Mental Slavery

Imagine you are oppressed for hundreds of years and you were made believe that you are less than your oppressor in every aspect of life. You are made believe that you are not as clever, not as pretty or handsome and that you are completely dependent on the oppressor; and then one day it suddenly disappears and you are told that you are free.

In 2006 I attended an Imbizo of the then Premier of the Western Cape – Ebrahim Rasool. The Imbizo took place in Vredendal, a rural town which is located along the West Coast of South Africa. During the questions and answers session they gave an opportunity to an old lady that has been standing whole time with her hand raised. She was coloured and made the following comment: “I do not know where all this black people came from but I want them to go back where they came from and leave the white people alone because they have always gave us what we need.” You can imagine how shocked we were.

What I am getting at is mental slavery. We cannot expect this old lady to change her mind set over night because she was born into a situation that enslaved her mind. Remember during the period of oppression the only way to control the masses was to mentally enslave them. Many brilliant African scholars wrote on this particular matter. However, it was Julius Nyerere that proposed a solution. His solution was twofold: (1) intellectual decolonialization; and (2) the relationship between the individual and the community.

Before we are able to see the opportunities of a ‘new’ South Africa we need to lose our oppressed mentality. We must believe in ourselves and that we are just as good as or even better than our oppressors. So Thierry if the state is to blame, blame it for not facilitating a process of intellectual decolonialization. A sad reality is that the South African state is dependent on economic forces and does not have any sense of independence. This independence nature of economic system will only change when we become mentally emancipated. The state and other forces might have the monopoly over violence but violence is never enough to keep citizens from over-throwing old systems and starting new ones. I personally think the ‘arab spring’ would have not been possible if citizens Egypt, Tunisia and Lybia had an oppressed mind-set.

Blaming the state would not change our predicament of ‘mental slavery’. Mentally enslaved we will also not be able to take on a transformed apartheid state. It was and has always been our responsibility (the emancipated few) to facilitate a process of intellectual decolonialization. If not we are postponing the true liberation of the South African people.

11 March 2012