Vuyani Pambo
The white man is locked in his whiteness. The black man in his blackness – Frantz Fanon
The times demand a disturbance.
A disturbance in the progression, in the harmony of the music of Cyril Ramaphosa’s South Africa. We must render it noise, inaudible such that no one continues to dance to it. We must render it off-tune because for a long time we have been dancing to his song that has kept black people nodding to suffering and blatant oppression.
Needless to say, the task of fighting against one’s oppression cannot be absolutely delegated. It rests squarely on the shoulders of the one who is oppressed. Perhaps (that is) what Bhekumuzi Luthuli was trying to communicate when he said ubuhlungu besicathulo buzwakala onyaweni, which can be interpreted to mean; the one who feels the pain is one who is directly affected by it.
The EFF has called for a national shutdown on March 20. The demand is simple; Cyril Ramaphosa must step down. The reason is even simpler; the problem of electricity has become a crisis because of his failure to lead and his insistence to privatise.
The question of unemployment has reached unprecedented rates. State organs have been abused and the confidence that the people have in them is threatened if not completely diminished.
Naturally poor black people are mostly affected by these issues, and it is upon them to do something about it. Hence the national shutdown which ought to be the beginning of the composition of a new tune, a tune not rooted in bad faith and deception.
Unsurprisingly, the shutdown has been met with a lot of criticism, half-thought and senseless criticism, I must add. This criticism is mostly from salauds whom Satre defines as people who demonstrate a tendency of abdicating responsibility, those who fail to be righteous and honour their other oaths.
The ANC is against the protest yet it fails to appreciate the fact that it is the one that engendered the conditions that make the call for a national shutdown possible. But for the ANC’s failure to provide services and create employment opportunities as mandated by the Constitution there would be no need for a shutdown.
The ANC is a party deteriorating, rotting from within and the stench is there from everyone to smell. There is no possibility of redemption for the ANC. It has broken down and is beyond repair. Even outside of the ANC there are groups of people who, from under their armpits, have whispered doubts towards the shutdown citing reasons such as – the economy will be affected, the shutdown will result in violence, why not use other means instead of a shutdown, what will happen to essential workers, people will lose their jobs.
Others have gone so far as attempting to instigate social media campaigns that are meant to discredit the national shutdown.
Most of the people that have expressed their scepticism towards the shutdown are those who are in the middle class. Those who are under the illusion that they are not acutely affected. It is those who are complacent in the suffering of the majority just because they are able to get the bare minimum, they are comfortable with scraping for crumbs. They do not see that the crisis is expanding, that it will not only end in the townships, but will no doubt reach the suburbs. They are in denial of the fact that they too are black and therefore are not immune to the issues that are currently facing the black working class.
As David Marriot would say; these blacks share a psychic bond with white people. They believe that black people are poor because they do not want to work hard. They believe that the problem of load shedding is because of illegal connections. They are somehow convinced that they have transcended blackness, that they have entered the realm of the human proper. They refuse to be black despite the fact that white people are resolute on being white. The shutdown embarrasses them, it threatens their positionality in society. The mere demand that all should have electricity and whoever is switching off the lights must be removed invites terror. It scares them that the true call of the shutdown is the old call; we cannot continue to pretend that things are normal when the lives of the majority are characterised by aberration.
Ramaphosa has plunged black people into darkness, literally and figuratively. He has pushed us further into an abyss, our country has turned into a “yawning gap and primordial chaos”. The question of load shedding is symbolic of darkness that we are in and the protest by the EFF seeks to bring light.
The protest is a refusal, a refusal that we belong in the heart of darkness. Strange, those who are against the shutdown are concerned about how it will affect the economy, but they are oblivious to the fact that majority of South Africans exist outside of the economy. Black people only service the economy to benefit an elite few which is mostly white, they are not active participants.
The diagnosis might be painful to swallow, but South Africa is already under a shutdown. Majority are unemployed, those who are employed are underpaid, there is no power, corruption is rampant and there is no solution because those who are tasked with fighting it are the ones who are corrupt. There is lack of service delivery. Communities are always already protesting. The national shutdown was an inevitability, it is a consolidation of the many voices and cries by society that have been ignored by the government. A wound left too long untreated festers and eventually explodes. May this be the explosion so that healing may begin.
The response of the government to the shutdown is one of violence. It has declared that it is combat-ready. Ready to fight a people who are simply saying we deserve better, you promised us better. It is ready to fight an unarmed people who have declared that their protest is peaceful. It is colluding with private security and unleashing the military to its own constituency, to the people that it leads. This is reminiscent of the apartheid era.
Frantz Fanon was correct; the political elite is emulating the ways of those who oppressed us under apartheid. It has no strategy or intentions to change the condition of the people. Their only interest is to occupy the seat of the oppressor. Thuma mina? Cyril Ramaphosa is obscene. We never sent him to turn our country into a dark, incomplete, mutilated and unfinished society. We never sent him to mortgage South Africa. We never sent him to sell us out.
We take to the streets and compose a new tune, one that we will dance to, one that we will sing along to. A song of a better tomorrow, of hope and dignity.
*Vuyani Pambo is an EFF MP.
The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.