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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
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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
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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
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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]”.
---------------------------------------
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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You are the master,
Not a servant;
God placed his kingdom within,
Though we men sin;
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