“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities.
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die,” Nelson Mandela said during the Rivonia Trial in 1964. He also repeated the statement during his release on February 11, 1990.
These words by the late International icon, Nelson Mandela have as much meaning today as they had in 1964 as well as in 1990. However, although we are all aware of white domination, we don’t realise that Mandela has also fought against black domination.
Many may question what relevance is the statement today, especially when we talk about black domination – well, the answer is all around, and a black man needs to pay more attention.
Dear Black Man, you are not suffering today because of yesteryear’s injustices – your suffering is inflicted by your fellow black man who has made greed his priority. Your poverty is not caused by the apartheid system but by the greed of the current leaders.
I cannot bring myself to understand how a black can allow himself to be oppressed by another black man for a long period of time before he does anything.
There is no question about it; the government has failed the people of South Africa by using public money which was meant for housing on the president’s private home. The ANC failed its own followers by electing a man whose ‘fingers are in every pie’ is proving to not only cost them votes; but has turned out to leave many South Africans reeling as they battle poverty and injustice.
After 20 years of democracy, it is appalling to witness countless service delivery related protests in various societies. Never mind incidents which are made public, also consider what is not spoken about – the bucket system toilets.
Yes, it appears as though the problem is addressed in the Western Cape; however, recent stats reveal that there has been an increase in the use of the bucket toilet system in three provinces between 2012 and 2013. The three provinces are the Eastern Cape, North West, and KwaZulu-Natal… Surely, we have to be seeing more ‘poo protestors’ from these provinces.
Black people across South Africa continue to suffer, yet they fail to take a stand against their oppressor. He forgets that he has done it before, maybe it is because that he keeps believing the lie that says, “If you do not vote for the ANC, then you are against what the party has done in 1994,” or “If you vote for a ‘white person’, they will bring back apartheid.”
Allow me to quote the father of the nation Tata Madiba when he said, “If the ANC does to you what the Aparheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the Apartheid government.”
If these words were not spoken by a man committed to the ANC, then they would not weigh anything, but because they are – they compel us to pay attention. If we were to list how the ANC has begun resembling the Apartheid government, I would probably need to write a book.
Starting with the E-tolls moving through to the Secrecy Bill, not to mention the; ‘fire pool’ in Nkandla – we are sure to find many examples of this. From a party whose leadership instilled hope, today that ANC is long dead because the party is now lead by dictators.
We do have a lot to celebrate after 20 years; however, our celebrations should not come at the cost of our future – we should remain grateful for the victories of 1994, yet we should not be trapped in the past; ours is to learn to move on and look ahead to the next 20 years…
If we need to fix something today, let us do so; if we need to get rid of our oppressors as we have done before, let us also do the same… As much respect we may have for heroes such as Joe Slovo, Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela – we don’t owe them anything. I say this with respect, they are dead – we can do nothing for them. We need to realise that we owe our future everything; we need to make sure our children look back at our lives and recognise us as their heroes.
When I say ‘Vuka Muntu o mnyama vuka’ – I need every black man to realise that his freedom means nothing if his kind has no access to quality services, his freedom is trampled upon by the leaders who steal from them in the name of security, and his freedom means nothing if leaders speak of economic development which leaves the poor even more poor!
Vuka Muntu o mnyama vuka!
