Poetry

Ferocious Energies

The die in our society has been cast
The course being a few seconds of fame with unimpressive results
A disastrous finale’ which bleeds our world dry while suffocating our land with scorned human remains

This reality scalds even the strong of our own
It penetrate even the brick walls of our homes
It humiliates even the praised of our kings
While destroying more than just the heart beat of our nation
But our dreams, our strength, love and respect for living remain

This is no battle for the frail and weak hearted
It is no toying setting for twitters
It is no masquerade for the loiters
This is a war for warriors armed with nothing but ecstasy for success
The spiers are no detergent for the battle amidst our space
Neither weaponry, nor vile words will rise to victory against the enemy at hand

The battle lines have long been drawn
The procrestinative nature of our response continues to retard our nation
The idle, dispossessed inaction we meet on the enemy sends weary signals to the devil, allowing her to continue the slandering and perpetuate the systematic Technical Knock Out on all who dare enter the ring

I write with much sadness and scorn on the naivety of my countrymen and women
Within me there is a mixture of idealism and enormous impatience and anger
The truth of the matter is that my future is embedded in the present
I alone am the architect of my destiny
I alone am the master of my being
I alone have an obligation to set free my soul and that of the people of my land
I alone have the courage and wisdom to do unto others, as I would like them do unto me
I alone make the decision to live, to be, I carve a life, for this my precious land

Call me rough, insensitive or over ambitious
I will not butter the ignorance, which has infiltrated the people of this world
I will not sing praises to those who continue to set themselves on deathbeds
I will not sympathise with the silly minded perpetuating the denigration of a society fought for by our fore barriers
I refuse to nurture stupidity
But acknowledge that aloofness is a master of trickery

At the height of the carnage, the very soul of my country lay prostrate and exposed
While an impassable chasm houses the dying spirits of my people
Whilst the butchering machinery prepares it’s daily oiling
The butcher mourns the loss of a sharpened knifing ailment to our society
Whilst the undertaker rejoices at the opportunity to feed his heart

This testimony will not claim to be the epitome or quintessence of what is correct
It does not suggest that AIDS is the master and we the servants
It in fact sets the foundation for a battle to be won
One that has long been declared but passively ignored
It sets the trail for immaculate wisdom finding
For courage, responsibility and honesty

Yes, inevitably even the virgins will taste the bitter – sweet sexual pleasures
Already the holier than though have proven beyond doubt their succumbing desires – by keeping their hands, thighs within the churches
It is no sin really
It is no evil truly
But rather a forbidden deadly pleasure

So take your stake
What will it be
Roar…
Flash on Flash…
Or life…
Its your ante

Mihlali Gqada

The National Question

My Perspective

As conventionally understood in South Africa, as elsewhere, the National Question concerns the oppression of one or a number of other people/s by a dominant colonial power. Consequently, the right to self-determination or to national freedom/independence does not apply to the dominant group, but is applied exclusively to the oppressed or dominated group.
In looking into the National Question", we should not only look at South Africa but also in Africa and its diaspora. The resolution of the question is to be attained through the struggle for the political and economic liberation of the African people. This means: the establishment of a post-colonial and/or post-apartheid state as the foundation of the nation-state-in-the-making; the latter's (political) capacity to resolve such economic questions as the land question; the question of wages and an improved standard of living; the social question, as is reflected in the democratisation of the education and health systems; the liberation from those forms of oppression and exploitation that characterised the colonial and/or apartheid period; and, therefore, the restoration of the dignity of the African person after centuries of white domination.
The National Question in Africa has to be understood in terms of: the historical, political and economic factors that also define the process whereby Africa and Africans were relegated in the international division of labour; the European expansion that began in the fifteenth century and saw Africa "discovered" and (under) "developed" as a geopolitical concept within the global parameters of a voracious Caucasian onslaught; the trans-Atlantic slave trade through which Africans were dehumanised, pillaged and transported as mere commodities across the oceans; the colonial era during which the mother continent was balkanised, parceled out among the European powers, and whole peoples dispossessed of their political sovereignty, economic rights and sheer capacity; the current neo-colonial period during which, notwithstanding the gains made with the attainment of political independence and the establishment of the nation-state-in-the-making, still find Africa and the Africans at the bottom of the heap of human existence and development.
Therefore, the post-independence track record has to be assessed in relation to the post-colonial state's capacity to resolve the National Question.
For, as Amilcar Cabral stated, for Africans the world over, the resolution of the National Question must include the successful struggle towards the rectification of our history:
It is this history, which the colonialists have taken from us. The colonialists usually say that it was they who brought us into history: today we show that this is not so. They made us leave history, our history, to follow them right at the back, to follow the progress of their history. Today, in taking up arms to liberate ourselves, in following the example of other peoples who have taken up arms to liberate themselves, we want to return to our history by our own means and through our own sacrifices. As we celebrate ten years of democracy, we continue to starve, sleep in shacks, drink contaminated water, use candles and paraffin stoves – still the National Question has not been addressed, we have “two economies”, this has been a major shift in the congresses mindset as we used to refer to “two nations”. The struggle is not racial, but economical. (Debates around the National Question were profound in the late 20th century within the congress movement).

Race, Class and the National Question

The National question exists in two forms:
1. The racially inclined question – grounded in our history, colonial interruption of the plight of Africans. The stringent segmentations, the inferiority complex they imbedded in the hearts and minds of the African. The colonialist made the African chase after his beliefs, livelihood etc. He engraved within the black men self hatred and an inferiority complex – this however can be broadened by another debate at a later stage. This we call the existing “two Nations”
2. The economically inclined question – grounded in the economic status of the African. This is the root of the National Question, largely referred to as the existence of the “two economies”. This is embedded in living conditions, joblessness, exploitation characteristics of the working class – this is the class based question in our society.
Historiography of the National Question
The national question had been discussed by both Marx and Engels in terms of the political situation of their day — a period when capitalism was at its height and about to expand and transform itself into the worldwide complex of imperialism. The early writings of Lenin and Stalin contain dissertations on the national question, which view it as one of the phenomena accompanying the development of the capitalist system.
In his 1914 thesis on The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Lenin wrote: “Throughout the world the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements. For the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose populations speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundation of national movements ... Therefore the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of capitalism are best satisfied ... The self-determination of nations means the political separation of these nations from alien national bodies, and the formation of an independent national state.”
What constitutes a nation?
In his famous treatise on Marxism and the National Question written in 1913, Stalin said: “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture ... It must be emphasised that none of the above characteristics is by itself sufficient to define a nation. On the other hand, it is sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be absent and the nation ceases to be a nation.”
Stalin also wrote in this same treatise: “It goes without saying that a nation, like every other historical phenomenon, is subject to the law of change, has its history, its beginning and end.”
As with nations, so with the theory of national liberation, the Marxist laws of change and development operate. Theory and practice are interrelated and interact upon one another.
“The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general-democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so it must be rejected.” — Lenin, On the National Pride of the Great Russians, 1916.
South African Socialist Evolution
Black political organisations existed before the socialist movement came into being. The Natal Indian Congress was formed by Gandhi in 1894, the African Political Organisation (APO) in 1902, the National Congress (later renamed the African National Congress) in 1912; and there were other bodies. But most of these were sectional in their approach, lacking in both ideology and strategy, with a purview, which did not extend beyond the immediate interests of the group for whom they spoke. The African National Congress (as we shall refer to it hereafter) did not even have a constitution until 1919, the first draft having been rejected by the annual conference of 19l5. In its early years, the ANC shrank from demanding full equality for all the peoples of South Africa, and perhaps its greatest achievement was that it set out to unite all sections of the African people, it rejected tribal or ethnic division, and it proposed to take action. — at that time essentially non-violent — to promote the interests of the African people and obtain redress for their grievances. Though it undoubtedly stimulated African national consciousness, its approach was reformist and gradualist.
It was not until socialist organisations emerged in South Africa that it was possible to apply in practice the ideology of Marxism to the solution of the national problem. And here it is important to bear in mind the fact that these organisations did not spring into life fully fashioned with theory and practice to match the needs of the time. The most important of them, the International Socialist League, was formed in 1915 when a section of the white Labour Party broke away from the parent body over the issue of the war. Not all the members of the ISL were Marxists; not all of them indeed were international socialists; many of them thought of socialism only in terms of the white workers who, they thought, must constitute the vanguard of the socialist revolution in South Africa.
Rosa Luxemburg wrote in 1918 about the Bolsheviks. Could that admonition not also be directed at the South African national liberation movement (NLM) and the ANC?
Nelson Mandela has often remarked that we should not behave as if we are dealing with an enemy whom we defeated on the battle field. Implicit in this warning is that the enemy is still strong and might well have un-exhausted reserves of power and energy that he could marshal against us.
What remains unsaid, but should be read between the lines, is that the elections of April 1994 entailed a degree of compromise, some concessions and postponements, many of which took account of the enemy's real strength and untapped power. Others were made to draw to our side of the conflict vacillating class elements and strata who might otherwise have reinforced the ranks of an as a yet undefeated enemy. Yet others were made to widen the fissures and cracks within the enemy's own ranks and to buy time that would enable us to consolidate the gains made. There were also compromises forced upon us because we could ill-afford to jeopardise the larger prize - majority rule - in pursuance of a few uncertainties.
Since 1969 Morogoro Conference the ANC has held the view that the contradiction between the colonised Black majority (Africans, Coloureds and Indians) and the White oppressor state is the most visible and dominant contradiction within apartheid ruled South Africa. It has further argued that this contradiction could not be solved by the colonial state "reforming itself out of existence", and consequently, only struggle to overthrow the system of colonial domination would lead to the resolution of this contradiction. Moreover, it was our view that since the colonial state and the colonised people could not be spatially separated, there was no possibility of the two co-existing - as is the case in classic colonialism where the colonial power packs off its staff and goes home, leaving the former colony to fend for itself. In the South African context, this necessarily meant that the struggle would have to result in the destruction of the apartheid state.
The ANC always regarded apartheid as much more than mere racial discrimination, though of course racial discrimination was central to its practice. We regarded apartheid as a multi-faceted and comprehensive system of institutionalised racial oppression.
All of this was rationalsed on the basis of the racial superiority of the Whites. Apartheid was however also a racial hierarchy, graded on the basis of skin colour, resulting in a high degree of differentiation among the oppressed in terms of job opportunities, access to certain types of training, the exercise of property rights, etc. At the core of the system of national oppression was the conquest and domination of the African majority who were the most exploited and oppressed.
National oppression thus found expression in the palpable form of a number of economic, social and developmental indicators - such as poverty and underdevelopment, the low levels of literacy and numeracy among the oppressed communities, their low access to clean water, the non-availability of electricity, their low food consumption, their invariably low incomes, the poor state of their health, the low levels of skills, the generally unsafe environment in which these communities lived.

The Struggles Within the Struggle.

Proceeding from what we have said before, it is clear that the movement's own non-racialism and non-ethnic ethos is not merely a matter of high moral principle. The endurance and sustenance of these norms which many today take for granted, has not been unproblematic. The ever present racism in South African society and the ethnic and tribal segmentation encouraged by the White minority state were powerful currents against which our movement has had to contend.
The movement itself has consequently been the site of intense politico-ideological struggles around the issues of ethnicity, race, class and gender. During the 1930s, for example, a conservative section of the ANC's founding fathers led a campaign to expel Communists from the movement and to move it closer to the liberal fraction of the White establishment. At around the same time Dr John L. Dube, led the bulk of the ANC branches of Natal out of the mother body to set up his own regional organisation in opposition to the ANC. It was only in 1948 that Chief Luthuli and others were able to win back the ground lost to Dube branch by branch, until they could compel re-affiliation of the province.
At the height of the struggles of the 1950s a group of dissidents, led by Potlako Leballo, tried to manipulate the justifiable anger of Africans against their oppressors on an "Africanist" platform, a large component of which was also opposition to Communism. The majority of ANC members resisted these siren songs despite the evident emotional appeal of the "Africanist" slogans. The dissidents walked out of the ANC to constitute themselves as the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959.

How to Solve the National Question

Solving the national question requires that in the first instance we pose the correct questions and not buy into the mythology and metaphysics of ideologists. As in all instances, the national question in South Africa is undergirded by the material realities the development of capitalism in a colonial setting and the institutions created to sustain those productive relations.
To return to Rosa Luxemburg, we cannot hope to address these problems by uncritically embracing some of the temporary expedients the movement had to adopt in the context of a negotiated settlement.
Ethnic mobilization and entrepreneurship, in various its guises - including that of federalism - however still poses a serious problem and represents the gravest single threat of destabilization and subversion in our new democracy. The tap root of ethnicity and political adventures based on it, are apartheid and the artificial revival of so-called "traditional" institutions undertaken first in the 1920s then pursued with fanatical zest by Verwoerd and his acolytes after 1948. The so- called "traditional leaders" all have, to one degree or another, acquired an interest in these institutions. In addition to power and prestige, these institutions have become a lucrative source of income and patronage. Their propensity to reproduce new generations of ethnic entrepreneurs cannot be under estimated.

Our Constituency

The Mahlabandlopfu ANC Branch is situated in an area which is historically a white mans playground. The general institutional culture of Pretoria is blessed by Afrikaner symbols, pride, artefacts etc. it is then deemed to be difficult to exist as the MDM in such a setting. The biggest question however is how do we as South Africans co-exist with in impact in such settings? The national question seeks to address the power dynamics created by the ambivalent past of our land, it seeks a solutions to the problems existing nationally, the class-based technicalities. President Mbeki makes reference to the national question by referring to the two economies in our land. That of the rich and that of the poor. Ours then is to bridge this gap, conscientise our cadres and make of them viable engines of economically stable South Africa.

Reference:

· The National Question: the Vision of Steve Biko and the BCM
· The National Question: Brain Bunting and Moses Kotane, South African Revolutionary
· The National Question in Post – 1994 South Africa – Pallo Jordaan
· Mayibuye, 5. The National Question and South Africa

By: Mihlali Gqada

The Case of the Two Economies

My Perspective
South Africa – The Case of the Two Economies

Despite the progressive transition and tremendous strides made by the African National Congress led government in the South African Political landscape, the country is still economically divided. The apartheid regime divided South Africa racially and economically, and twelve years into democracy the government has succeeded in turning around the racial component but is struggling to shake off economic segregation.

South African like many other African countries in the 1960’s after the attainment of independence is in a predicament of having two economies. One is advanced and skilled and fast becoming more globally competitive, the second, mainly informal, marginalized and unskilled. Should this trend continue unabated, South Africa will be “ country with an island of wealth and prosperity surrounded by waves poverty that could lead to insanity” (Victor Mditshwa. 2004).

South Africa is emerging as a capitalist and bourgeois country, with features of a black middle strata escalating. This shows that there are strides being made to capacitate some of the black elite to aspire as capitalists through state programs such as the Black Economic Empowerment. While the majority of the population is servicing the economic system, a few ‘chosen’ reap the rewards. The South African landscape perpetuates divisions, as the cities and towns have the economies, social institutions and political imperatives and resources while the rest of the countries, all that is outside the cities can be compared to less developed countries. The more developed cities are the most sought after for more development while in the marginalize, rural and semi urban communities there is little to no development.

The biggest challenge for the government is closing the gap between the two economies, to move away from hard focus on reconciliation to a more developmental focal point. The merger of democracy is not based on the participation of the citizens in socio-political activity only, we note that elections are important and significant in any democratic country, so is the establishment of social groupings such and Non-Governmental Organisations but even more importantly is citizen participation in the economic life of the country. It is important that a vibrant democracy encourages its citizens to be a part of the economy, until such a time as the ordinary man in the street becomes an active part of the economy, democracy will remain a pigment of our imagination.

Some of the major challenges for the South African democracy are; how to achieve better standards of living as well as how to attain sustainable development. The government has to contend on how to promote broad economic development and empowerment. South Africa can gladly pronounce that its political system is a reflection of democracy, what it cannot boast on is the limited progress made by its programs to uplift the social and economic status of the most destitute of the land. Ten years into democracy and South African is still the second (to Brazil) undivided country in the world, people are still dying of poverty although this not at an extreme rate, but it is enough to alarm the politicians of the land, the health system not conducive for a country claiming to be uplifting the social ills of the land, housing is still a big problem as many continue to live in shacks, whilst many cannot afford bank loans to build houses. Some of the constitutional obligatory’s are not being met by the government. This leads to the conclusion that those in the second economy, blacks in particular continue to be segregated and underdeveloped at the hands of the state.

Mkandawire argues that the structural capacity of the democratic development state to implement economic policies wisely and effectively is dependent on various factors including institutional, technical, administrative and political capacity. Government is to set clear, attainable goals to ensure the merger between the two economies. Economic reform currently seats in the middle of the government agenda, where it sometimes forgotten are left to individuals. It does not form the centre for government engagement with the world – invertors. While opening up of the economy is advisable in light of international trends and markets, South Africa need to be cautious so that this does not sideline or sabotage its internal initiatives to cultivate a new brand of economically mobile beings. The South Africa Government has to reduce its role in enterprises that are not at the forefront of its public service delivery. Individuals and private companies have to be encouraged to play an active role in taking up some of the state owned and run enterprises. SMME’s should be fast tracked country wide for the economy to create jobs, SMME should be finances and gotten off the ground. The finance sector should play a leading role in financing the SMME’s especially those owned by black people and women as to fast track the BEE process.

To achieve its developmental stage the state should disperse information. Citizens become their own liberator, through forming their own opinions, ideas, choices and demand their rights only if they have access to information. Government should create environment, which enable free flow of information. Partnerships with citizens and the private sector in this regard need to be fostered.

By: Mihlali Gqada

Politics of Identity

My Perspective

Identities are constructed through complex historical, cultural, and psychological processes. It is imperative from the onset to illustrate how human self-understanding is constructed and represented along the lines of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and a host other differences. The broad objective of this paper is to enable people to appreciate the complex relationships between personal and social identities and to familiarize them with the concepts and methods used to understand how identities are formed, imposed, experienced, and represented in literary texts.

Specific content
· To learn about cultural diversity in a world that appears to be growing even more homogenous culturally.
· To learn about identity formation and explore the narrative modes used by representative women to re-define and re-present women's status and position in respective cultures and traditions.
· To appreciate specific historical, political, social, and cultural forces that influence identity formation in diverse and different cultures and the ways in which women, in particular, impact or are impacted upon by such forces.
· To call into question how we understand who we are and our understanding of identity formation and representation in cultures other than our own.

Cultures are not self-sufficient; rather they are made up of different streams, with different origins that are generally unknown to those who claim to be part of them. Consequently, even though we are born and raised within a certain cultural tradition, our personal identity is not shaped once and for all by one particular culture. Indeed, our cultural identity is not an essence; rather it is a process, just as our own cultures are not static or ontologically fixed. People who never left their birthplace, their country or their town tend to believe that their cultural identity is homogenous, that they are only conditioned by one cultural tradition. This, according to me, is an illusion. For the culture in which one lives is never frozen in time, but is in continual evolution, adapting itself to new historical circumstances and imperatives of survival especially as it encounters other cultural traditions or practices, even though that evolution may not be perceivable.

My view of human cultures and of the universality of "the human phenomenon does not stem solely from the reality of the present capitalist market which is progressively reducing our world to the status of a "global village"; my position rather stems from the reading of human history.
As far as race goes, while it is hard to deny the reality of race in a racially fragmented society such as ours, I do believe, however, that racial identity is neither fixed nor genetically derived. Rather, I believe that racial identity is essentially phenotypical as well as a social construction. I am black because I belong to a group that society depicts as the black race or the Africoid race. In other words, I am called black because I share common physical features with members of that human group. But, these physical features are of the order of appearance or phenotype rather than of genetic make-up. Beside these physical features, other shared characteristics with so-called members of the black race are a matter of history, i.e., of social construction. This implies that I share a common destiny with the other members of that group due to common experiences in history. Physical differences among so-called racial groups, as biology attests today, are environmental and have nothing to do with human nature. In other words, it was around 20,000 B.C.E. that the "homo sapiens sapiens", i.e., the so-called modern human, started manifesting different skin colors and physical features from one region to another. This was about twenty thousand years after "homo sapiens sapiens" had achieved its final stage of evolution in Africa, then had started migrating to Europe, then to Asia, and later to other parts of the world. Our physical differences, viewed as racial make-up, are a necessity of our adaptation to physical environments, including the climate. Progresses registered today in history, archeology, biology and anthropology are helping us to understand that there is only one human species that all humans derived from the same human stock. While, some racially minded folk may not like to hear this, we have overwhelming scientific evidence that all human beings are Africans in origin, for it is in Africa that the first sign of human life form appeared on this planet. It follows, therefore, that racial identity is not an essence and is not fixed once and for all, except when a racially fragmented society decides that it should be so.

Historically, the rigid separation of humans in racial categories has its origin in white supremacy that followed the enslavement of the Africans and Native Americans by fellow humans between the 15th and the 19th century A.D. Highlighting racial differences among groups was meant to enslave and exploit with impunity and without guilt "the racial other". On the other hand, however, the racial differences are being retrieved by the former oppressed and given new meanings, new destinies and new ways of being in the world, which are meant to empower these former oppressed. The slogans of "race pride" or "black is beautiful" for instance are meant to boast the morale of black folk who came to form a community of destiny. But this community of destiny was born out of their common suffering in the modern age or their consciousness of being marginalized and ostracized.

The racial identity of black folk, appears historically, therefore, as a negative identity, negative in the sense that it was born out of the consciousness of common suffering. But above this negative identity was constructed a positive identity, which is the cultural identity of black folk, the consciousness of their "Africaness" or "Africanity". It is at this point that emerged the so-called black ideologies of identity, among which Black Nationalism, African nationalism, and Pan-Africanism. Then, with a focus on a common culture, the human group called black folk or people of African descent are making use of their history as an instrument of liberation. Political and cultural liberation primarily, but psychological liberation as well.
I argue that it is this understanding of cultural identity in black ideologies of identity, especially in Black Nationalism that fabricates the Identity of Africans. I also argue that there is a concerted effort to undermine the true cause of sectarianism, separatism or exclusiveness in today's multicultural society. For the true cause of separatism or sectarianism is not the consciousness of separate cultural identities; rather it is race, or properly speaking the consciousness of separate racial identities. The ideologies of black identity should not be equated to that of white separatist ideologies. To do justice to the ideologies of black identity one needs to understand that the latter ideologies arose in response to a situation created by white supremacist ideologies and practices, one that was/is hostile to blacks or people African descent. Black ideologies of identity, rather seek remedy from an age-long oppression of people of African descent; they seek to empower people of African descent who have been crushed down by white supremacist ideologies and practices. Ideologies of black identity seek to restore the dignity and self-esteem of people of African descent, as necessary predicaments for their control over their own destiny. Ideologies of black identity emerged not only as a response to white supremacy and European imperialism, but also because the principle of humanism or universal human fellowship championed by European Enlightenment has not been adequately defended by the apostles of the Enlightenment. Furthermore, the practices of some of the apostles of the Enlightenment have rather tended to espouse the racism that was rampant in modern western societies.

It is also important to bear in mind that not all ideologies of black identity advocate separatism. Some do out of desperation. From their exposure to violent practices of white hate groups and white supremacists, the defenders of black separatist ideologies have come to distrust most, if not all white folk. But other exponents of black identity have organized themselves around this perspective in their struggle for political freedom and social advancement without advocating racial separatism. In fact, many of the movements for black liberation or for the promotion of black culture have generally received active support from progressive or radical whites in Europe and America.

From this reading of the African Diaspora's perspective on culture and identity, it is clear that not all movements or ideologies of identity are reactionary, sectarian, separatist, or conservative. The origin of some ideologies of identity stemmed from the failure of the Enlightenment's principle of humanism or universal human fellowship. And the defenders of black identity ideologies are unfortunately left with no alternative than to operate as pressure groups, which is the proper logic of a racially or ethnically fragmented society that is the society in which we live.

It is tantamount then for all those in African and its Diaspora to understand repudiate the domination of racial identification, to emulate the pride of being of African descent. Politics of Identity are phenomenally a struggle of ideology and the siege of the feeble (natives) by the masculine (white supremacy).

Our founders of Black Consciousness chanted Black is Beautiful; this was a reflex and response to the degregatory messages, which had infiltrated the sons and daughters of Africa. President Mbeki recited, ‘I am an African’ to further build the morale and prestige of the African people.
The challenge is to move away from racial inclinations of identity, we need to affirm with pride our Africanism. If somebody asks you who you are, the answer should be simple and unambiguous, I am an African.

The question many would love to ask is, “Who is an African?”. An African is he who is a descendant of Africa, is patriotic to the continent, he who has been socialised into or by one or more African cultures, he who has allegiance to its course, he who seeks to see African develop, solve its own problems and become a world economic hub. Being of African descent is secondary as we have African Americans who do not even know were Africa is yet feel allegiance to it. It should be noted however that one does not have to subscribe to the above mentioned to be an African. Africanism is two pronged: firstly it a state of mind – individual and sensitive, Afrikaners believe themselves to be Africans, born and bred in Africa, knowing no other culture either that that which was created by the Dutch on the fifteenth century. The Nguni’s believe themselves to be African, as they know no other land than Southern Africa, practice no other cultures than that which has filtered form generation-to-generation etc. Secondly it is culturally inclined, it is culture which equips us with weapons to be patriotic, loving and to believe in something.

Politics of identity seek to provide answers to the lost and confused, it is confining, nor is it exclusionary, these politics assist nations to define who they are. We in South African are primarily Africans and secondary South Africans. Then what does South Africanism mean?
1. Citizenship
2. Geographical location
3. Aware of the culture, that which is unique to SA E.G South African Jargon: Ek se, Zola Bud (taxi in Soweto), Apartheid, Nelson Mandela, Boere Wars etc – these make us unique
4. Heritage – Bawbath trees, Robben Island, etc
These are some of the things, which make South Africa, and as such build South Africanism. In Fact, September is Heritage month and we remember all that makes us unique.

By: Mihlali Gqada

September 2005

EELT Program

A proposed model for the heart of the nation (our youth)

Project name: Economic Emancipation in our Life Time - EELT Program

The current societal complexities have been created and transferred to today by the bondages generated from the past – where race was used to control access to the South African productive resources and skills.
The status quo still however reflects that the SA economy excludes the vast majority of its people from ownership of productive assets and the possession of advanced skills.
SA’s economy performs below its potential because of the low level of income earned and generated by the majority of its people.
Warning – unless steps are taken to increase the effective participation of the majority of the economy, the stability and prosperity of the economy in the future maybe undermined to the detriment of the country – irrespective of colour, creed or race.
Therefore in order to promote the achievement of the constitutional right to equality, increase broad-based and effective participation of black people in the economy and to promote a higher growth rate, increased employment and more equitable income distribution it is necessary to ensure the establishment of a broad based economic plan so as to promote the economic unity essential for any nation to protect the common market and promote equal opportunities and access to government services…

The bigger challenge is redirecting the hearts, heads and minds of the youth to see the bigger picture. To ensure their participation in the development of an efficient – economic plan.

The institutionalised EELT framework requires of the youth as the soldiers of the program to cease not only the opportunities created by the democratic dispensation but also those necessitated by the need and desire to increase the potential, moral and capabilities of the youth.

No longer can we seat on the pavement and watch on as the economy of the country denigrates
No longer can we as the youth perpetuate the evils necessary to lead to our doom
No longer do we have the time and energy to fall prey to the fashionable teenage pregnancy cycle and selling our bodies and souls to the highest bidder to my brother no more rape, petit crimes as means to an end – YES life has presented us all with challenges now it presents opportunities to us all.

The EELT seeks to aligned itself with government’s set strategy on re-engineering and turning the tide to allow the heart of the nation opportunities to play a decisive role through youth organs such as the National youth commission and council, ensuring youth financial viability through organs such as Umsobomvu Youth Fund, Mondi and the likes. The EELT Program seeks to assist the youth access what is already there for them, it seeks to cut through the bureaucracy to ensure access to government resources such as Learnerships, Internship Programs, Extended Public Works Programs, Entrepreneurial Skills Acquisition Programs.

We must realise our obligation and responsibility to save the denigrating generation and societal order and seek to cultivate from amongst our ranks leaders of tomorrow.

EELT believes that with energy, a zest for life, ambition and belief in our capabilities, young people can be powerful agents of positive change. Including young people in issues that directly affect them contributes to their self-confidence, allows them to exercise fundamental human rights and leads to better decision-making – wherein they become responsible, respectable citizens. Youth participation is also essential to the development of successful programs and projects. Participation in social groups fosters a feeling of connectedness and belonging helping young people develop a sense of identity.

The EELT Program ladies and gentlemen is two-fold
Firstly – prime to it is the essence of belonging, building ethics, love, patriotism and a sense of pride in being a South Africa – issues of moral regeneration.
Secondly – to build the capacity of this generation through participation, volunteerism and the ultimate attainment of skills based knowledge as well as a good sense of academia.

Projects to be embarked on

Skills Orientation and Re-Orientation
To serve as an information centre for reaching different types of organisation, which are biased, to the youth, e.g. the engineering council of young professionals, drafting of business plans. To analyse the skills needed to certain jobs/duties. To ensure a broad pool of quality graduates through the acquisition of leanerships, internship, extended public works programs, entrepreneurial skills, through ceasing the opportunities of democracy. To further act as a panacea for the needy through the provision of employment, outsourcing bursaries, scholarships and skills acquisition opportunities.

Education
The key to success lies hidden in test book and thesaurus of the world – gone are days wherein when you want hide something from a black man – put it in the text book. We need to empower ourselves academically in order to be able to chant a way forward for our nation, continent and world. We need to find solutions and cures to society crippled disease such as HIV/AID, pre-empt natural disasters such as the recent Tsunamis, we need to save the extinction of our animals through the formation of an educated focused network – were Each One has the duty to Teach One

HIV/AIDS - Volunteering
The economy of SA is dying along with the fall of the most economically active – the youth, as they lose their lives to HIV/AIDS. Ours then is to form strong networks of support, to sufferers both infected and affected by this dreadful disease – like the New York advocacy campaign we need to ensure the generation of ARV’s ethical conduct and be at the fore front of Know Your Status Campaigns as well as volunteer testing,
We need to continue preaching the gospel of No Sex Before Marriage until it play like a broken record in the minds of our young men and women

In Conclusion
We need to generate amongst ourselves the next Mark Shuttleworth, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela and Mother Terressa. From our ranks the model to build and sustain the economy of our nation, continent and world will emanate through committed dedicated individuals who are developmental in thinking and action.

Asked the question – where do you see South Africa in the next 3 decades? – We as the EELT will ululate with pride the vision of being an economic hub for the world, a leader in innovative medicine through our mixed African and westernised discovery, we should be beading our way to the fashion stages of the world. Be at the forefront of poetry through pieces like – I am an Africa – singing our hearts out to the world chanting Molo We.

By: Mihlali Gqada

Presented to: Bill Clinton International Youth Foundation

24 May 2005

Poetry

Love is Love and That is That

I marvel at the wonders of love
Bemused I declare its insolvency
Its confusion and strange shape
It disastrous outlook and glaring pain
Its ability to hypnotise the heart and pause all realistic raptures

I refuse however to be tarnished by its baffling glare
I refuse to counterfeit its rosy slur
Or colour in red its thick pedestal
I will not over inflate the role it plays in my life
Love is not love that altars when alternatives passes by
No it is an unshakeable blotch

Love is unmoveable and unchanging
It is sincere and true to the mainstay and formidable end
It stands firm on shaky ground
Though bruised and saddened it does not change its form
It is not qualified by cheap glares of opportunists
Nor is it susceptible to immoral betrayal tendencies
Love is a faint, tender yet pulsate feeling
It is like a perfectly carved beat, which allows even the hard hearted to smile and give thanks

No amount of gold or authority can fixture love
No amount of soldiers can force it down an enemy
No law can make love submissive
No witchcraft can solidify its intensity

With these words allow me to put on the block my head
For I am in love and no amount of pulling and screaming will make my love for he evaporate
He is to me a reflection of sunrise and the beginning of a new light
He is hope of a life so pure and delightful
He is to me a knight and rapture
His presence put me on ecstasy
I love him and no amount of toyi toying will change the mark I created in my space and heart for him

He is however not perfect
Only he can put a tear of despair on my eyes
Only his love can draw me back as I sometimes doubt
Yes he has hurt me undoubtedly
But the strength of my love has overcome the pain
And now I love once more the man God placed in my ambit to love and nature
Love is love and that is that

Poetry

I am the master of my being

I am the master of my being
I am she queen to all that is I
I am she goddess of the curves that make me a specimen of the motherland
I am a pearl to my nation
Glowing and giving beauty to all who dare come near me
Like the gold in the midst of Kimberly
I am an ever-fixed mark
Like the arch of an uncut diamond
I am a symbol of perfection

I am the master of my being
As I give thanks to my hips as the sway left to right
In a circular motion that tranquillises the man of my land
I give thanks to the arch of my calf as it allows me to stand firm
Keeping my body straight and balanced
I give thanks to my breasts – as they shape my being
Giving wisdom to all who dare look their direction

I am the master of my being
As attentively I listen to the teaching of the wise woman on my land
I look on as they craft beads on the side of the road
As I strive by all to be the best I can be
As I attempt to cross-mountains and struggles thought to be fatal and uncrossable

I am the master of my being
As I craft the do’s and don’ts of how I am going to live my life
As I begin to see where and how to fit myself into the world
As I learn that people are good and others evil
As I contend with the fact that the one I love, may not necessarily love me back
As I give love and get non in return
I learnt that one should be independent
And never rely on another for love
I learnt that it is important to be stern
To get rid of all the rotten potatoes in my life bag

I am the master of my being
As I decide what to do and how to do it
As I step out in heels and decide the path that will lead me to the heavens
As I long to be and go out to do just that

I am the master of my being

Poetry

Afri Qua

Though many believe you are just a homogenous land mass of interlinked chaos
You are to me a home and blissful domicile and abode
Though they refer to you as a hog, a squatter dwelling and dead terrain
To me you are paradise
Though they starve you and watch from their towers your ale malnourishment
You feed my soul with love and humility
Though they cast you off as lifeless ground
To me you are terra firma

As they seek to cow you into capitulation
You stand firm and lionize your rise
It is they who are responsible for the rising tide of Afro-pessimism
Not your evangelic placement
Their offerings are a mere farce
As they despatch their cronies to loot from your rich souls

You spurn their overture
But to no avail
They return promising you grub
Grub that you plough on your fertile soil
Who are they fooling?
They are but chums
Sent to this forkful land by the imp himself
They cause relentless bludgeoning
And make a great deal of noise

How dare they ostracise our leaders and call them lumpents
Shun our own and call them aliens
Whilst they amassed vast profits from elicit deals with the fiend

Africa, pay no attention to the malevolence dictators of the rich world
Mould your own riches from what nature awards you
And be a great land
And their ill attempts will fail abysmally
Their myopia on haughty foot soldiers of liberation will see no tomorrow
Africa let them talk, bark and scream
Allow them to give their punitive arrogant projection of what should be
But cultivate your own laws
Africa’s solutions for Africa’s problems
And let that be your unwavering stand

By: Mihlali Gqada

Candid Chat

A reflective analogue of my trials and tribulations as I contend with being a firm black woman, a young leader and activist, a woman, a friend, a partner, a colleague, a sister and daughter, an aspirator, motivator, a glimpse of exquisiteness which shall turn your head 360 degrees and an heir.

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