1|Page Black Power [Edition 1, Volume 1] BLACK SPACE NEWSLETTER BLACK SPACE - PREAMBLE Black Space is a Black Consciousness formation of students, in occupied Azania (South Africa). We make use of the work of leading scholars in black radical thought, to understand black existence, under antiblack white supremacy. We believe that our existence, in black bodies, has been reduced to invisibility; positioned into the periphery and therefore out of sight of ‘normal’ human existence. It is when we continuously and consciously think of our oppression that we become less tolerant of it. In this ‘democratic’ dispensation, South Africa remains but a ‘province of Europe.’ Whiteness in the country, as ‘racism founded upon custom and tradition’, is unshaken and unquestioned; also because of the hold charterist governance has on the people. This reassumes the age-old act of lynching; colonial and apartheid rule, wherein the black body remains dehumanised and in a zone of non-being. White racism apologists who have been drinking from the rainbow nation cup, administer this capitalist white supremacist system, of which on the backs of black people was built, is sustained and strengthened. Furthermore, African knowledge claims and the ability of the blacks to think and reason continue to be negated. Indeed, nothing has changed since 1994. Little to nothing has also been done to even reverse the 1913 Land Act, which was instrumental in dispossessing blacks, natives to African soil, of their land. As Black Space, ours is to engage in dialogue around these issues that have and do badly impact black people and their relations; manoeuvre our way, rallying ‘around the cause of our oppression – blackness of our skin’ in disrupting white supremacy and discomforting those who advocate it. In so doing, we will be setting a fertile ground for the revolution, or the politics thereof, especially with Black Consciousness spaces presently infiltrated. For instance, and in closing, blacks in occupied Azania continue to be brutalised and murdered by the state, but life continues as though nothing has happened – repression. Our reality, as a people existing 2|Page in black bodies, is aptly summed up in the following quote, thus: “Blackness is indeed an insistent previousness that evades each and every natal occasion. Blackness spits in the face of birth and occasions birth as continuation of black social death.” -------------------- ------------------AN OPEN LETTER TO PROF NGIDI: THE DECOLONISATION RHETORIC AT CUT (Prof Ngidi in red) Dear Prof Ngidi “The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.” Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth Just as when I was about to congratulate you on being nominated for the NSTF awards, I realised, when I read further, that you were not the one nominated. Seeing you in the picture, however, brought to mind an unpleasant memory of last year; during the Fees protests. It is unpleasant because of the amount of disrespect you demonstrated, especially as Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning. I am writing this in between classes; so be assured it’s going to be a short one. Nevertheless, I here wish to state my position on decolonisation and my disappointment in you. On October 17th, 2016 at the student parliament, when asked to comment on and give possible directives insofar as decolonisation and the decolonial curriculum are concerned, you ascended to the podium and gave a very obscure and irrelevant history to what was going to become an inevitably fruitless lecture on the subject. This was an insult, especially as you stood there, with expensive phone in your hand and googling on what next to say. Hence what was to follow was unavoidably going to be fruitless. As DVC for Teaching and Learning, with a strong academic record on understanding the pedagogical aspects of Psychology, having been Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and, not to mention, taught History and IsiZulu; it would have been appreciated if you took the onus and displayed a more abreast understanding of the subject of decolonisation. We were, of course, not anticipating a Paulo Freire; but you could have put more effort and provided leadership. Furthermore, I do not think there is going to be enough time for me to expand on my position apropos to decolonisation and colonisation. As I explained, I am writing this in between classes. As a twenty-year-old, months before the events of Fees Must Fall of the previous year, I wrote extensively on colonisation and decolonisation, and a few of my articles are available on my blog: https://mbiratafari.wordpress.com. In 3|Page these articles, I do not provide an Alpha and Omega understanding of the subject, but dwell more on the fundamental tenets of colonisation. These include the fact that colonisation, as a process, is first and foremost destructive in and of itself; and therefore harbours no positive aspects. For instance, one can put it out and point at these buildings we call universities and suggest them as amongst the said ‘positive aspects’, but it will be them being ahistorical. I plan to summarise my argument in two points: 1) there already were academic institutions in Africa before the coloniser set foot here, and 2) the coloniser’s institutions, founded on a Eurocentric understanding of being and being-in-the-world, do more to erase indigenous epistemic understanding of such. As Aime Cesaire also understands: “…between colonisation and civilisation there is an infinite distance; that out of all colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all colonial statutes that have been drawn up, out of all memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries; there could come no single human value.” How then does a decolonised curriculum look like? I am tempted to briefly answer, thus: Giving education human values, the same Cesaire laments about colonialism to have none of. The world, the modernised world, which is deeply rooted in Eurocentric understanding of being, as earlier stated, has redefined humanity and what it means to be human, for the African. The latter therefore threads on, emptied of knowledge of self and baffled by new connotations found in the modern world – the world as we know it. Bab’ uPhathabantu, to further add to my disappointment, the Vice-Chancellor went and gloated in The Weekly newspaper about how CUT is leading the discourse on decolonisation, even when it is known that this is false. The past two workshops I have seen advertised on campus were invitations to ivory tower, mouth-to-mouth resuscitations of a few academics. This exposes the refusal of the institution to keep doors open for engagement. As Black Space, we will be having a series of public lectures on Black Consciousness, putting into context Vladimir Lenin’s question of “What is to be done?” When there is such an event organised, if not the first, you will be one of the few academics to know about it. Regards, Mbira -------------------- ------------------THE STRUGGLES OF BLACK PEOPLE AFTER 1994 This piece is an attempt to put across the continued marginalisation of blacks in South Africa, especially 24 years after 1994. The psychological effects and structural problems of the past are still persistent, in that, blacks still do not own the means of production and, in order to acquire basic services, they must take it to the streets and protest. One must wonder: “Are we really free?” The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995) was established for the end purpose of 4|Page offering closure to victims of apartheid violence. Reparations were not enough to cover for the graveness of the atrocities suffered at the hands of the apartheid government; as a result, we have inherited an afterlife that is haunted. However, Black consciousness, as a movement and philosophy, became a tool that aimed to strengthen the collective mind of black people; uplift their confidence and love for themselves. Notwithstanding, in this modern era it is sadly neglected, and as a result black emasculation persists in the country; racked with dispossession and poverty. Whiteness is linked with wealth and all the good things in the world, as a result the structural positioning of blackness as a negative and a lack affirms being black as a curse. This phenomenon is also propagated by the media, for instance, preferably showing light-skinned models and psychologically coercing an audience of darkskinned women to use bleaching creams. According to Arewa (2017) “[T]he label of cultural appropriation is broadly applied to borrowing that is in some way inappropriate, unauthorised or undesirable. My argument is that borrowing may become appropriation when it reinforces historically exploitative relationships or deprives African countries of opportunities to control or benefit from their cultural material”. What is more left there to steal, have we not suffered enough? Africans were forcefully dispossessed of their land; will it therefore not be fair if the very same measures were to be used for them to repossess the land they lost? The fear of narrow nationalists like those in the ANC is that there will be a civil war. How will the policy of ‘land expropriation without compensation’ go about being implemented? Answers are still to be being investigated. Also, what will that mean to the landless majority? Land repossession will be the solution to the ever increasing number of poverty stricken areas, lack of jobs and unemployed graduates. The aforementioned are a consequence of the lack of factors of production, as more economic activities would benefit most people. In South Africa, a country founded on the denial of black people’s birth-right to their own land, the same blacks still have to burn tires on barricaded national roads, just to have their issues properly addressed. This approach is that of the past which facilitates no growth in infrastructure as the same things that are destroyed will take much more to be renovated leaving no funds for other things such as mental health and rehab facilities, not jails. The education system that is rigged and broken needs to be improved. It is very clear that our painful past still does have to determine our future. In conclusion, the black race has to be given a chance recreate, heal and empower themselves for benefit of the future generations. The following quote is what Steve Biko wrote in one of his essays: “Does this mean I am against integration? If by integration you understand a breakthrough into what society by blacks, assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms and code of behaviour set up by and maintained by whites, then YES I am against it. I am against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white a perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual pupil [and a poor one of that]”. --------------------------------------- 5|Page FREEDOM OR INDEPENDENCE? “Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being – like a worm.” Jean – Paul Sartre writes in his book Being and Nothingness, 1943 Are we free or independent, or perhaps both? We cannot be free in a place where power is conditional. How can we be independent when all decisions depend on a power which we do not possess? Freedom is not free, that is the understatement of the century, and the cost of independence is the handing over of power or authority. Is there a difference between freedom and independence? Most certainly there is: “freedom is basically the ability to think and to do as you feel fit”, independence on the other hand is “merely a state of not being subject to the authority of another” as answered by Palash Srivastava, Born Free – Plans to die Free on Qoura. However, I do have my reservations when it comes to what South Africa is or seems to be. South Africa has always been a country washed with a great deal of many forms of persecution, the soil of South Africa is filled with the wailing of black South Africans, longing for a home within their place of birth, searching for existence in a place not known to themselves. I was never even born the time it all began, not even those who practice structural racism today were born, not even those who enjoy the privilege were born. I am talking about a people who live a life of entitlement just because it is their supposed “birthright”. History in our schools taught us that we were and had nothing before settlers sailed into our harbours, that civilization came through our harbours and the “great” Nelson Mandela negotiated for our freedom centuries later. I am convinced that what we were taught was not true, perhaps I can further explain below. I watched the movie Long Walk To Freedom once again, what a great story of a man, more than 90 years of a life summed up in two hours, credit to Idris Elba playing Nelson Mandela and Naomie Harris playing Winnie Mandela. However, I found it strange how the movie’s title speaks of a long walk to freedom and centralised everything on a single man, it breeds the question: whose freedom was it, Nelson Mandela’s freedom or the country’s? “Mayibuye iAfrika!” our fathers and mothers echoed these struggle chants before 1994 during the 27 years in prison. Once upon a time in 1994, 27 April, the official non-racial elections and so-called freedom came to life about 4 years after the release of Nelson Mandela. Also, another question here, which was the Africa whose return was demanded – and which had supposedly returned on that election day – was it Nelson and his cabal or the country (continent) we never got back? Although it was a cute setup that would have brought to an end the teargas, petrol bombs and others, ours was a fight for our freedom to merely exist and be rendered something other than non-beings. It was never supposed to be a fight for a lousy paragraph of the Constitution of RSA, the Bill of Rights. These rights merely speak to the issues 6|Page pertaining to how we are treated since 1994 – a “live with the wound” situation, not heal the wound and lick the scars. Are we independent? This sounds like a trick question but no it isn’t. What is independence? Simply, it is the fact or state of being independent from another’s authority, yes? However, what does it really mean to be independent, is it “freedom” from the control, support and/or influence of outside forces? Or is it really being politically independent, in other words just having the right to vote for the government you feel would govern better than the previous one. To me, it sounds like an illusion that confuses the mind to think you exist and are heard when you are, in fact, far from your own existence, which is why elders today call the “born-free” ungrateful. How can we be grateful when we have learned that we will never exist for our own purpose but that of the oppressor. We are freely dependent on what we are supposed to do, what is right to the people who can never advocate for us and our being. Today we are licking the wound every day of our lives, ’94 changed nothing and we remain objectified and property to the state. We should emancipate ourselves from mental captivity and liberate our minds, but we don’t even know who to fight anymore and we seem to have lost our leaders and have found a set of deal-brokers since 1994. A deal-broker is nothing but someone who will shut the masses down and misdirect their energy with a “Go back home, let’s settle it on election day my people” – what a waste of time and energy! Anyway, are we free or are we independent? Thabo Mbeki in his last speech mentioned that “…our freedom was indeed not free” and in my opinion, he meant the blood shed by those who were in the struggle and the sweat of those in exile, and of course not the exchange of land and economy for a Bill of Rights document, a non-racial constitution which will never actually advocate for the lives of black South Africans. So, no we are not free. Independence could lead to freedom, however, it is not a prerequisite to freedom: one does not need to be independent to be free, just as they may depend on the government, for example, to fund their education and yet free to do as you please with your educational life. The answer, however, is we are not independent, because South Africa was also not declared an independent state. Also, being independent on conditions stated on a declaration document, does equal independence. I wonder who is this that goes around the world selling freedom and independence. -------------------- ------------------ON BLACKNESS AND LANGUAGE “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein “He who is reluctant to recognize me opposes me.” Frantz Fanon The performance of violence on black bodies, in its theatrical nature, has become numbing, so much that it raises no eyebrows; or agitate blacks to revolt against that same violence. 7|Page Saidiya Hartman, however, through her reading of Fredrick Douglass, brings us to understand how violence was necessary in the making of a slave. Violence, in the physical and psychological sense, has always been central in the enslavement or turninginto-property of black people; to rob them of their humanness, subsequently, labour and resources. The continued slave making of blacks for production, therefore, is denial of their humanness and reluctance to recognise them as human. Notwithstanding, what accords whites the right to recognise blacks as human, when blacks know that they are? This question cannot be answered with simplicity that pays no regard to how multifaceted and complex the situation of blackness is; and how whiteness is always implicated in the former. The master knows that the slave is human, and so does the slave. The line of divide between them, however, made possible through racist domination and subordination of the slave, makes it improbable for the slave, even as human, to afford a life, or live, as one. There is a complex of domination, made up of interlocking systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism and the killing of indigenous knowlegdes of the world (epistemicide); among others. Gender and class must not be studied outside the context of slavery, mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The turning-into-property of black people and the subsequent killing of their languages makes it improbable for the subject to make meaning and develop an understanding of the situation in which they find themselves in the world. It has become insurmountable for the African to make a study on gender and class, oftentimes race too, outside the Euro-American epistemological frameworks. This goes on as if the project of decolonisation was not one of making and developing an understanding of the world, outside the imperialist Europe. In the struggle of blacks regaining their humanness and asserting their personhood, language becomes necessary than not. Put differently, the epistemological is the necessary part of black struggle. Frank Wilderson has somewhere written that the suffering bestowed ‘pon black people is one without analogue, for blacks do not have the grammar to account for the suffering. In any case with regard to class analysis, is there any African scholarship on class and capital before or during the time of Karl Marx? If yes, does the constant reference to Marx not further kill or subdue the work of those African scholars or an epistemic understanding of class and capital from an African perspective? Walter Mignolo has once written, that, “…languages are not just ‘cultural’ phenomena in which people find their ‘identity’; they are also the location where knowledge is inscribed. And, since languages are not something human beings have but rather something of what humans beings are, coloniality of power and of knowledge engendered the coloniality of being.” It is in this sense that language should be understood, so African epistemes can be recognised and exalted to something of value. -------------------- ------------------COERCED SPEECH AND FEMINIST MUSING 8|Page The rate at which rape, as a violent phenomenon, is escalating is staggering and often leaves one feeble and wanting. In this piece, I wish to expand on the concept of ‘coerced speech’ as Frank Wilderson explains it, and try to read the theory of intersectionality within blackness, while arguing that to be a black woman is to exist, as a woman, within an already black context. Coerced speech In an interview with Jared Ball, about police brutality in America, Frank Wilderson a black scholar asserts: “Black speech is always coerced speech, in that, you are always in what Saidiya Hartman would call a context of slavery” where one has to constantly think about the consequences of speaking one’s mind. It is therefore from this perspective that we should understand why voices revolting against sexual violence have always gone unheard and without a consequence. Those same voices should not be seen in isolation from this ‘context of slavery’ of which Saidiya Hartman speaks. To be a black woman is to exist, as a woman, within an already black context. If black speech is indeed coerced speech as Wilderson understands, it should not then come as a surprise the fact that the aforementioned voices have always gone unheard and the issues raised in protests and anywhere else, are least dealt about. Intersectionality Kathryn Gines, in Black Feminism and Intersectional Analyses, explains intersectionality as referring to “the multiple, interconnected layers of existence and identity” and these may be existential, political, social and personal – across, but not limited to, categories of race, gender, class, nationality, religion and culture. If Anti-Blackness is to be understood as the fundamental contradiction and that, for instance and as mentioned before, to be a black woman is to exist as a woman within an already black context, it must then also be understood that the existence of black people is overdetermined from without (not within), as Frantz Fanon had analysed, i.e. black people thread on, marked by well-established and recurring dispossession and dehumanisation, and these are through political, economic and social means. In this paragraph, however, I want to problematize the notion of concurrency in dealing with, but not limited to, racism, sexism, classism and the killing of indigenous knowledges of being and beingin-the-world (epistemicide). The idea of concurrency or undertaking to end the aforementioned oppressive systems is a problem within itself, for it is not well considered and thus renders the same systems as weighing the same. Weighing them the same will result in blurring the line in-between and dissolving the distinction of each from the other, and moreover, affording them the same agency. Basically, the idea of intersectionality will not be as effective across all races, as it would be within Blackness. The idea that the black transgender woman and the black proletarian suffer the same in their bodies as their white counterparts, is flawed. Intersectionality within blackness: black existentialism? The idea of intersectionality will not be as effective across all races, as it would be within Blackness. Magnus Bassey in What is Africana Critical Theory or Black Existential Philosophy?writes about subject matter as giving a critique of domination, and affirming the empowerment of black people in the world. As Lewis Gordon also explains, Black Existentialism provides the philosophical grounding to explore the struggle of black people, of living within racialisation and historical oppression. It recognises the intersection of black people’s 9|Page struggles through various themes of hopelessness, meaninglessness and powerlessness – existential dilemmas under domination. If it is to be understood, as mentioned earlier, that Blackness is overdetermined from without, we should also be brought to an understanding that the same black body suffers from different blows of racism, capitalism, sexism, heteronormativity etc. and these cumulate as the same domination under which black bodies wander and eek for a living. If we apply intersectionality within Blackness, we shall then come to realise that unity, on the basis of being black, is not enough. The positionalities black people take, while in the midst of Anti-Blackness, apropos to Domination (a complex of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism etc. in western modernity) shall determine whether or not unity is probable. The violence blacks suffer at the hands of other blacks must continually be problematized, while the fundamental contradiction remains undissolved. Black capitalists must not be excused on the basis of their blackness, or black rapists and their toxic masculinity, or black academics who defend the killing of indigenous knowledges of the world. The above-mentioned persons are the ones who perpetuate and prolong our current state of Blackness. -------------------- ------------------- A CASUAL MUSING Human beings are the most intellectually given species. It all begins with thought, as in: cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). Man has the kind of traits and character that sets her apart from other people. It is in conflict where character is put to test. People find themselves in situations where they have to defend themselves, through debate (for example) where they have to state facts; and one with relevant and realistic facts always wins. Then there comes POWER: ownership and wealth, it is through these modes Africans continue to be enslaved. White supremacy, as a system of dominance, made it possible for Europeans to invade Africa and rob her of her wealth and resources. On the other hand, Africans were not meant to be fighting, hating and killing one another; but grow, teach and enrich each other with education and wisdom, as the ultimate means to secure Earth for other coming generations. Hatred destroys both the hater as well as the hated. The white race is greedy and selfish. Look at how they used the wisdom they acquired from Africans, to take over the world. Europe has universalised its values and thought; like the English and French 10 | P a g e languages. Unsuspecting Africans have come to value everything produced in Europe, without looking into how these subdue those produced in Africa. Through colonialism came wars, structural and interpersonal. Our histories are known and recognised as written by Whites. We therefore no longer use African ways, but base our understanding of the world on European thought and lived experiences. They brought us the Bible; discouraged and detached us from our cultures. They forced into our minds the idea of money, and it being the root of all evil and yet they are billionaires; that killing is a sin before the eyes of God and yet they have killed and enslaved many. They brought us law to constitutionally justify and defend their oppressive ways. Africans need to be made aware, to know how these culprits think and operate. The idea that all political parties want to make things right and provide for the nation is all propaganda, persuasive and ideological. What begs an increased number of organisations if the struggle of landlessness and poverty is one? The more political parties we have, more divided we become; other individuals satisfying their own ulterior motives. It is tragic and unfortunate that the anti-black system has made it structurally possible for us to direct our energies to each other, through the so called black on black violence. We are fighting one another and yet real criminals, the white race, live among us! Educate Azania, in remembrance of the late Steve Bantu Biko and Robert Sobukwe, leaders who understood what education is; and, moreover, the value of an Africancentred education to the development of Africa. Matla! -------------------- ------------------- ON-SURFACE ANALYSIS ON MANHOOD AND THE FACT OF BLACKNESS “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass “I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.” Frederick Douglass The rise of feminist thought in our spaces has made conversations on gender and sexuality important and worth having, despite the nonperformance on the side of many other black women to merge the politics of their blackness with that of their womanhood. For instance, should gender and race be afforded the same agency, as per intersectionality, or race before gender, while recognising the two as individual parts of the same complex? In this piece, however, I want to discuss the idea of manhood not only within the context of blackness but also attempt to provide an African epistemic understanding of the subject. “Ndakwenza umntu!” In black communities, for example, when a man is not working and happens to be in a relationship with a woman who is, and she begins making means to look after herself and him; when there is conflict, the woman would harshly remind the man of how she 11 | P a g e had humanised or made him umntu (a person). The above quoted text is therefore translatable to: “I civilised you.” I have elected to use this exclamation to illustrate how black manhood has as its base the total humanity of the African; while arguing that the current state in which he finds himself implicates negatively on our idea of manhood. Furthermore, to understand hallowed feminist synthetic terms such as toxic masculinity, the right questions should be asked: 1) what is masculinity? 2) is it inherently toxic? 3) if not, what has made it so? Manhood Manhood is generally defined as the state or period of being a man, whereas a man is an adult human male. However, I here wish to provide a more closer-to-home connotation, using as a point of reference the initiation of boys to becoming men in varied African cultures. The boys, even after initiation is complete, they are not regarded as men, until they have a wife, children and property. Until then, they are abafana (young men); not amadoda (men). In this regard, manhood is clearly defined as a parallel to womanhood. In some communities, men without wives, are not considered as people worth listening to. Manhood, as stated in the opening sentence, is that period of being a man, moreover, when one is thought to be old enough to marry, have children and property. The fact of blackness Frantz Fanon makes a description of the world as founded upon value systems that constantly exclude the African where “his customs and the sources on which they were based, were wiped out because they were in conflict with a civilization that he did not know and that imposed itself on him.” The African therefore threads on as undesirable and repugnant; and barred from a living as a human being, because he is materially excluded from the category Human. As mentioned in the second paragraph, the total humanity of the African implicates on black manhood. If the world does not regard the African as human, are black manhood and womanhood not then contradictory? The existence of the African is overdetermined from without; and has lost the right that came as reason of their position within the universal idea of humanity. As Hegel wrote: “In Roman law […] no definition of man was possible, because it excluded the slave. The conception of man was destroyed by the fact of slavery.” The African as an repugnant and nonexistent being threads on as a slave and continues to be excluded in this temporal world, through political, economic and social means. These existential dilemmas of blackness affect both black men and women, and implicates on their collective humanness and personhood. Analogously, womanhood, in the sense manhood was defined in the third paragraph, is that period where one is considered old to get married, have children and property. Otherwise, girls or young women are regarded as iintombi until such a time comes. --------------------------------------LANGUAGE AND COLONIALISM 12 | P a g e What qualifies to be an African literature? Do Africans who write in European languages qualify to assume the same status of being deemed as part of cohort of African writers? Ngugi wa Thiong’o asks similar questions in his book titled DECOLONIZING THE MIND. The current predisposition of Black people associating the process of decolonization close to the stagnant and very stiff reinforcement of colonial language will, at all times, provide alternative ways where the fight against English is completely derailed. It is for the aforementioned reason that Azania finds itself in manifold of quagmires that have produced citizenry of negating attitude in relation to the language of its forefathers. The reason why colonialism still re-fuels itself through language even over 20 years after democratic dispensation in occupied Azania (South Africa) needs no barometer as it lives with us within the education system. It is only in occupied Azania where colonial languages still get accommodation within the moulding process of intellectual thinking of the nation. How can we dismantle chains of colonialism when our children are taught in a language that persists on suppressing and oppressing languages of their ancestors, languages that ought to not only transmit culture but develop understanding of themselves and the world? The underlying message of this, is that, by depriving our children to learn in their mother-tongue language, they are directly and indirectly robbed of a machine whose functionality with culture remains at the base of decolonial thought. It is Ngugi wa Thiong’o who warned and continues to protest against Europeans languages that are used within African education systems; which breed cultural bomb. The inability of this generation to capture reality through African perspective lies within the relationship between language and colonialism. In fact, it is celebrated daily through appraisals poured on children who master English more than their own languages. Also, in any case with regards to culture, it is only logical and rational that African cultures and knowledge production, in terms of understanding our being and being-in-the-world, can be understood via African epistemologies. As things stands, the intricateness levelled against blackness by this system manufactures barriers that hinder blacks from understanding their own cultures; in a way that is not mediated by whiteness. Until we educate, in critical numbers and do away with what Steve Biko termed “hamburger and coke-cola background” cohorts in our societies, we shall witness the Azania that Zepth Mothopeng envisioned: an Azania that is cultured. -------------------- ------------------ON BLACKNESS, CLASS AND GENDER 13 | P a g e “Too often white women have chosen white supremacy over multiracial women’s alliances (e.g., excluding women of color from women’s organizations). Too often white laborers have chosen white supremacy over multi-racial working-class alliances (e.g., excluding people of color from labor unions). Too often white gay men and lesbian women have forgotten the problem of anti-black racism and/or ignored the fact that there are people of color who are also gay men and lesbian women.” Kathryn Gines I hope my contribution would not be lesser than erudite. I here want to discuss the fundamental contradiction of our struggle, whether or not class analyses are relevant; and answer the question of where do we locate feminism in our struggle. Firstly, the pronouns ‘our’ and ‘we’ should be subjected to scrutiny, to dispel any assumptive logic that may arise in the mind of the reader. The aforementioned pronouns refer to me as part of a people, dispossessed of their land and resources; and who continue to be excluded from all that represents life – experienced by a full human being, until his death and departure from this world. Furthermore, I want to argue that the fundamental contradiction is antiblackness, where race takes primacy. However, class, gender and the like, should not be dismissed as negligible contradictions, as they also shape our politics; our individual and collective experiences in this world. If I did not form part of any oppressed and dispossessed people, I would not see any reason for me to revolt. I would not understand struggle, at least from an experiential point of view. To escape this quasi-academic writing, that is becoming almost difficult to follow, let me make this piece short and concise. 1. The fundamental contradiction is antiblackness. We are oppressed and dispossessed as a collective of Africans. This antiblackness is hate, systematised hate, that ensures that Africans and other colonised people of the world do not share in the wealth their own lands produce, and are therefore constantly excluded from all that represents life. In this instance, structural violence is the most visible. Examples are Bantustan homelands and townships. We are not oppressed as workers, but as a collective of Africans. Forceful removals of Africans (read blacks) into Bantustans, which had poor infrastructure and were poorly developed. Generally, these blacks were taken to their rightful living standards, suitable for the savage and uncivilised. We threaded on fighting for limited space and resources. This is the experiential reality that shaped our lives to this day. 2. Class, gender and other related categories will only be effective in our struggle, as dispossessed and oppressed people, within the race, within blackness. The assumption that the black proletarian or black trans woman suffer the same in their bodies as their white counterparts is flawed and will breed misconceptions in how we imagine our experience apropos to the enemy, and how we begin to concretely make manifest these ideas and plan to defeat the enemy. Marxist literature is important especially in studying power and subjects to the same. Structural Marxists like Althusser and Gramsci, help us understand how hegemony and capitalism rise with states, therefore the envisaged remains not socialist countries or states, but a classless society. The police, church, court, schools, entertainment etc. are institutions that shape our thoughts ourselves and the world, through violence, ideological and physical. Therefore, since it was earlier stated that will be more effective within the race (blackness) 14 | P a g e than not, it is important that we make use of these theories, to develop our understanding of the enemy and how the same operates, as black people and other colonised people. In terms of feminism, the categorisation of the people of the world into a binary of woman and man, misses the greater contradiction and barely provides answers for women who are black, who on the other hand, form part of a people who continue to be dispossessed and excluded. Therefore, feminism will only be more effective to our struggle within the race. Black men and other bodies should constantly open themselves to the violence they transmit to other bodies (black women). If we also categorise people of the world into that binary, we will not understand men who are black, and their subjectivity to patriarchy. In conclusion, how we speak of race, gender and class is related to language and epistemic understanding of the aforementioned. Whose lived experiences and knowledge do we employ to know and develop an understanding of ourselves as the oppressed and dispossessed? In short, we are an oppressed race, divided into classes, and whose sexuality is shaped by the same position we assume in society. -------------------- ------------------FREEDOM IN BONDAGE: THE DELUSIONAL NATION This past week, as millions of the country’s indigenous people flooded every platform with unsuspecting smiles from one ear to another, I could not help but observe in awe. “Happy Freedom Day!”, they all exclaimed, while confidently telling tales of the fight for freedom and praising its so called “heroes”. I was, however, bewildered and amused by this visibly nonexistent comprehension of the concept of freedom. In the midst of this bewilderment, my conscience compelled me to pen down this piece and look to provide my understanding of the concept of freedom as well as its relationship with the Republic of South Africa. I will be arguing a position that is not necessarily accepted nationally and seeks to oppose the status quo. Understanding Freedom Yanga Gexu, a friend and colleague posed a very critical question on the day which was: “When a black person views [themselves] as FREE in a world where white people reign supreme, does it make [them] free?” I found this question to be quite definitive of the current status quo amongst the indigenous, trapped in a systematically self- and “Madiba Magic”-induced illusion – collectively known as ‘freedom’. This question asserts the national reality – which is the global reality – of the caucasian minority owning nations, resources and the lives of the indigenous people of the world. It is important that we understand freedom as a phenomenon that finds its expression beyond mere articulation or rhetoric. It speaks primarily to independence, and how can we be independent when we remain owned by caucasians? Freedom is not just having liberties controlled by others, but having the tools to determine one’s own path. Freedom is not just the ability to walk around the streets owned by your oppressors – built with the blood of your ancestors, without a ‘dompass’, but the ability to walk on streets built and owned by you. Freedom is not having our 15 | P a g e success dependent on our ability to assimilate towards of the lifestyles of our caucasian counterparts coupled with aspiring towards their lily white standards of existence, but lies in us being able to be successful on our own terms with our own standards. Freedom is now, definitely not found in being subjects of the so called British Throne and having our Presidents report to Elizabeth for a briefing after every inauguration, it is having thrones of our own, built for and by the people, who act as custodians of the state. Freedom is independence, first and foremost. Freedom is self-dependence. Freedom is self-reliance. Freedom is being self-sustaining. Freedom, oh dear freedom, is a concept that has alluded the indigenous people of these lands since the late 1600s. Freedom remains but a dream our ancestors harboured. A dream that was sold by the ‘Rainbow Magician’ – Nelson Mandela, with the 2/3 Majority Poet – Thabo Mbeki – and the Nobel Peace Prize winning apartheid stalwart – F.W de Klerk – by his side, to the highest bidder. Freedom and the Republic of South Africa As we venture into bitterly painful, but extremely necessary conversation, it is important that we seek to understand this country in the context of its conduct towards the poverty stricken indigenous people who inhabit it. Ours is – as confidently, arrogantly and infuriatingly articulated by the beneficiaries of the greatest political crime of our time – a country defined by “political” freedom, while in pursuit of “economic freedom”. Now, without sounding overly pessimistic, I will challenge us to interrogate this political freedom that so many claim. Political freedom simplistically defined is “one [person], one vote”. It is the ability of the indigenous people to participate in the election of the political party that will administrate the affairs of the state. Now I must rise to ask, what possible impact can administrators have in the decision making of the state. Do the administrators even make the decisions? Well if you ask me – or don’t, the answer to these questions is a resounding no. In order for a country to be functional, it requires the buy-in of certain sectors – finance, mining, retail, etc. This buy-in must not just be in articulation, but in action as well during operations. Now in the South African context, we know very well who owns the institutions in all major sectors, and how they came about being in this position. Through the marginalization of all other racial groups – indigenous people in particular – the caucasian minority remain the most dominant forces in all industries. So logically, and through understanding the power they hold in the society, one can deduce an inference that they are in charge. I have always maintained that in a situation where political activity is escalated from economic power, those tasked with political governance will always be the perpetual servants of those with economic power. This is the reality in South Africa, where the government of the day cannot even run a mere community feeding schemes without crawling to European countries, hats in hand and begging for “investment”. Where is the independence here? Where is the selfdependence? Self-reliance? Where is the freedom? Entlek, who’s fooling who here? It seems we are either led by a collective who has no real understanding of what freedom is, or we as the indigenous people are in fact the biggest jokes in centuries. Continuously placing our hopes and dreams on the shoulders of worthless politicians who couldn’t care less about our well-being. There is no such thing as political freedom, or freedom through politics. Politics is a game, a scramble for control of the state wallet as well as to be the best servants to the master. Freedom is in the economy, and not just at a level of participation, but that of ownership. We need to be own to be independent. We need to own to be self-dependent and selfreliant. We need to own the country, its 16 | P a g e resources and our destinies, to be free. We need to own ourselves to own our freedom. The ball is and has been in our court for the last 20+ years, and we are still confronted with multiple decisions. We need to reflect on the current status quo and ask ourselves critical questions, “are we free?”, being arguably the most critical. We need to reflect on whether freedom is really just having the right to vote for politicians, while all economic juridical and other core institutions are owned and ran by racist gatekeepers. We genuinely need to ask ourselves, how long will we continue to be the labour – physical and intellectual – that holds up a system designed to destroy us? Only through find genuine answers to critical questions, will we start on a journey towards freedom and independence. Till then, I urge you all to miss me with your “happy freedom day!” rhetoric, in fact, direct them towards the caucasians. *Indigenous people – people known as “black people” *Caucasian – people known as “white people” -------------------- ------------------A SERIES OF CASUAL SHORT WRITINGS ON MODERN RATIONALITY “What is rational is real; And what is real is rational. – Plato ONE. Lewis Gordon’s Shifting the Geography of Reason in the Age of Disciplinary Decadence addresses the colonisation of knowledge: how it has been colonised and the consequences of its colonisation. He first makes a distinction between rationality and reason, and says the former requires maximum consistency and does not admit or embrace contradictions as reason would. Europe’s conception of science, natural and social, is more at home with rationality than it is with reason. It does not embrace contradictions but always seeks purity and superior logic. Gordon reckons that the failure on Europe’s side to admit contradictions sets the continent in position where it denies decay, as a natural phenomenon and a fact that must face all that is living. Europe’s denial of this is symbolic of its own decay. Europe therefore puts itself against other nations, to prove its superiority, foregrounding their methods and methodology as either not scientific enough, not philosophical enough etc. only because those nations’ methods are not consistent with Europe’s rationality. Knowledge becomes colonised, when Europe universalises its methodology and erases other nations’ methods and knowledges. Knowledges of the world have been merged into a singular knowledge, whose reason has been rationalised and logic superiorised. The effects of this is the unmaking of other nations as custodians of their own cultures, knowledges and methods; and the making of Europe as one universal custodian. This relationality is one between subject and objects, master and slaves. It excludes other nations outside Europe from arenas of thought; of life and humanity. This conceives 17 | P a g e non-Europeans as problems to western modernity, not as people who face problems western modernity has brought upon. This is the world, as we know it. TWO. Gordon’s essay on shifting the geography of reason has shed more light, apropos to the stand-off between rationality and reason. I have even realised that I have not really grappled, in depth, with the things Frantz Fanon actually said. As I write this post, there’s Apollo Brown beats playing in the background. I do not want to write about Fanon, but about something related to the aforementioned stand-off. As a premise and example, the arithmetic expression 1+1=2 may be correct, but that doesn’t mean it would be, in different situations and contexts. Rationality, since it requires maximum consistency, would force that expression everywhere and, oftentimes, unreasonably so, but for the sake of consistency. Rationality fails to embrace contradictions. One instance that jumps to mind: in traditional weddings, when elders bless the newlyweds to reproduce healthily etc. often exclaim: “Nilale nobabini, nivuke nibathathu (sleep twogether and wake up three).” This can be arithmetically expressed as 1+1=3, but rational thinking (so opposed to reasonability) would fail to consider or embrace this contradiction. Europe has always sought to be rational, and continues to dismiss methods of other nations, outside Europe, as not scientific enough or philosophical enough, simply because they fail to uphold Europe’s consistency in rational thinking, however flawed sometimes. THREE. I was talking with my brother, Abongile, one morning and he asked me what pride was. It was not clear what led him to ask about this, to avoid seeming encyclopaedic about it, I did not answer but instead said that the definition is variable. Gordon’s work on the difference between rationality and reason has inspired me in ways I cannot, in depth, explain. Notwithstanding, it is rational thinking – which requires maximum consistency – that has led people to also seek consistency in terms of definitions and methods. There is no fixed definition, in this case, for pride. The insistence that there should be a uniform definition, despite the situation or context, is rooted in rationality. The same rationality, so opposed to reasonability, does not consider or embrace contradictions. Europe, through Oxford and other insitutions there, define words according to Greco-Latin etymologies and base the intellectual histories of the people of the world on Europe’s mediocre fetishism. FOUR. I have just re-read and finished Prof Sabelo Ndlovu kaGatsheni’s ‘Decolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history’ and he addresses similar concepts as Gordon did in his work on ‘Shifting the geography of reason.’ Among these are the facts that Europe ought to be rational in its conception of natural and social sciences, and continued to base its understanding of the Other, the non-European, through a subjective point of view where the interests of the European anthropologist are pitted against those of the natives, whose histories and cultures about which were researched. In rational methods, where maximum consistency is sought, contradictions are not embraced. In avoiding or dismissing those contradictions, the ‘researched’ must be portrayed or documented as meek noncommunicators, devoid of theory and knowledge; with no questions of their own about themselves, the spaces they occupy and either’s relations with the other. Modern scholars and intellectuals have come to inherit (oftentimes forcibly so) methods and methodologies of the old, whose ethics and politics remain questionable to the present. 18 | P a g e SPUR VIDEO: THE FEMALE BLACK OBJECT “[The] truth is on the side of the oppressed.” – Malcolm X From the Spur video that has been making rounds on social media, we realise that there are two factors or realities it exposes about the so called post-94 democratic South African society: Racism and misogyny. It must be known that when the world, as we know it, robbed black people of their humanity, it reduced them to mere objects, whose ability to think and reason or feel was and continues to be forcibly negated. It is a historical fact that whiteness in South Africa was built and continues to thrive on black bodies; the dispossession of land and loss of personality of the latter. In 1994, the demands of the people, which largely recognised the repossession of land as an integral part to black people regaining personality – their humanness, were not politicised. Had they been politicised, in the last 23 years of so called freedom, black people would have been a step closer to fully regaining their humanness – their African personality. Alas, the post-94 framework has managed keep black people stagnant and in the same rug of anti-blackness. The ANC-led government kept and continues to keep alive racism and the dispossession of blacks even to the present day, through its embrace of the Constitution; and their programs – both the former and the latter being reminiscent of the Freedom Charter. This is to say, the RDP, BEE, NSFAS etc. all do not seek to address the core issues: dispossession of land and the loss of personality of black people. The programs were but supposed to take black people even more close to attaining and keeping power. As the Spur video portrays, white people have always assumed superiority and dominance over blacks; to them blackness equates to inferiority. In what is supposed to be a democratic country, systematic racism is still a reality, a scourge that is undeniable. The video was trending on the same day when the country was celebrating Human Rights Day (1960 the brutal killing of blacks, Sharpeville Massacre); a black body’s dignity was being strapped away by insults and violent confrontation by a white Afrikaner. Clearly, the Human Rights day was then of no significance because even on that same day of commemoration, the white Afrikaner had the audacity to channel his whiteness and toxic masculinity towards an individual whose people are ontologically marked with a history of victimisation and violence now structurally entrenched. Surely, sharing the same social spaces does not really amount to much because ‘democracy’ has never been a reality in South Africa; whites are still structurally positioned at the top of the hierarchy. Black Space uses Black Existentialism (Africana Critical Theory) as its guiding theory. In this way, we are also able to recognise the intersection of black people’s struggles, under the dominance of white supremacy; that which structurally benefits white people at the expense of every black body in the world by all means necessary. Therefore and given the white supremacist 19 | P a g e hierarchy that positions black (trans) women subordinate to everyone, it is equally important to look into how gender plays itself out, as per the video. Although the white Afrikaner’s encounter was with a black object, the lady was betrayed by the fact that she was female. Black women are historically the most oppressed. When black people were caused to submit to object-hood, at the extreme forces of the oppressor, black men subsequently lost their masculinity. Transmitting violence to subordinate bodies became the only way to compensate for their denied presence and masculinity. Black people come from whipped backs of slaves and the cracked hips of slave women that endured rape. Often, this necessitates an engagement on the male-female dichotomy that exists within black communities. Black women wake up every day, aware of the fact they are black and female. And these two are a point of weakness in a society created for whites by white males. This realisation commands both black men and women to rise and unite behind the liberation of black women. Instead we live in communities where the main abusers are black men. The video displayed how white men always assumed superiority, ownership and dominance towards black people, particularly black women whom they regard as a defenceless. The white Afrikaner was not even scared to attack her in front of the children and in full view of other blacks, black men in particular. He took it upon himself and found it necessary to discipline a female black object. Indeed, power blinds one to a point where they do not even see when and where they are not needed. It is, of course, by virtue of existing in a world where one is feared merely because they were born white and male. Tendencies of toxic misogyny were at play, with the white Afrikaner trying to remind the black woman that she belongs at the bottom of the hierarchy. The black woman’s resistance escalated his powermongering psyche and angered him even further, because the expected reflex response is submission and obedience. The black woman stood up! A woman marked with a history of a people whose humanity was robbed; the slaves whose backs were whipped and slave women whose hips cracked. -------------------- ------------------COME HOME SON, I CAN’T FIND YOUR NUMBER We wake to a cock’s crow But this morning to a lament of sorrow The newspaper is finally here And I know it’s been a long year. You’re probably too scared to hear But come home son, you need to be near. Maybe the exam number I got is wrong You said the exams went well. Or where you lying to me all along? I wasn’t writing so I can’t tell That’s why you need to hurry on. 20 | P a g e Come home son, I can’t find your number. I once loved, Before i cried; There’s bags under my eyes Then i hated, Couldn’t sleep a wink. That which i never created; There’s bags under your arms Oh, i have sinned, It better not be what I think. But deeply i paid; The world thought i died, Don’t go to the liquor store Till God proved they lied; You’ll only pass out with no pass My dreams were like light, Don’t go to the hardware store Now they are darker than the night, There’s no hope in the rope It’s like I’m losing a fight, Just come son, I can’t find your number. Or my sight; My life turned to a dream, What the neighbours say doesn’t matter And the dream became my life, Trust your mother it gets better A pain of a knife; I know it seems like the world is over I’m criticized because i don’t shave, But God is listening place your order Sometimes i feel like a slave, Your number isn’t in the newspaper Corpse coming out of a grave, But your name is destined for front page. Stories i need to save; I know one day i will be free, Just come home son, in my heart, I will always find you. Mokhiri The promised land i will see, I believe in thee, Who created a being and a bee, -------------------- ------------------- The ground and its tree; A LIFE IN BLACKNESS Elders! i beg of wisdom, On April 26th ,2017, one of our brothers, Thato, was robbed and beaten until he was unconscious. He later channelled his creative energy and penned the below piece; entangled with questions about life and death and whether he was prepared to give in. An olden freedom, From ages of a golden Kingdom, When men created martyrdom; Like men, i seek knowledge; From my eyes remove fear, And Cover me with courage, 21 | P a g e I will proctect it with care, He never changes, ever green; For those humiliated, i want justice. I too was good, For this world of war, provide peace. Till the world made me bad, I want this to be a weapon, But i read, The scary sound of a gun, And learn. The heat of the sun; I read from the bible, This writting will bring hope, A story about a disobedient angel, To those who can no longer cope, Who had fallen in the abyss; To those with suicidal thought about the rope; Being judged without mercy. I know what you are feeling, God i pray, And that the emotions are killing, For your salvation till my hair be Grey; But life is just beginning, This is not for an individual, You will soon start winning. But for masses, Never stop believing, I want you to look through it, Even for a second; As if it’s written on transparent glasses. Believe it’s your moment. -------------------- ------------------- You are the master, Not a servant; God placed his kingdom within, Though we men sin; CONTACT DETAILS EMAIL: blackspace080@gmail.com FACEBOOK: BLACK SPACE - CUT