
As much as our darling former public protector Thuli Madonsela outdid herself when probing corruption in government, it’s not good that she has been quite lenient on the equally corrupt white private sector, says the writer.
Walter Zulu
The things that are not good about our beloved country far outweigh and outnumber those which are, unfortunately. At this present, one should be allowed to be a hopeless pessimist about the country, something which some people do all their lives despite privileges.
It’s not good that the ANC and the apartheid government/capital failed to reach a proper settlement on how wealth would be redistributed to the majority after decades and centuries of racist minority oppression. The continuation and globalisation of white monopoly capital are a direct insult on the lives sacrificed in the struggle for freedom and equality.
It’s not good that despite the illustrious shaking of many black hands and the claim of reconciliation to the world, most White owned enterprises which benefitted from black exploitation are not so keen on re-empowerment for the previously (and presently) disadvantaged.
It’s not good that these local companies which rose to prominence on the back of black slave labour and consumerism are now investing elsewhere on the global stage and are not benefitting the native black majority.
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Some of these huge white owned corporations grew because of black support but are now being sold on the global market, while the ANC comrades fight for small change at government.
But there should be no two ways about it. These companies’ majority shares must be ceded to the ownership of the black majority, whether under a privatised or nationalised system.
Black people cannot survive generations of senseless white subjugation only to emerge through a pretext of democracy and still have to beg whites for jobs and respect.
It’s not good that the ANC has for 22 years under the same pretext of democracy allowed the white minority to persist in the regressive and exploitative system of capitalism.
Whether it’s a business which utilises skilled or unskilled labour, the exploitation is universal. The many work or slave for the few.
The irresponsible and pathetic ANC government even tends to beg the private sector for sponsorship. This happens to the point where the lines of morality are clearly and brazenly crossed by those concerned, like a narcotics company sponsoring a national event for example.
It’s not good that despite the ANC swearing from its founding ‘to bury the demon of tribalism’, its current leadership seems to be doing the opposite by feeding the same demon.
During apartheid, whites embellished favouritism on a particular ethnic group over the others so to divide and rule. It’s disconcerting to see the same phenomenon enduring under what is supposed to be a black unity movement, and some people blatantly savouring the profanity like artless primates.
Under the ANC government, SABC television serves to overrate certain ethnic groups while undermining others. For example, SABC 1 is reserved for the Nguni languages, which literally translates to Zulu suffocating the rest, and languages like Swati and Ndebele being seriously marginalised.
Xhosa, which was highly visible during the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies, seems to have suffered a major knock since the Jacob Zuma ascension. All this is not good.
On the other hand, all the Sotho languages plus Venda and Tsonga have to share one channel, SABC 2, along with Afrikaans and English of course. SABC 3 is strictly reserved for the affluent English conservatives and their black cronies, also known as ‘coconuts’.
But whether it’s SABC, the allegedly independent e-tv, or Multi-choice Dstv there is a common criterion that Zulu culture is the symbol of black South African identity, which some of us find awkward. As much as we are alike, we are different.
On the subject of coconuts, the former should try to understand that whites also need their own space, albeit limited, to practice their culture and pastimes.
For example, the SABC 3 soapie, Isidingo, was primarily a white story, which should rightly be dominated by White characters – but not of late because it’s been turned ‘black’, so to speak.
This is not our understanding of multiracialism. Let whites live in their own neighbourhoods and write their own stories, and let us share only necessary things like workspace, public facilities, etc.
It’s not good that we as black South Africans have to continually communicate in Germanic languages – which to us will always sound unnatural and foreign – when we have such advanced and palatable native Bantu languages.
It would be excellent if every province begins to promote respective native languages for educational, recreational and trade purposes. And the glorious whites will also have to learn the native language of their specific region or province as a second language.
It’s not good that the mediocrity and idiocy on public display by the ANC in the past 22 years has become the yardstick with which black progress is determined. Those who say the ANC is actually an anti-black and anti-socialist organisation are not exaggerating, come to think of it.
ANC governance has for the most part resulted in the national consensus doubting both black leadership and nationalisation. Now, is all that coincidental or not?
As much as our darling former public protector Thuli Madonsela outdid herself when probing corruption in government, it’s not good that she has been quite lenient on the equally corrupt white private sector.
Private sector corruption, which goes back before democracy, has more than crippled South Africa and its disadvantaged majority through crimes like tax evasion, capital flight, price fixing, monopolies, nepotism, bribery, profit shifting, and others.
We are facing a grave crisis in the form of ever ballooning costs which have nothing to do with inflation or interest rates, but all to do with pure unrestricted corporate greed.
Consumers are being charged ridiculously high prices on essentials like food, clothing, motor vehicles, property and telecommunications (Data Must Fall). This seems to be an orchestrated global warfare on consumers by global capitalism. And the ANC in this regard is as hopeless as an old rock in a remote desert.
It’s not good that the once beloved movement, ANC, is caught up in the global America versus Russia (cold war) type of shitty politics. As South Africans we are supposed to reject both imperialist capitalism (G20) and imperialist socialism (Brics), but some comrades are knee-deep in a vicious factional battle over these two seemingly different dictators.The end result is a thoughtless global government that pleasures the obscene fantasies of imperial rejects.
These are the same swindlers who lead us to believe there is no money for free education (Fees Must Fall) for our poor majority, but who continue to syphon huge capital from the South African economy to sponsor their violent or economic endeavours in Israel and elsewhere. It’s also very convenient for former leaders like Thabo Mbeki to now report that billions are being smuggled out of the country annually when they personally did nothing to stop such rampant activity during their long tenures.
With regards to the enigma termed Zionism, we believe the adherents have the right to practice their beliefs, but this should not be done at our nation’s expense. They have the right to build themselves a tower as high as heaven if they so wish, but not with our resources, we plead. Their global enterprise should not come to befit the lyrics of Bob Marley and the Wailers when they asked: “Is there a place for the hopeless sinner, who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs…”
Finally, it’s not good that the majority of our lands in the form of commercial farms, game reserves and plots remain in the ownership of the unapologetic and colonial White minority. These are the same people who insult our intelligence by claiming to have brought civilisation to Africa, when in fact they only brought black suffering. And of course, we have to acknowledge the ‘truly blest’ Ashkenazi, who does not partake in the brutal act of colonialism, but somehow winds up being its greatest benefactor.
So we’re not saying whites should be stripped of everything, but rather that, being around 10% of the population, they equally deserve 10% of everything as a post-colonial era settlement. This is not to suggest whites should lose their jobs and incomes altogether, but that the ownership of the land, the macro-enterprises and their majority shares must now be conceded to the State as a post-colonial era settlement.
This will speed up job creation, since the issue with private capital is the channelling of profits to personal comforts, or savings, or foreign investments, instead of job creation or better pays.
It must always be remembered that this wealth redistribution demand is a necessary inconvenience, just as black people were greatly inconvenienced by the serpentine acts of white colonists, whose crimes and iniquities economically benefitted the current generation of whites. It must come to everyone’s attention that the black condition is a highly undesirable anomaly, which we are forced to literally come out of our comfort zones to resolve.
*Zulu is the leader of the EFF in the Chief Albert Luthuli sub-region in Mpumalanga. This article first appeared on his Facebook page a week ago.