What divides US is less Real than the History that Binds US together ~ An Examination of the Similarities between the Struggle for Liberation in South Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the US by Sihlangule M. Siwisa My father taught me from an early age never to allow myself to be defined by my circumstances. He taught me through instruction and example that the true measure of a man is not the balance of his bank account but the account of how the balance of his actions can be banked on in the pursuit of truth, justice and the desire for a legacy that outlives one’s own breath. One of the hallmarks of true leadership is the ability to discern the times and to then recognise one’s place in the changing arc of history. It is with this thought of finding my place in history that I elected to examine the similarities between Dr Martin Luther King’s dream of one day witnessing a society where human beings judge each other based on the content of their characters rather than the colour of their skins and Dr Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s vision of a South Africa that belongs to all its people whether they be White, Black, Coloured, Indian or of different descent. The story of our collective struggles as the people of Africa mirrors that of the Civil Rights movement in America where great men and women such as Thurgood Marshall, Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, Dr Martin Luther King, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton marched side to side in the echoing barks of savage dogs and were unmovable in the face of escalated danger to deliver the freedoms they now enjoy. These icons of your struggle exhibited the sort of courage, ingenuity, boldness and vision that is reminiscent of the past leadership icons of our continent. I speak of Nkwameh Nkrumah, Pixley ka Seme, John Langalibalele Dube, Solomon ka Plaatjie and Chief Albert Luthuli. Among these men were great women leaders such as Mama Adelaide Tambo, Charlotte Maxeke, Fatima Meer, Helen Joseph, Ruth First, Winnie Mandela, Graca Machele and Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who is the sitting Chairperson of the African Union. I am proud to say that I hail from the land of Oliver Tambo, Seretse ka Kgama, Mwalimu waTaifa Julius Nyerere, Joshua Nkomo, Joe Slovo and the recently departed Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. This generation of leadership taught us that leadership is not a diffuse, amorphic exercise driven by a collection of self-interested individuals operating as independent leaders of factions acting to realise a personal agenda. On the contrary, they taught us that leadership is a network of inter-dependent individuals; each with a clear well-defined purpose working selflessly to realise a collective agenda. This then means that any individual that ascribes to himself or herself the power to adopt an agenda that contradicts the collective objective of the society to which he or she belongs, then sets himself or herself up as a cancer that pose threat to the life of the collective and therefore the future of society. The purpose of this analysis is NOT to parade the psychosis of leadership on our continent, but rather to put it to you that I believe if we were to give an honest assessment of ourselves using the mirror of past leadership we would see that we are more than what we have allowed ourselves to become. It is the American scholar, Frederick Douglas, who reminded us that there is no progress without struggle. The nature of struggle is that it is wont to throw to the fore challenges that expose the shortcomings of leadership. The celebration of mediocrity, the cult of personality and the cancer of xenophobia are one of the three major challenges that have plagued post-liberation societies in Africa. South Africa is not immune to these struggles. For instance, there are families such as the Masilela family in 43 Trewlawney Park in Swaziland who opened up their homes and placed their lives in great peril to support our struggle. There are members of the international community such as Olof Palmer from Sweden who campaigned tirelessly for funding in order to realise the goals of the mass democratic movement during the tenure of Oliver Tambo as President of the ANC. It is an indictment on our consciences that our ignorance or short-lived memory of the sacrifices made by fellow African countries in the interest of our liberation during the apartheid era caused us to visit harm upon the citizens of the very same countries through xenophobic violence in post-liberation South Africa. The unintended message that the incidents of xenophobia in SA conveyed to the rest of the world is that the freedom we sought was premised on proving to each other as Africans that we are better slaves than the other. The description of this psychosis is well illuminated in a work of fiction written by John Norman entitled Savages of Gor. What this implies then is that even in the absence of physical chains, we remain shackled in our thinking as Africans by a spirit of ‘otherness’ instead of a spirit of ‘one-ness’. Our friends in America are also not immune to challenges of leadership. In the eight years that preceded the tenure of President Obama, the previous administration single-handedly changed the cordial relationships of the American people with the rest of the world to a point where countries with resources and no military might felt vulnerable to a prescribed form of liberalisation and exploitation that came at gun point. But, I say all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, which is why I believe we can all benefit from studying the errors of our past and in so doing extend a genuine hand of friendship to the rest of the world like the current administration in America has done. The lesson here for both our nations is that we need to constantly re-examine the agenda of our organs of state, our organs of civil society, our organs of inter-faith beliefs, our organs of corporate wealth generation and the organs of military formations that defend our shores. Together we have to commit ourselves to the pursuit of self-liberation through economic freedom and the realisation of a collective global agenda of justice, peace and prosperity. We examine these organs in order to give an honest assessment of the state of health of our nations. In order to do this process justice, we have to resist the urge to be prescriptive in our approach prior to doing a thorough analysis of history, lest we misdiagnose the problem. In the same vein, the critical nature of our society is such that we have to take an oath to be surgical in our approach because we dare not fail. In studying our history, we have to learn to distinguish between the root causes of the problem and the events that took place which are symptomatic of the problem. For instance, our re-telling of the stories of June 16 and the Sharpeville massacre, you see that these stories are prefaced by dates, headlines and iconic pictures that keep the moments frozen as headlines in our history. But, if one were to be challenged to outline the processes that led up to CODESA 1 & 2, we have scant record thereof to be taught in our schools. Our pre-occupation with incident based re-counts of our history, robs us of the opportunity of witnessing the arc of history as a whole. There is a book by the Ghanaian writer Ai Kwei Armah which was published in 1968 entitled “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born”. Joshua Masinde from the African Book Club describes this book as a description of post-independence Ghana which is symbolic of other developing countries where corruption remains a major problem at at all levels. For the common man, there seems to be no end to the scourges of corruption and moral decadence. Indeed, it appears that the saviours or what Armah refers to as “the beautiful ones” are not yet born. If we are to give our people hope, we have to first become the face of hope and hope at this moment demands that we reject the false notion of boundaries. President Obama said in 2012, “…as we continue to fight against an enemy that has no respect for the law of war, we continue to hold ourselves to a higher standard”. In the face of darkness and division caused by the celebration mediocrity, xenophobia and cult of personality, let us continue to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Let us draw strength by echoing the words of Oliver Tambo who said in 1991, “we did not tear ourselves apart because of a lack of progress at times …we were always ready to defend our unity”. So, therefore my call to young people and the elders; who may have been tempted to disengage from defending Oliver Tambo’s legacy; IS it is time for us to demonstrate the courage to start over. The Courage to Begin Again. Former President Thabo Mbeki once said, “I am ready to defend at the top of my voice your right to differ with me at the top of yours.” It was appropriate for us to raise our voices during a time when our voices were constrained by oppression, banishment and violence. And indeed we did so both in voice and in song. Now that we are free to articulate our thoughts without fear of censure, we need to learn to differ with each other without drowning out each other’s voices. We have to remain as President Mbeki seems to suggest as the keeper of one another’s freedoms. In order to differ with dignity, we need to give ourselves permission to gauge sense not by the volume and militancy of one’s voice, but by the weight of critical content and the robust quality of the thought process that informs that militancy. In short, we have to give ourselves permission to be led NOT by the LOUDEST voices, but the MOST SENSIBLE voices. Such voices are not necessarily the voices of messiahs, but ordinary people who doing extra-ordinary things to change their communities. If we plan to build for eternity, we have to first birth constructive thoughts and then design architecturally sound, sober and stable networks founded on collective purpose and individual accountability in discharging our responsibilities BRICK by BRICK. We also have to make it our duty to agitate to the edge of doom against any builder that seeks to compromise quality in the name of urgency. We are not blind to the urgency of our needs, but we need to be steadfast and unmovable in insisting on quality of design and craftsmanship in execution. I am a firm believer that when money follows vision, wealth is created but when vision follows money then anarchy prevails. In exercising initiative and beginning again, we have to remind ourselves that there are NO SHORT-CUTS TO GREATNESS. I repeat, the story of liberation of South Africa as the last African country to attain freedom from colonialism and oppression is a story that speaks not of the uniqueness of SA society, but to the common aspirations and geo-ethnic tapestry of the African nation as a whole …it extends to the beautiful hills of Swaziland, the oceans of Mozambique, the mountains of Lesotho, the rivers of the Zambezi and Lake Tanganyika, the forests of Angola and countless frontline states. So I invite you reject the notion of boundaries and join me in acknowledging that WHAT SEPARATES US IS LESS REAL THAN THE HISTORY THAT BINDS US. If we follow how the arc of history has moved over a 50 year trajectory in America from when Dr Martin Luther King uttered those prophetic words “I have a dream…” in 1963 to the words spoken by President Obama on the 28th of August 2013, we ought to draw hope, because in many ways President Barack Obama is the manifestation in the flesh of what Dr Martin Luther King Junior prophesied in the Spirit when he said, “I have been to the mountain top”. Let us borrow from the noble dreams of our common ancestry as we re-imagine the future. Let us set aside our differences. Let us seek common ground. And let us re-visit our own history in order to inspire our children not to look beyond our shores for heroes, but to look within.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 21:23:36 +0000
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