For equality to be realized, blacks must not aspire to live like whites, writes Malaika wa Azania.
Johannesburg - Two years ago, Floyd Shivambu, the deputy president of the EFF, spoke to me about the idea of establishing a socialist movement geared towards the economic emancipation of the oppressed African majority.
At the time, I was the secretary-general of the African Youth Coalition, a civil society youth structure established by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation. The body sought to mobilize youth on the continent behind the ideal of the African Renaissance agenda.
You can imagine my excitement when I sat down with Shivambu and EFF president Julius Malema a few days later to discuss the birth of what I believed would be the answer to the crisis of leadership and progressive direction in our country. I believed then, as I do now, that the kakistrocractic ANC is neither capable nor does it possess the political will to lead a truly radical transformation agenda.
I believed then, as I do now, that rather than position itself as an agent of continental unity, our government harbours elements of imperialism which, left to fester, will create a crisis of seismic proportions in Africa. For these reasons, I didn’t hesitate to throw my weight behind the proposed revolutionary movement.
Even when differences led to my leaving the EFF, I supported it without apology, primarily because of its progressive policies.
I support the principle of auto-centric development, of Africa’s resources benefiting Africans. But policies this radical don’t implement themselves, they are driven by visionary people.
Secondary to my support for the EFF, was my belief that EFF leaders know the plight of the oppressed and understand the struggle of black people. But a few days ago, with just one statement, I realised how far the commander-in-chief is from synthesising what black people are truly fighting for.
Addressing students at Stellenbosch University, Malema made this tragic assertion: “The impression created was that 1994 represented the end of our suffering. Remember, we were told that when we have a black president, we are going to live like white people. That’s all we asked for. The struggle of our people represented the simplest thing. We want to live like white people. And that was a genuine demand. Because white people have houses. White people have electricity and water. They have rides. We didn’t say we want 1994 so that white people can go. That was never our struggle. Our struggle has always been that we want to live like white people and live with them.”
He probably believes that what he said is progressive and revolutionary. In fact, it exposes him as one who has yet to grasp the deeper meaning of whiteness as a structural construct, and how whiteness cannot be an antithesis to black suffering. Contrary to what Malema believes, our struggle has never been to live like white people. Progressives throughout history, especially the Steve Biko that so many have incorrectly likened him to, have always argued that the constructs of the white world do not accommodate the aspirations of black people.
Living like whites is more than just having houses like theirs. In fact, having houses like theirs is impossible in a country where human settlements are defined by apartheid planning. It is not an accident of history that blacks live in congested townships and squatter camps. It is a deliberate creation of a system that survives on the subjugation of black people, a system that is designed to be exclusive and benefit the few at the expense of the majority.
For black people to live like white people, we would have to abandon our struggle of righting a historical injustice committed against us: one of the triple dispossession of our land, economy and human-ness. We would have to rid ourselves of a history and an identity we carry on our backs.
I do not know of any progressive revolutionary who has ever claimed to be in the struggle so as to live like whites. All progressives, from Chris Hani to Robert Sobukwe, argued that the solution to black oppression is for us not to assimilate into the constructs designed by an oppressive world view, but rather to destroy them and construct a new society.
For the same reason that it is impossible for the working class and bourgeoisie to live harmoniously in a capitalist society, it is impossible for whites and blacks to live in a cohesive society within the structure of whiteness. The only time we can have genuine unity is when we architect a liberating pedagogy aimed at constructing a higher civilisation in which blacks and whites are equal.
And for that equality to happen, blacks must not aspire to live like whites, because that would mean progress is still defined by a barometer set by whites, and that perpetuates white supremacy. Instead, blacks must aspire to be human. Whites, too, must rid themselves of their ethnocentricity and racist attitudes, and aspire to be human. But then again, it may well be that while so many of us support the EFF because we think it wants to fashion a higher civilisation, it does not want to. After all, the truth is, many blacks who appear to be vehemently opposed to the system do not want to put an end to white supremacy. They are just trying to improve their position in it.
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