The recent attacks on former president Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma and his newly formed uMkhonto Wesizwe Party, is a continuation of the traditional black-on-black violence, a tool used by white supremacists, black and white, to undermine the true liberation of black people from the bondage of capitalism and white domination.
The irony in all of this phenomenon is that the marcel of the white purse has made it mandatory that black people be in the fore front of attacking other black people just for speaking against white domination.
In a resent rant, this onslaught has manifested itself in Mbhazima Sam Shilowa’s “Unmasking Zuma: The leader who is now government’s fiercest critic”. As much as this rant presents itself as an attack on Zuma and the MK Party, it is thinly veiled that the actual attack is on black people themselves. I will deal with this point later, for now let me talk about who Shilowa actually is in South African politics, because that history will help us understand his current behaviour against Zuma.
Shilowa became general secretary of Cosatu at a critical point in history when he had to fit into the shoes of Jayasaleen Naidoo. History tells us that Shilowa, who was then known as Sam, had no political relevance, especially in the working-class politics, for he could hardly deal with the controversy of the Tripartite Alliance that had, all these years been hell bound to help suppress the views of the working class in fear of rattling furthers of the capitalist ANC where he had long had his loyalty in pursuit of government positions.
Those who follow the politics of the trade union movement in this country would know that Shilowa had always been referred to as a yellow socks communist in the ranks of the trade union movement. This was not just out of hate for him but it was informed by his sellout programmes as the general secretary of Cosatu. His loyalty to the capitalist agenda of the ANC, its Gear and Asgisa programmes and his own unwitting relinquishing of personal belongings to the president had earned him a position as the premier of Gauteng.
It was Zwelinzima Vavi’s own lamentation against Shilowa that had made the ANC turn against the newly elected general secretary of Cosatu at the time. Vavi led a Cosatu march against Sam Shilowa, the new premier of Gauteng and said the following words when delivering a memorandum: “Comrade Shilowa, it is saddening to have to lead workers in a march against you being a former general secretary of Cosatu. When I was your deputy secretary, I did not know that one day you shall have turned against the very workers that you have led in many marches against anti-worker policies of the ANC-led government, for us as Cosatu, it is an embarrassment to have produced a leader like you.”
Today, the same Shilowa is being used by the same ANC that he had decided to jump ship from and went to form Cope at the instruction of his wife’s confidante at the time. If Shilowa himself could not convince the leadership of the ANC against anti worker policies as the leader of the Tripartite Alliance, what makes him think that it would have been easy for Zuma to defy the balanced forces in the ANC and implement that which he is now advocating? It is an open secret that is known, even to Shilowa himself, that at the Codesa negotiations the ANC was already drowning into the purse of white monopoly capital through shares and expensive housing and cars.
Shilowa knows that Zuma and Gwala were removed by the balance of forces, that was tilted towards the Oppenheimers and the Ruperts, in the ANC to the bundus of KwaZulu-Natal under the guise of quelling political violence there when in essence they were being removed from the main political decision-making structures of the ANC.
Now to come after all that agenda and try and convince South Africans that Zuma should have done all the things he purports to do now at the time when he was president or that he should have opposed the Codesa decisions, is hypocrisy at it worst. In fact, the same reason why Shilowa went out of the ANC to go open Cope is the same reason Zuma went out to form MK, so it is a matter of the kettle calling the pot black, forgive the pun.
Ubunzima bomthwalo budal’ugxekwano (When things get tough people start blaming one another) It is interesting that Mbeki, Shilowa and many others in the ANC find it so convenient to blame Zuma for doing the same thing that they had done to abandon the sellout ANC. When Mbeki formed Cope, the ANC was a Zuma ANC but now he finds very hard to believe that the current ANC is a Ramaphosa ANC. But the main point in all of this is not to expose how much of hypocrites politicians can be, it is rather to show why black people will never be liberated because of the exchanging of white and black hands under the tables.
The ANC is employing every and any means necessary to discredit Zuma, his MK Party and any other pro-black movement. They have tried even invoking the fame of old soccer stars that they have never cared about and now the recent one is the rant by Shilowa who does this in an obvious exchange for tenders.
It is quite sad that a man can donate his everything including his household in exchange for jobs or tenders, no one is safe under the custody of such a man, for they shall be up for grabs. You only need to look back at what he did to Cosatu and to the very ANC he is so keen to defend against Zuma today.
This behaviour by the like of Shilowa and Mbeki is an embarrassment to the black nation. It is this same behaviour that has assured white monopoly capital that it only takes dangling a carrot to achieve the disunity of black people and to undermine the power of black consciousness.
It is black people like Shilowa that have open the gates to multi-party coalition in which many fragments of meaningless so-called political parties are not even worthy of the name political party, for they are not political at all. For them it is just a matter of getting into parliament without really making any impact on the lives of the many poor citizens.
One wonders what makes Shilowa think that other people have no right to do what he did when he got disgruntled with the ANC. This behaviour in nothing but a display of sheer arrogance. The genuineness of Shilowa’s behaviour is quite questionable and its lack of consistency is indicative of ulterior motives rather than what he claims as unmaskingZuma. It makes one wonder why he never unmasked the likes of Terror Lekota, Smarts Ngonyama, Willie Madisha and many others who left the ANC like him.
Shilowa’s attack on Zuma is peddled as a political content but there is nothing political about it, just as much as there was nothing political about Shilowa leaving the ANC in 2008. It must also be noted that when he was the premier of Gauteng, Shilowa became the darling of white business and particularly became the lap dog of Mbeki, as a result it did not come as a shock when he quit his job and resigned from the ANC when Mbeki was dethroned, something he did not do when Zuma was removed before the end of the term.
This clearly shows where Shilowa’s loyalty lies, in the individual and never to the party or the plight of the workers. We should not forget that it was Shilowa, who shot down the inputs of labour at NEDLAC, so in essence he had used Cosatu and the workers as a stepping stone to government positions.
It is high time South Africans wake up to the fact that anyone that stands up and speaks in favour of the return of land to black people and the amendment of the constitution will be attacked vehemently. What is sad is that white monopoly capital has successfully employed the services of black people to fight against their own, so with that proxy, they have nothing to worry about.
Vukile Theo Phanyaphanya is a retired teacher, and an author.