were forced to sign the deal". Whatever their views may be but fact is that none have the truth of what happened and as for my take; the miners settled for what was a good deal for them.

The fact that certain people from certain quarters are unhappy about that deal, when the affected people are, is really a question of wishful yapping on their part. The reality of the matter is that we should cease this tradition of reactionarism and begin at the very beginning: that is; stop waiting for tragedies to occur before we seek to address issues. Here, people have always known that miners are treated like s#&%^#t and none ever bothered to pick up a placard and mobilise people against the employer.

Many of us here in cape Town are still subjected to capitalist exploitation and ill-treatment from the capitalist who hire them, but none dare come forward. Some of the Black Consciousness Towers I was listening to yesterday after the announcement, also work under unimaginable conditions but they never dare to pick up their placards. So, what I am saying is that, if we are to lead a radical revolution of all economic means, people must stop seeing their own lives as most valuable than others.

The reality of things is that it Black people who are continually subjects of such BS. The liberals here also play a very strong in the suppression and marginalisation of the Black and the poor because he will always come with his ideas of how "an amicable resolution" could be reached,  totally oblivious to the fact that ours is a struggle that borders way beyond the confines of a single incident. This is a 400 years old struggle, my people. It began way back and it is as persistent today as it was when white people ruled South Africa.

We must rejoice that the miners have agreed on something for we now know that their children's bread will continue to come as it did. However, we must also not forget that this is no victory but a miner scratch on an otherwise bigger surface, our surface. Now, the non-white and the Black person must now look upon themselves and question the route by which they could reach their destiny and if this, this current dispensation and leadership, is their destiny, suffice it to say we are doomed for the next 400years.

I mention Black people, non-white people (in Biko's terms) and not white people in this essay because only a handful of white people would understand our problems, especially financially because the system have always functioned to serve and protect their interests.
Let's Chat about this! (if unesbindi)

Office Politics

Yeah! I can almost see people's faces in anticipation of what this post will cover - fear not, I will be kind.

Universities and technical institutions all around the country will soon hold their graduation ceremonies to cap and give a warm send-off to the students whose hard-work and dedication will forever be remembered.

This brings about new and fresh challenges; exciting challenges I might add. The first of the lot is finding yourself a job. That is the craziest moment in life, especially nowadays when some fat guy in some fancy 15th floor office will always stretch his neck out of the window and shout "South Africa lacks skill" (Raising questions about the curriculum at varsity - I mean, for all these years in which we have produced graduates, you mean none have the reuired skill?). This period is crazy because many get frustrated by the calls for people with experience; again, leaving the question of where should the freshly-graduated get that experience if they are not hired right there and then.

This drags on and on until one is almost at a point of giving up. But I guess it is how it is.

For some finding a job does not prove to be a dilemma but keeping that job becomes a toughest of jobs. I will pounce on those whom I liken to the wind: they travel whichever way the wind blows. They lack principle. In the Black Townships of Mzansi we say "Bathenga iSkelem". You'd find this fresh graduate into his new job post. Those who have been there long before him will always want to "give him some advice" relating to the staff, management and the processes. This is not always good advice.

They will tell you that a certain member of the staff or management is a certain type of a person. Some will say with scorn and long-held grudges and others out of good heart but it is truly difficult to for a newcomer to deal with all of this. But the one and best way is to STAY AWAY from such politics.

I have seen people develop bad blood towards other people for no reason at all, except because one staff member bad-mouthed another, so without knowing all facts and truths, the rookie exhibits that attitude too. This will render most people unemployable because nobody wants to work with someone without principle and honour.

So, without further wasting of time, I shall end here!

I am my own Leader

I have observed on many an occasion how the people entrusted with the leadership of our society have consistently and frequently abandoned that responsibility in favour of sectarian and factionalist interests and gains, much to the detriment of the led.

I should make it crystal clear that this space is not designed to speak ill of the ruling party, the opposition or any organisation or structure for that matter. However, let it be clear that I shall not shy away from expressing my view of things and this is it.
We are said to be a democratic people in a democratic country. I understand democracy to be a government of the people, for the people and by the people themselves. This says to me that we are a people that should be hands on in our government; that we should be our own representatives in government, but sadly that is not the case.

I behold with worry as the electoral system we use continue to undermine and, frankly, oppress us, the very people who should be a government. The system allows for the political parties to nominate a "top six" list of people who shall lead that party. A face of a man or woman is put up the that party's president or leader; a person that is admired by others and despised by others. Granted it should be so.  They then go to the general elections and having agreed at their general congress that a certain individual is fit to lead the lot of us, the put up the name.

The rest of the people in that party whose ideals are not represented by this individual are forced to accept this person as their leader, albeit they hate his guts. That party will have factions because times will come when the elect will engage with the elector and the latter, whose ideals are not represented by this man or woman, and such engagements often lead to factionalism within that structure. Take President Zuma of the ANC for an example, after his victory in Polokwane 2007, those who put him to power in the ANC rejoice, and those who were skeptical remain unconvinced of his leadership.

And then we move to parliament. The National Assembly, a house of representatives. And this is where my dilemma begins. Is it not so that in a democracy, people should represent themselves in government matters, or any other matter except for legal and other technical matters? For if it is so, then we should ask the question that are our interests represented in this House. Take a Rastafari for example. He is non-political, he is peaceful and he is a Ganja user-basically he is all that the modern human is not.

He stays away from voting booths because he realises the vanity of the politician. He stays away from Sunday churches because he realises their mistake. In Parliament, and in the community, Rastafari is marginalised because of his refusal to partake in these joke rituals. He is accused of wanting to be different, as if there is fault in that. Because the people he would have liked as his representatives in parliament did not partake in the elections, realising they would lose anyway since the African National Congress' and the Democratic Alliance's of this world control all the capital and media for propaganda.

From this point, Rasta cannot have representation in the very House that should, by law, recognise everybody equally. Another example is of a man like me who has no regard for politics; if I like none of the political parties on the ballot, I am forced to abide by the dictates of the ruling party regardless of my feelings and ideology and my opinion of that party.
This, then, gives me a dilemma in trying to understand the representation part. If I am a government myself, then why do we have a parliament which, predominantly houses the ANC and DA politicians as major parties? How is my stance to be represented if I have no representative in the National Assembly? The voting and governance system in South Africa is flawed and no provision is made in the Constitution for the Rastafari man (because when they have to legalise Ganja, they say there will be problems for the law enforcers in distinguishing between medicinal, spiritual use and the general smoking; fearing an abuse of the law, but sacrificing the right of Rastafari of Spiritual Meditation and medicine.
Slain Libyan revolutionary and leader Muammar El' Gaddafi also expresses worry over this issue. His argument is that were or are there no other models of democracy in the world if we all have to subscribe to the American version?

Because if this is the case, we should then revisit the time of prehistory and the not so old history of most successful, prosperous African nations and seek their secret. This I say because it is difficult to imagine that all African peoples were thwarted by incompetency, dictatorship and human rights abuses. We should stop looking for Europeans to guide us for we must have learnt now that putting your trust in the European, with sensitive issues like governance and governing systems, we are doomed to slavery and other barbaric forms of treatments as experienced not so long ago.

Africans must accept that theirs is a different destiny to that of the European and thus our ways to reach there cannot be the same. As of this moment, I am ungovernable. Not by Zuma or by Zille or De Lille or any other guy, so long as there is no meaningful freedoms released to the people, all people including Rasta and his ganjah. I am tired of the inequalities that were supposed to have been addressed long ago by the ANC government. I am tired of the inequalities in the Western Cape perpetrated against the poor and the have-nots.
I am my own leader.

My destiny is bigger than this. So, that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally done away with, I will be ungovernable. That until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation, I will be ungovernable. That until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes, I will be ungovernable. I am my own leader. That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, I will be ungovernable.

So, having said all of this, the oppressive and corrupt system that continues to be a plague in the lives of the Afrikan, will remain as it is and as it was, so long the radical socialist revolution is frowned upon.

I am my own leader.

Let's chat about this!

Poverty is a Design

Many will be shocked to hear such words and after they read this, I will probably be accused of being a racist, but who is not, really?

I maintain that there was a time when the African South African was not poor. When he knew what his children would eat on this night. When there could not be a hungry person in the community while others had food. There was a period in time when African South Africans found peace when their deeds impacted on the next person with great compassion and aid. That period seems far now.

And then, came a capitalist European whose descendant would become the European South African. This crop of the new South Africans redefined the role of communities for Black People. Because they were capital-driven, all they sought was to gain economic glory, not that there's anything wrong with that, but all this would be done at the peril of the indigenous occupant of the land for which they had worked and upon which their history was embedded.
So the new South Africans begin with their systemic and systematic design of colonialism, which was largely designed to loot the economies of those countries who defined wealth not by gold but by the far-reaching community aid programmes. An example of such would have been to gather the community for a week's work in the farms, the resulting crop would be shared among those who took part and even those who did not.
It was the mine fields, the farms, and before you knew it, a whole new system of banks and money evolved and new governance systems were imposed upon the African South African by the freshly-welcomed European South African. They imposed restrictions, they dictated employment terms and employment. They, over a long period of time and with European aid, systematically dissected our governance systems and codes, to :"align South Africa" with the world. They ran Banks and governments, and as their systems evolved, a new, brutal and inhumane South African was born. Through this new South African, the ideas of oppression of Black African South Africans by their White South African counterparts was given birth.
Notwithstanding the preceding centuries of the same treatment, since the arrival of the European South African, the current South African was as brutal, but his expertise in dividing, ruling and robbing the African South African of all the profit from the mines, from the farms, cattle, from all the hard work put in, proved to be the deciding edge in relation to who is poor and who is rich today.

1994 came and as Biko had predicted; the mere change of face in those in governance has not changed the condition in which the Black South African, deprived and robbed by his White South African brother, finds himself in. Biko said there would be those few Black people who would be coming through the capitalist system to a bourgeoisie standard of a life, so there would not be any change in conditions of the majority of Black South Africans, whose efforts of trying to contribute effectively to the advancement of his nation are being frustrated by centuries-old design to deliberately exclude him from the affairs of his native land.

The new government comes to us with ideas of how we can move forward as a country amid poverty and hunger faced by many in our ranks (our ranks means OURS-the poor) yet it there are no redress and take-back programmes that would see the playing grounds leveled.  Our governors failed to employ the same strategies as our oppressors when they sought to build a news South Africa. They deliberately turned a blind eye to the calls of many that strategic economic sectors MUST be taken from the former oppressor. These include land, mines, and all of other assets of the nation stolen. This, they defend by saying "but some of these people worked for what they have", clearly ignoring the historic fact that before the former oppressor had all that he now has, all belonged to the African South African.

Essentially, whatever deal that was agreed upon in Kempton Park when they were devising the new South African dispensation, interests and ideas of the oppressor and his camp were preserved and promoted in the new constitution, so as to further downpress the Black people of this land in line with the agendas of the European wishes. Today, people are up in arms on the streets crying their lungs out for change. Yeah, change will happen, but not for the better, or at least not for the many Black people.

I am not trying to be a racist African South African here, but I am merely stating that only Black people are the poorest, and it will remain like this for a long while so long as those who negotiated with the oppressor remain in power. They will always look out for the interests of their masters. And then there is crime. Governing individuals deploy more cops to "curb the scourge" but to what end? They are merely covering up their own asses. In the South African historic context of White dominance of Black people, crime, like racism, is a result of White oppression and deprivation of Black of that which rightfully belongs o the Black people.

If the colonialist and Afrikaner did not have the gall to rob the Indigenous peoples of that which was theirs by virtue of their birth here, we would not have as many poor Black people, in fact I think it is the coloniser who would have fled because he would be poor. But because no redress and no radical change in the operations of the country from a colonial system of enriching a few, Black people are still poor and if you speak like I do in this blog, you are labelled a racist.

I must say that in the time when racism has no colour, when racism is born anew, if I am labelled a racist here, I gladly accept. I will not stand by and watch Black people oppressing, abusing, downpressing, exploiting Black people, so they can amuse their fatass masters from a thousand miles away.

Poverty is designed to kill the Black South African.

Let's chat about it.