It is a dog’s world

It is better to be a dog than a black sub-Saharan child. Or is it? I have lately been critical on Facebook of people who have dogs as pets. I made some statements that could have been possibly unfair and uncalled for towards some of my dog owner friends. However, my intentions were pure and not aimed at hurting anyone. Facebook has become a tool where I preserve my thoughts, to which I can return to at any point. As a tool it helps me not to lose any of my thoughts I had around a particular subject matter. The subject matter I am currently grappling with is humanity and it started off with me rejecting it when I became aware that some people treat their dogs better than their own family members. Ironically, some of these people are also staunch human rights supporters and the notion of humanism.

Dog lovers and dog owners are found across class and racial boundaries. For me, this became apparent when I saw a group of homeless people in the Bellville CBD owning a dog. Ironically the dog is better cared for than most of them. I also recently saw my brother also acquiring himself a dog, and yet he is not in the position to afford a dog. Funny enough these dogs are better kept and cared for than them in both cases. Thus, I do not contribute this phenomenon to class or race.

It was on this basis that I rejected the notion of humanity. It did not and still does not make sense, to me, that people treat their dogs better than human beings. However, I have made some progress regarding my investigation into this phenomenon. The scholarly work of Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler and Michel Foucault has helped me in this regard.

Kristeva argued that we can only desire objects. An object is either something physically or abstract. Abstract concepts have to be objectified to be desired. This means that we objectify abstract concepts such as love and humanity. Objectification here would entail embedding notions such as standards, norms and goals to abstract concepts such as love humanity. This enables us to develop a mental picture of love and humanity and once the picture is created we can desire it.

I have to note that any object (eg. dog, cup, or flag) can be used as a symbol for something. It is my argument that a dog becomes the symbol of one’s notion of humanity. Therefore, it can be true that when you are unable to obtain your notion of humanity, the treatment of your dog represents your notion of humanity. How you would like to have been treated or how you would make amends if you were a perpetrator. The wellbeing of your dog becomes your symbol of humanity and it is explicitly expressed towards the dog. In this case the treatment of your dog might be the reflection of your guilt. For example, if you actively participated in the humiliation of black people during apartheid, the humane treatment of the dog would be a way of cleansing your conscience of what you did in the past. Or, if you are a drug addict or a homeless person the treatment of your dog is how you would like to be treated by society; a society which pushed you to the periphery.

However, you might point out that some children at a very young age want dogs. My response would be that what you observed is the effect of the culture industry and societal norms. In my last blog post I explained how the culture industry alters our desires from a very young age. It is no different in this case. Children from a very young age see how dogs are treated in society and this is repeated on television. Through this they develop the desire to own a dog. In some countries the desire would be to eat dogs. Given this, I have to conclude that it is not innately human to desire or treat dogs better than human beings. More importantly, it raises a question as to what it means to be a human in this day and age. For me it means that certain humans (in particular black children) would be better off if they were dogs.  
#1/Jan2016

“I became conscious of I”

During the first semester of 2015 I was part of a reading group on the aesthetics and politics, which was facilitated by the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape.  It was while reading the required texts that I have become aware that we, young scholars, are joining age old debates somewhere in the middle, or sometimes at the end and then we exit again taking particular strands from these debates. Reflecting on the strands I took from each debate I am forced to ask the question: How do we know something is something? I always had this childhood problematic of how did “they” decide that one is one and blue is blue – could blue have been pink and one could have been three. After sharing this with my good friend Lorato her answer was simple yet profound. She said; “we convince others that something is something and then we act like something is something.” If we do not we will drive ourselves to insanity.

I reflected some more and asked myself what do I take from the reading group.  I came to the following conclusion: I have become conscious of I. From a certain age I was aware of my existence but never conscious of myself as I. And since I have become conscious of myself I realised, after reading Deleuze’s text on Bergson’s Matter and Memory and Stiegler’s “Cinematic Time” and “Cinematic Consciousness,” that the most dangerous activity, currently, is watching television or anything related to the cinematic. It robs you of the realisation that “I am I” because it alters your subconscious, your emotions, your everything. The effect it has on you is very ‘real.’ Stiegler makes the argument that your conscious flux coincide with the cinematic flux and thus it is difficult for you distinguish between the two. Evidently, you become caught up in the cinematic moment and the moment something horrific happen [for example, the Jon Snow incident in season 5 of Game of Thrones] you experience real emotions such as fear, disgust and betrayal. It is only afterwards you realise it was fiction. Another phenomenon is the pornographic experience. When you are watching porn you have a ‘real’ stimulation even though it is based on a fantasy. For you it is only a fantasy but for the actors the sex was real. Likewise, when you are watching a horror movie you might get scared to the point that you find it difficult to fall asleep even though you know it was not real. However, even after the realisation that it was not real you will find yourself recalling images of your cinematic experience. The cinematic has the potential to evoke strong emotions and believes based on fiction. In many cases it is so strong it distorts the reality of people.

How do we explain this?

We find our explanation for this phenomenon in Bergson. Bergson argues that our consciousness interpret and relate to reality in terms of images. In cinema movement is reproduced in 25 frames per second. This mean that some device took 25 photos in very short succession and when you play it back at the right speed it produces a ‘movement’ on screen. The interesting part is when your conscious recall movement it is only one image. Cinema replaces and adds new images to your ‘real’ images of your lived experiences [my reading of Stiegler]. Thus, it is possible to recall distorted images that are mix with reality and the cinematic. The more you watch the more you are transformed by the cinematic. Horkheimer and Ardorno call this the effect of the culture industry. Thus, the more time you spent in front of the television the harder it becomes to distinguish between reality and fiction. For example, the followers of Keeping up with the Khardashians look like the Khardashians. Look at the Instagram accounts of their followers and you will notice their followers mimic the lives of the Khardashians closely. They alter their reality to become that of the cinematic.

So why does this happen?

The answer is found in the desire of the subject. In the second semester reading group I was introduced to the work of Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler. Kristeva in her essay the Powers of Horror notes that you can only desire objects. The culture industry alters your desires. It makes you desire the lives of the people on the screen, an artificial live that are not real, and the people who benefit from this is the companies who sell those products. Your mind gets programmed to like a particular brand, a particular individual or a drink. We objectify the lives of celebrities and that informs our desires. When I say you desire something I refer to the subject’s desire. 

Let me explain.

Let’s take Thabo as an example. Thabo as the subject has been created since birth. Thabo’s was given the name Thabo and his parents moulded him into Thabo. As Thabo grew up he loved watching cartoons. Cartoons started to alter his desires from ‘primary’ or basic to ‘secondary;’ from food to toys. Thabo soon learns that he is a ‘he’ and not a ‘she.’ He also learns that he is ‘white’ and not ‘black.’ He learns that ‘white’ people have a particular culture and that ‘black’ people have a particular culture. That ‘black’ and ‘white’ people are too different to mix. Thabo is now almost a teenager and is not watching cartoons anymore but television programmes such as Big Bang Theory where there is hardly any ‘black’ people in it. The culture industry programmes his mind to feel comfortable in an all-white world; where ‘black’ people are almost none existent. He watches movies where the hero is ‘white’ and the girl the hero saves is ‘white.’ Slowly the culture industry is programming him to desire only ‘white’ women. As a teenager he is forced to play sport and start to read his father’s Men’s Health magazines. He is so oblivious and comfortable in an all-white world that he does not notice that all the women who are portrayed sexually desirable in the magazine are ‘white.’ Thabo soon only desire ‘white’ women and what a ‘white’ world has to offer.

Now consider this, do you want your child to spent most of his or her time in front of the television, supervised or unsupervised. Television has become the babysitter so that you can spend time online with your fake friends; even if you are sitting next to your child on the couch ‘supervising’ what he or she is watching you are distracted by Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. No wonder children are naughty and constantly seek attention because when last did parents look up from their phones to see what their children are doing.  And then we say children grow-up and mature too fast nowadays. This is not the case. Their consciousness are filled with images that are mature and they find it hard to distinguish between reality and fiction. Thus, even though they seem more mature they are not mature since with maturity comes experience. They can mimic maturity and not necessarily be mature. Children need constant attention and reaffirmation; the last thing you want is your child getting it from a fictional world.

Thus, manoeuvring through the texts of the 2015 reading group I became conscious of I. It is only now that I can put an experience I had a couple of years back in the Namaqualand National Park into context. It was away from the confined spaces of my room and office and in the open spaces of nature that I realise I am alive. It was away from the haste of everyday life and the mass media that I realised that I am alive. It was only in the open spaces of nature that I become conscious of my existence, that I am awake. It is only now I realise the way of living in rural areas is to understand the philosophy of living without; where you are satisfied with yourself in relation to the little that you have. Or as my friend Lorato puts it ‘you are also satisfied with yourself, knowing that you can acquire more if you want to.’ This philosophy is possible because most parts of their lives are far removed from the culture industry and the massification of consciousness. It was I who sat on the bench during my lunch time writing this.

I became conscious of I .

Putting the Ghost of Resolution 1973 to Rest

The Bashir visit and the Cuban Five was a brilliant foreign policy move by South Africa and it was a clever move to restore South Africa’s tainted image since the 2011 Libyan crisis. 

South Africa, while a non-permanent member on the United Nations Security Council, voted for resolution 1973. Resolution 1973 was essentially to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya during the Libyan chapter of the Arab-spring. This was essentially done to protect civilians from aerial bombings and to enable NATO to deploy their troops. When South Africa’s voted in favour of the resolution it took many African states by surprise.

Ebrahim Rasool recently explained, during a book launch in Cape Town, the immediate consequences of resolution 1973. Rasool at the time was the South African ambassador to the United States of America (USA). He explained that soon after the resolution was adopted a delegation of African leaders was unable to land their plane in Libya to negotiate with Gaddafi to step down. Gaddafi was killed soon afterwards and South Africa’s reputation as a defender of Africa’s interest received a massive blow.

In 2013 South Africa’s image was further tarnished by a comment made by President Jacob Zuma. During the build up to the 2014 elections e-tols overshadowed the ANC’s Gauteng campaign. Hence, during the ANC’s 2013 Manifesto Forum President Zuma said the following: "We can't think like Africans in Africa. It's not some national road in Malawi" (Ephraim, 22 October 2013). This did not sit well with most African states.   

The events mentioned above left South Africa in a sticky situation. As you would recall the ANC tried to use Mandela’s funeral to repair the damage of President Zuma’s comment and South Africa’s vote in favour of resolution 1973, but it was not as successful as the ANC hoped for.

To make matters worse for South Africa was the recent ‘xenophobic’[1] attacks. The recent attacks caused further damage to South Africa’s reputation on the African continent. It reached boiling point at the recent SADC conference in Harare Zimbabwe. During the conference South Africa had to respond to questions from its peers about the recent wave of ‘xenophobic’ attacks in South Africa. 

Therefore, the only way to restore South Africa’s tainted image was to allow Al Bashir to attend the African Union (AU) Summit in South Africa. This was a very anti-American move, since it was American civil society organisations who accused Bashir of genocide (See Mamdani’s book ‘Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror’).  Bringing Al Bashir to South Africa was step one. Step two was to bring the Cuban Five to South Africa, which purpose was twofold. The first was to distract the general South African public from Bashir’s visit and the second was to repair South Africa’s tainted image on the continent. This was a clever move because South Africa knew since Cuba supported the independence movement and that most of those independence leaders are still in power they would forgive South Africa for resolution 1973. 

The South African public like to overreact, but they do not know extend of the damage they caused with the recent ‘xenophobic’ attacks. The Cuban Five and Al Bashir was nothing but a clever foreign policy move by South Africa. Let’s us appreciate it for what it is.

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[1] See me post “The Convenient Silences of Xenophobia’”

The Convenient Silences of 'Xenophobia'

I did not want to write about ‘xenophobia,’ but I was unable to contain myself when I saw four of my colleagues standing with anti-‘xenophobia’ posters and with these words printed on them: “injury 2 one, injury 2 all;” “Africa for Africans;” “Africa Unite;” and “we are all foreigners somewhere.” I am sick and tired of the word ‘xenophobia’ and the way the petite bourgeoisie are pretending they have nothing to do with it. However, this article is not about my dislike for the petite bourgeoisie, but rather about the silences in the media and conversations on the topic of xenophobia.

I identified five convenient silences that exit in the popular discourse of ‘xenophobia’ in South Africa. I called it convenient because everybody know about it but choose rather not to speak about it. These five silences are: (1) race, (2) gender, (3) locality, (4) nationality and (5) class. If you consider these five silences that you realise that what is happening in South Africa is not xenophobia but something completed different.

Firstly, if you define xenophobia it simple means is the fear of all strangers. If this is the case then it does not explain why only a certain group of foreigners are attacked. White European and Chinese foreigners are not being targeted even though they just as foreign African nationals.

Secondly, the feminist movement also haven't say anything about this particular incident mainly because the majority of victims are males. Here the popular discourse is lacking because it does not consider the gender of the victims.

Thirdly, popular discourse also does not consider the location/locality of these 'xenophobic' incidents. Yes they refer to the place like for Diepsloot Soweto or wherever it is happening, but the discourse neglects to contrast it to where white foreigners are residing. It does not happen in Sandton or the Waterfront, it happens where the majority of people are poor and destitute.

Fourthly, popular discourse neglects to contrast the nationality of the victims to other foreign nationals. Chinese and European foreigners are not being attacked. It is only some foreign nationals on the African continent who are being attacked, especially those who own spaza shops.

Finally, the discourse also does not focus on class. ‘Xenophobia’ in South Africa happens amongst the working class and not amongst the elite in society. Thus, ‘xenophobia’ is rather class bias.

If we consider these silences in the popular discourse we have to conclude that it is not xenophobia, it is also not 'Afrophobia.' If it was 'Afrophobia' then foreign nationals from West Africa would have also been attacked. It is not black on black violence. If it was black on black violence then black people from all walks of life would have participated in these attacks. It is also not economic violence or criminality since it does not explain the pogroms (mob). Crime does not explain the pogroms.

It has to be something else!

My investigation so far has led me to the 'politics of belonging.' If you see it as a 'politics of belonging' then what is happening in South Africa is not unique to South Africa. It is happening all over the continent and the world. In Uganda it is called 'indigeneity, in Cameroon it is called 'autochthony' and in the USA and Europe it is the ‘anti-immigrant sentiment.’

The 'politics of belonging' raises the question as to who may lay the claim that one group belongs more than another in a particular geographical area. As you would see this already raises issues around the idea of the national versus the international - nationalism versus globalisation.

Just a few years ago everyone was hopeful of the prospects of globalisation; however these incidents the world over see a retraction into the idea of the national. We have once more become a citizen of the nation-state. Some argue that the politics of belonging is fuelled by national consciousness. I am not convinced since the politics of belonging in most cases are isolated incidences. 

So far, through my investigation, I have narrowed the cause of the politics of belonging to migration and scarcity. What I observed so far is that there is always a migration from an area of ‘scarcity’ to an area of ‘plenty.’ The migrants integrate themselves amongst the locals and develop a new national consciousness which they share with the locals. However, when a scarcity arises a politics of belonging is ensued as to who may lay claim to the resources. The locals believe since they were the first they have the sole right over the resource distribution. This automatically leads to a confrontation especially since some of the migrants developed the same national consciousness as the locals. They believe they belong just as much as the rest, especially if they have been there for generations. 

The confrontation in most cases has been violent. However, in Europe and in the USA this confrontation so far has mostly been through law. In some cases the confrontation develops into a full scale civil war such as the one in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo); where the immigrant’s national consciousness is just as strong as that of the local’s. 

If we consider this, the politics of belonging is a much better explanation then the current ‘xenophobia’ discourse. The consequence of the discourse will be the following: ‘xenophobia’ will be trapped in a dominant narrative and will be reinforced by empirical research. This will blind us from its broader significance.

The Poor Boy

I feel terrible! I did something I am not proud of. I did something so middleclass. I have become cold and insensitive to the lot of the poor.
Maybe this is because I am bombarded by it on a daily basis. Or maybe I saw myself in the eyes of the child who asked me for a R1 at the Bellville train station. Maybe it is because that was me growing up: begging for 20c and 50c, so I could also buy me the things other children were eating.
Later when I saw that child crying and his mother reprimanded him for that - I prayed to God that, that it must never be my child one day.
And even though my heart softened and I wanted to give him the money, I still did not. I rather soothed my conscience like a typical middleclass would: do not give a person a fish rather teaches him how to fish. Bullshit!!!
That simple middleclass bullshit allowed me to walk away, and to push the incident to the back of my mind. But as I was taking a shower tonight it came back to haunt me and taunt me. It was telling me that I am no different then the people I despise - the middleclass.
It was then I realised I have become middleclass.
Jacob the poor boy who used to walk barefoot to school in the middle of winter has finally made it to the cold and sanitized middleclass.
Jacob the boy whose mother was and still is a domestic worker, and who was raised by farm workers can finally afford and own the movies he used to sell his dignity for at the neighbours' house.
Jacob the boy who begged for money can finally treat another poor boy the way he was treated.
He walk away but not before the child imprinted a lasting image on his conscience that will keep returning as a reminder of what he has become.

Can you afford the new South Africa?

I was visiting my dear friend Thendo in Milnerton when it struck me: he is living in the ‘new South Africa’ – in Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. He lives in the kind of community where you see black and white kids of equal social standing play together. In his kind of South Africa the race and nationality of the next door neighbours do not matter. 

What really matter though are the cost of living and the taxes you pay. This is the price you must be willing to pay for your piece of Mandela’s ‘new South Africa.’

In his community the conversations are not limited to cars, hoes and sport, or to furniture, colour schemes and hair styles. Actually we did not speak about any of these. We had conversations about our Rector begging for money in the Mail & Guardian and why the BRT system has to be in Milnerton and not in Khayelitsha. Debates on whether, we are middleclass or working class, and interestingly enough none of us see ourselves as middleclass – we see ourselves as part of the working class. Rather wishful thinking but allow us to have our wishful thinking.

It was during this visit I realised that the ‘new South Africa’ comes at a price and if you want it you must be willing to pay for it. You have to pay for a truly interracial, interethnic and international experience. Pay to be relatively safer than others. Pay to have the BRT at your door step. This is the kind of life we were promised in 1994 but it is now only accessible to those who have university degrees and have far better jobs than the majority of South Africans. Not that there is anything wrong with pursuing a better life and escaping poverty, I am applauding anyone who strive for a better life; I myself is pursuing Utopia.

However, I cannot help but wondering how we got here? How did the middle class become Mandela’s new South Africa?

Mandela’s new South Africa and the poor’s new South Africa are two completely different ones. The poor’s new South Africa is a life with access to water, electricity, health care, housing and employment. Racial integration is the least of the poor’s worries. 

The reason why the middle class appear to be Mandela's new South Africa is because the majority of black people in 1994 were poor and only a handful was in the middleclass. In 1994 the middleclass was predominantly white and now 20 years down the line there are more black people in the middleclass and still almost no white people in the working class. This also shows that the status quo for white people largely stayed the same whilst the standard of living for black people marginally increased. 

The interracial, interethnic and international transformation of the middleclass is thus largely an appearance; the reality is that more black people can afford a middleclass lifestyle. Hence, Mandela’s new South Africa comes at a price: a university degree, a house loan, car finance, a contract phone, medical aid and dog food. 

A price the poor cannot afford.

Escaping Fanon’s Blind Alley: A Critique of Rhodes Must Fall Campaign

Fanon’s revolution was high jacked and postponed on the eve of Africa’s independence. Africa is dependent and at the mercy of a ruthless global system. So what happened?! Now with hindsight we are able to observe a number of shortcomings with regards to Fanon’s revolution. Firstly, Fanon’s revolution was conceptualised at a national level at a time the colonial system unified at a global level. The conduit of this system at a global level was the then newly formed United Nations. Even though Fanon’s revolution had the potential of changing the nation it was incapable of changing the global environment. Thus, the scope of Fanon’s revolution was the first shortcoming, hence as soon as African states gained their independence they realised that the colonial structure evolved into something global.

Secondly, Fanon’s revolution never came into existence as it was highjacked and postponed on the eve of independence. What some scholars discard from their analysis of post-colonial thought is the following: independence was a negotiated settlement between the colonial African state and the colonial power. It was the colonial administrator of the colony who acted as the interlocutor between the colonial power and the African elite. African liberation fighters and intellectuals were co-opted into the negotiations between the colony and the colonial power. The aim of these negotiations was to ensure favourable conditions for the European beneficiary at the time. It was only once these conditions were met that the colonial power granted independence under the farce called democracy. A negotiated settlement thus can hardly be considered as a revolution. The result was that the African was held once more captive by the same global forces that were responsible for colonialism. 

Thirdly, the native intellectual nor Fanon anticipated the technological advances of the 20^th century. I noticed in the current scholarly work of African intellectuals they are not anticipating any possible technological changes in the future. This anticipation of future technological advances is important since technology played an essential part in the evolution of the colonial system. Technology allowed information to travel faster between colonial powers and for troops to be deployed in Africa at a much faster rate. The UN and its sister organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank became the conduit of this evolved system. Technological advances during this period helped to consolidate their position and they became the structures through which colonial powers could coerce and control African states. The aim was to continue the colonial status quo - where the African state is the producer of raw materials and cheap labour. In addition to this, the old civilising project continued under the banner of modernisation, development and transformation. The outcome was the continuation of the status quo and Fanon’s revolution never took off.

Thinking of the future and technology was a major shortcoming during Fanon’s time and it still resonates in today’s scholarly work. The consequence is that scholarly work is trapped in the past. What many scholars forget is that we live in a present that influences the future. Thus, we must look at the past, live in the present and shape the future. However, since we shape the future in the present we must be mindful of how this future might looks like. Important to note is that the present is a constant which makes it nearly impossible to predict the future. The tricky part is that the future is a constant which makes an end to it rather impossible. If there was an end to it the future would stop at some point. Even though we are not possible to arrive at an end we can shape the direction and reality of the future. This raises the question of how do we shape a future for the African which is without a colonial legacy.

The direction and reality Fanon had in mind can be found in his Wretched of the Earth, especially the chapter on national culture. The opening sentence of that chapter reads as follow: “Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it” (Fanon, 1963, p. 206). Many of you might know this quote by heart since many pseudo-revolutionaries use this nowadays. Many on these ‘revolutionaries’ never read the whole book and does not know the complexity of this opening sentence. The first time I read that sentence I wondered why he used the words ‘relative obscurity’ and ‘mission’ in the same sentence. After attending a number of seminars and reading much scholarly work on the post-colonial condition of Africa, I realised its significance.

Its significance is captured in a question: how do we think ourselves out of the post-colonial dilemma? The answer to this question will allow us to shape the direction and the reality of the African's future. First, we have to frame and contextualise this generation’s mission while keeping in mind that the future is a constant. We ideally want to shape a future reality where inequalities of our colonial past are no more. Secondly, for this to happen we have to restart Fanon’s revolution. A revolution by nature is violent but not all violence can be considered revolutions. It also thoroughly destroy all the remnants of the previous system's politically, socially and economically attributes. It is driven by the people and importantly it builds a new one from its ruins. However, even though it is violent and devastating it is more promising than transformation.

Transformation is similar to revolution but distinctively different. It also aims to change the system but at a slower pace, with minimal disruptions and it is driven by representatives of the elite on both side of the spectrum. More importantly it does not aim to destroy the old system but to rather alter the old system so that it largely continues the status quo. Moreover, transformation unlike a revolution is ongoing and has the potential of continuously altering itself in such a way it keeps the dominant social order in power. Here we see that transformation contradicts revolution. The dominant social force on both side of the spectrum will thus opt for transformation so that the system continues benefiting them. In a revolution they will be on the receiving end, hence elites of African states and scholars opt for transformation rather than a revolution as it secures their interest in the system.

An excellent example would be the Rhodes must fall campaign by UCT students and staff. In the words of the UCT SRC this is want they want to achieve with their campaign: “It is in the interest of transformation and nation building that our universities remove all colonial and apartheid symbolism and begin to reflect the South Africa we seek to build.” As you can see they opt for transformation, a transformation that will be negotiated by a selected few on both sides of the spectrum. It is also clear that they want to alter the system and is not interested in a completely new system. As I made it clear transformation does not has the potential to remove all the remnants of the old system. Thus, the Rhodes must fall campaign will not deliver on what the general populace at UCT has in mind. 

This brings an important view to the fore: what kind of mission do we want as the next generation of African scholars that will shape a future reality which is free from our colonial legacy.  Where do we assist? One thing is none negotiable: it has to a be a revolutionary mission. To put is more forcefully: the mission can only exist in a revolutionary project as it will lose its value in transformational project. We need a need a new system and not an altered system that will largely continue the status quo. This is why the Rhodes must fall campaign is a misguided struggle without any real revolutionary substance and is out of touch with the realities African students are facing. Instead of storming the Bastille (reference to the French Revolution) and overthrowing the system, they opted for meek, watered down struggle to stay relevant in a post-apartheid South Africa. Instead of storming the institution they stormed a statue, a symbol. Their struggle is so short sighted that they do not realise that once the statue comes down their struggle is over. This show how out of touch they are with the realities of the current generation’s struggle and do not see that dawn is breaking. They and many other pseudo-intellectuals are stuck in Fanon’s blind alley and is incapable of finding resonance in Keita Fodeba’s poem African Dawn:

“Dawn was breaking—dawn, the fight between night and day. But the night was exhausted and could fight no more, and slowly died. A few rays of the sun, the forerunners of this victory of the day, still hovered on the horizon, pale and timid, while the last stars gently glided under the mass of clouds, crimson like the blooming flamboyant flowers.”

They are so out of touch with our reality that they do not see dawn breaking. Ask the students of Wits, UKZN, CPUT and UWC. They have become so stuck in the rhetoric of the day that they use transformation, struggle and revolution interchangeably. They have become the petty bourgeoisie – the gate keepers of the system. They are incapable of seeing that our struggle is a global struggle and that transformation would not help us overcoming the burden of our colonial past. They are incapable of seeing that even if we transform the nation, the nation would be held captive by the global structure and will have to conform to the status quo once more. The only thing that will get us out of this situation is revolutionary thought and action. Let us learn from the past, live in the present and shape a future reality that is without a colonial legacy.