BEWARE OF HOTHEADS WHO CRY ‘BLACK PAIN’
THE beginning of the year is the right time to confront the demons that distort our collective image as black people.
Whenever they feel like it, all manner of scoundrels pose as spokespersons for black people. This kind of behaviour is strange and very rare among the Chinese, and indeed among white people.
As you read this column, some hooligans somewhere with a dark skin are busy plotting to cause chaos at South African universities all in the name of black people.
Others, also with a dark skin, have been bought by dodgy businessmen from India to pose as champions against white monopoly capital. They, too, claim to speak for us black people.
What is common about all of these self-appointed “spokespersons” is that they are angry, violent and wrong-headed.
They use noise as an instrument of intimidation to silence rational black voices and to delegitimise those who call for sound discourse about the African condition.
In the process the collective image of black people is being perverted and bastardised. The world now listens to us through the cacophonous noises of questionable characters who claim to represent blacks. Thus we come across as a confused nation.
To lend legitimacy to their hooliganism, the imposters have coined patriotic-sounding platitudes such as “decoloniality” and radical slogans like “fallism”. One word encapsulates all their slogans: anarchy.
Those who have been hired by corrupt Indian foreigners and those who are working to destroy our higher education system claim to represent “black pain”.
As Professor Njabulo Ndebele observes, ‘“black pain” in its current manifestations comes across more as an attribute of victimhood than of agency.
He is right: the hooligans who claim to feel “black pain” have yet to present a model of life that is quintessentially black and perfectly un-white.
They have painted some picture of what they want to see “falling”, but they have articulated no concrete outline of their ideal conception of life in its near-perfect state. Thus they cannot escape the image of a gang of vandals such as the Philistines of Isis who demolish centuries-old works of art for the sake of it. Such people are dangerous.
Good Muslims all over the world have been vocal in denouncing and disassociating themselves from Isis’s madness.
If black people are to reclaim their collective image, they must follow the example of good Muslims. We must denounce the mercenaries of corrupt foreigners as well as those who are making it impossible for our children to acquire education in a peaceful environment.
The progressives among us must take up and lead the struggle against colonial and apartheid injustices so that no inch of space is left for hired black agents who masquerade as protectors of the African agenda.
Those of us who are truly concerned about widening access to higher education and improving the quality of education must stand up and champion such important causes in a responsible manner that leaves no room for hooliganism. We must never allow our emotions to be inflamed by the “plight” of a hooligan who is behind bars for throwing stones at the police. In a democracy, universities are hallowed corridors of learning, not sites of violence.
We know from statistics that black people are far behind all other races with regard to education. We shall never catch up with the rest if we allow a handful of hotheads to destabilise our centres of learning.
If we allow it, rich white people will build their own private universities, or send their children to study abroad. Poor black people will remain, as is the case all over Africa, with rundown universities whose certificates are not worth the paper they are printed on.
The only thing that can extricate black South Africans from poverty and underdevelopment is quality education. When we call for widened access, we must not allow hooligans to nationalise mediocrity by destroying the little that works in our education system.
We must be as vigilant against those who are working to destroy our education system as we must be ruthless against venal elements who try very hard to make us chase shadows while they and their handlers loot public resources.
Be under no illusion: all this will not happen without a fight. Soberminded black people must get out of their comfort zones to defend the destiny of their nation. If not, anarchists will destroy us all.