Revolutionary ideas are not so cut and dried
- William Gumede
Corruption, cadre deployment and BEE has destroyed the notion of public service and replaced it with self-interest, party interests and greed.
Politically involved black South African youth must redefine what it means to be “revolutionary”, away from shouting slogans, recycling outdated ideology, and burning public assets during protests, to one of community service, whether cleaning streets, volunteering their services in communities, to holding governing political parties accountable to their Constitutional obligations.
Present youth can learn from the 1970s youth, particularly the Black Consciousness youth of the period, who got actively involved in their communities, setting up clinics to service the poor, providing after-school classes for school children to help them through Bantu education and setting up local sports, cultural and entrepreneurial supporting initiatives. The youth of the 1970s also came up with new ideas, rather than mostly recycling existing ideas, rhetoric, and slogans.
The current liberation generation in power has through corruption, cadre deployment and black economic empowerment to the politically connected destroyed the notion of public service – to one of serving one’s self-interests, party interests and greed.
Yet, for the current youth generation, there must be a shift to the idea of “revolutionary” and “activism” as providing a service to the community. Youth should replace toxic social media “revolutionary” switchboard activism, for engaging in active service in communities.
Many youth call for “revolutionary” solutions to tackle South Africa’s myriad, complex and interconnected problems.
Sadly, it appears that “revolutionary” for many young people interested in politics and active on social media, is attacking those with different opinions who do not slavishly follow groupthink such as believing in conspiracy thinking whereby each and every problem is caused by apartheid, colonialism, “white monopoly capital” and foreign Africans.
Or that “revolutionary” means shouting “radical” slogans against “enemies”, whether ‘hostile’ Western countries, so-called white monopoly capital and international big business and the mainstream media.
More recently many youth who strive to be “revolutionaries” also blame “clever blacks”, the term coined by former President Jacob Zuma for black South Africans who do not support corrupt, incompetent, and uncaring black leaders, merely because they are black, and who do not engage the world through ‘black and white thinking’ in which every issue is seen through the extremes of black and white racial terms.
“Revolutionary” is often seen as going against evidence-based, scientific, and fact-based policies in favour of outdated Marxist-Leninist ideology, populist policies, and wishful thinking. Sadly, many ‘revolutionary’ black youth do not appear to read widely or read at all.
Many youth call for one-bullet solution slogans such as land expropriation, which would supposedly resolve all black South Africans solutions overnight – even if these crashed the economies of Algeria, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, which can be read in readily accessible media.
Or they simplistic belief that outside ‘friendly’ countries such as China and Russia will emancipate black South Africans. Based on not reading about the South African economy and how it is interlinked into the global economy and the weaknesses of both the Chinese and the Russian economies, many wrongly argue all SA needs to do is to delink its economy from Western countries, and the country will overnight turn into an economic miracle.
The Constitution is also often attacked by youth wanting to be “revolutionaries” for public service failures, that is caused by the corruption, incompetence and unresponsive of the government and leaders and which has nothing to do with the Constitution.
Many black youth that see themselves as “revolutionary” does not see corruption as one of the most important reasons for country's failure, not only in SA, but also postcolonial Africa, believing wrongly that corruption is a “Western conspiracy”. Nigerian Nobel winner Wole Soyinka said: “Only in Nigeria, will thieves be regrouping to loot again and youths whose future will be stolen will be celebrating”.
It appears that in South Africa, many youth rally around corrupt, incompetent leaders solely because of their blackness, them shouting so-called revolutionary rhetoric, Marxist-Leninist ideology-based solutions and blaming outside enemies for problems which are self-inflicted in the form of corruption, incompetence, and ideologically outdated policies.
Sadly, many youth appear to hero-worship populist politicians, who live the bling life, who act and talk violently to appear ‘radical’, mouthing supposedly ‘radical’ slogans calling for nationalisation, for ‘return’ of the land and attacking ‘white monopoly capital’, meaning white-owned big business for controlling large chunks of the economy.
Yet, the bling populists have very little to say about the fact that SA has more than 850 state-owned entities, with less than a handful functioning; or large amounts of functioning commercial land has been ‘returned’ to ANC politicians or to communities without the skill or support to farm, causing these farms to collapse, leaving many black employees destitute.
Or for that matter that large amounts of land are controlled by traditional leaders, which control it as if they own it, making it impossible for tenants to farm productively – and that giving families ownership to communal land will reboot South Africa’s economy overnight.
Many young people too easily accept government and political leaders’ cover-up of their corruption, state failures and incompetence behind colonialism, apartheid and conspiracies supposedly plotted by ‘white monopoly capital”, and external forces such as Western “imperialist” countries, or foreign Africans. This means that the government and political leaders escape accountability and continue to misgovern with impunity.
“Revolutionary” for many black youths also appears to be seeing the world only through black-and-white thinking patterns which see the world only through the lenses of black and white, rather than the more often than complex, nuance, and mosaic. They seek refuge in easy stereotyping, generalizations, and prejudices – against those they disagree with. It is very hard to seek imaginative solutions – which South Africa desperately needs, rather than pre-packaged ideological ones, if one looks at the world only through extremes.
South African youth would well to read the American scholar of race, Cornel West who warns against the pitfalls of what he calls a resort to black ‘authenticity’ politics, whereby every issue is reduced to ‘racial reasoning’. He argues rightly we must “replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black-freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics”.
Appeals to black ‘authenticity’ often demand closing ranks behind very dubious and corrupt personalities, sometimes undemocratic politics and (black) government neglect of its (black) citizens. Such black ‘authenticity’ politics has been one of the main reasons for the ANC’s failure in government – too many black South Africans closed ranks to defend the party and its leaders based on blackness, a common struggle past and seeing political opposition to the ANC as the “enemy”, rather than as an alternative to the party.
Living in South Africa, among the world’s most diverse countries, it is a travesty for youth not to build friendships, political and business alliances across colour, race, and language. Sadly, large numbers of youth operate in colour ghettos, socially mixing only with those from their village, ethnic group, or colour, which makes it easy for many to assume that others that don’t look like them, speak like them or come from the same village as they are the “enemy”, rather than being part of the great South African multi-ethnic family.
Similarly, many youth do not appear to read, let alone widely. This can be seen in the fact that libraries are often the first public buildings to be torched by youth during public service delivery protests when they express their anger violently against government corruption, lack of public services and indifference. It is ‘revolutionary’ to read.
Next year’s national elections could determine whether SA will go continue on its current path of corruption, incompetence, and unresponsiveness, towards a fully-fledged failed state. It is “revolutionary” to get the youth vote out. However, not to vote for the same current leaders that brought us here, not for leaders that may be from other parties, but are equally corrupt, incompetent, and intolerant, but are only louder in shouting false ‘revolutionary’ slogans, recycling outdated ideologies and blame-shifting.
William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg). This article first appeared in the Sunday Times Daily/TimesLive.