Crop of leaders bring shame to our blackness

It seems that we have gradually forgotten what we fought for; what we sacrificed our youth for, our education for; what we went to prison for; and what we lost our lives for.

Let us remind ourselves that we did what we did because we were abused by an illegitimate, self-imposed white racist minority government that had given itself the right to rule over the majority of black people they found resident in this country.

Illegitimate system

We had the deep desire to replace that illegitimate system of government with a black majority and legitimate government, which will demonstrate what a government of the people should be and look like. We wanted to prove our excellence and greatness as black people to the world. We did not fight and sacrifice our lives to be jobless, poverty-ridden, illiterate, without decent medical care and facilities, with unproductive and useless education.

We certainly did not fight to manufacture cholera and many diseases which are ordinarily preventable. We did not fight and die just to collapse all our public infrastructure and run our municipalities down.

Most certainly, we did not fight and sacrifice our lives just to create a parasitic class which only thrives on theft, corruption and embezzlement under the cover of blackness, revolutionary and historic credentials.

To the best of our recollection, we fought to better what we were subjected to, to be first-class citizens, to strive for excellence in whatever we do as black people managing our country with pride.

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Equals

At no stage had we ever believed and thought that blackness equals failure. In fact, we had a duty to prove to the world that blackness equals success, progress and excellence.

The current crop of black leaders in our public institutions have brought nothing but shame to our blackness.

They have substituted the greatness of being black with the new notion that blackness equals failure. How else do we explain the continued failure to handle public funds in our municipalities; how do we as proud black people explain the collapse of all state infrastructure; how can we even explain the destruction of every state-owned entity under our stewardship?

We have to admit, all we have done for the past 30 years is to bring shame, disappointment embarrassment to the good name of blackness and it’s pride. We certainly cannot, with true conviction and sincerity, speak good of what our liberation delivered to the poor, ignorant, helpless and suffering masses.

All it has done is to defer our hopes and pushed us further away to the fringes of survival. In the end, it is all in our hands.

We either choose to continue suffering or we decide to change our conditions. It is up to us. We must stop embracing, protecting, supporting and electing people who destroy our future and the futures of our children and their children – simply because they claim blackness.

We can no longer allow our blackness to be abused. Our blackness is our pride and we have to protect and preserve it.

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-Monama is an independent commentator and a former Azapo leader