Politics of helplessness

As I sat with my iPad on my lap to write this article I went blank. All the points on the article I was to write disappeared from my mind. All I had was a feeling of helplessness. The same feeling I had growing up at KwaNdengezi whenever I heard the unmistakable drone of the hippo which was almost always followed by gunfire, and then screams, and people running in all directions. Its the same feeling I would get as my mother woke us up to sit on the floor in the bathroom of our semi-detached home. It’s the same feeling I would get in the morning as I walked to school on the streets splattered with blood and even a corpse or two and listening to stories of who was picked up by the SADF and the police last night and who was killed.

I’m sure I’m not the only black person who gets this helpless feeling when looking at the current state of affairs. One simply can’t shake the feeling that we are being persecuted again. That black people are again made to feel powerless and inferior in their own country. That the law is never on our side. And that sadly, the white man still has power over the black man.

On the one side we are battling a government which we voted into power but which is increasingly failing to meet our expectations. A government that’s gradually grinding to a halt because of rampant corruption and being crippled by friction within the ruling party. Black people feel helpless because they pinned their hope on this government that’s led by a movement that did such a sterling job leading their fight against apartheid. They are helpless, not because they can’t leave the ANC but because they have no alternative.

This helplessness though greatly emanate from the evident campaign by the white Inc. to continue to undermine the black population including the government led by the majority blacks. They are hell-bent on using all in their disposal to protect their privileged lives at the expense of the majority of our population. They seem to be waging a multi-faceted campaign which include using the courts to challenge government on any and all decisions, stall economic transformation and land reform. They also use the courts to try and erase the history of the struggle of the black people against apartheid. They use their economic power to side-line black people and the media to confuse, misinform and influence.

The biggest of all is their refusal to take responsibility for apartheid while they expect black people to put their suffering in the past and get on with it. This is impossible! How can one forget when your oppressor still has a privileged life and you don’t? When your oppressor still controls almost all the facets of your life? The white Inc. simply wants to erase the history of apartheid and the suffering of black people. The decision to ban a struggle song is part of that. These songs were part of a struggle to overthrow what everyone agrees was crime against humanity. Yes, the song in question might make certain groupings uncomfortable, but the same groupings were the main perpetrators and must live with it. One cannot be limited in celebrating victory against a cruel system simply because the former perpetrators feel insulted by words in a song used to overthrow their illegitimate rule over a majority. This is a pure insult.

AfriForum only serves to divide society and instead of protecting their constituency they are hardening the attitudes of the majority of black people against them. All they are doing is showing that many white people are insensitive to the plight of the black people under apartheid and are refusing to take responsibility. The same AfriForum is fighting to the bone against changing of names like Pretoria even though these undermine the dignity of black people and represent the very core of apartheid power.

Government is also not doing much to counter the white Inc. onslaught and protect us. I wrote elsewhere on this blog about how some in government are part of the white Inc. and how it is difficult for them to take action against white Inc. interests. This leaves the majority of the population unprotected.

This feeling of helplessness slowly ferments into anger. It’s the helplessness of the masses that offers fertile ground for radicalism that will destroy the country. People like Malema have space to operate in because of the likes of AfriForum. Anger that will one day soon channel itself into an uprising against whites. This can’t be good for our country but the white Inc. doesn’t seem to care. They seem to only care about maintaining their superiority over blacks. Black people will not remain docile forever.