Ndlozi’s shot at the rainbow hits the heart of the redness that will follow an EFF win
Much has been written about Mbuyiseni Ndlozi’s tweets after SA won the Rugby World Cup. On Tuesday, as a crowd gathered at OR Tambo airport to welcome the Springboks home, Ndlozi turned his attention to novelistturned-painter and dramatistturned-composer Zakes Mda.
Mda had committed the heinous crime of suggesting that those gathered at the airport — like all those South Africans celebrating the victory — were doing so of their own free will and should not be demeaned by people who wish to “pee on the parade” in the manner of the EFF spokesman’s tweets. Ndlozi replied by invoking the figure of Nongqawuse, the teenage prophet, who in 1856 foretold that if the amaXhosa killed all their cattle the British colonial forces would be driven into the sea. Thousands died in the famine that followed.
The analogy, says Ndlozi, is that South Africans are being sold a dangerous vision of false racial unity, which they follow at their peril: “The people were not stupid, they just followed a FALSE prophet. Sounds familiar? FALSE DREAMS!”
I’m going to give Ndlozi the benefit of the doubt and accept that he knew, when he sent this tweet, about Mda’s novel The
Heart of Redness, a retelling of the story of Nongqawuse and the amaGcaleka people – and which, in an ironic twist, uses this historical episode to frame a contemporary tale about conflict in the Eastern Cape community of Qolorha.
The EFF commissar must have been delayed by important business before he managed to send a follow-up tweet (15 minutes later) in which he mentioned the book, elaborating that the cattle killing stands as a warning against “false and fake euphorias” that “interrupt our fight against colonial powers”.
The alternative explanation is that 15 minutes is enough time for Ndlozi to read a few hastily composed private messages telling him about Mda’s have a quick look at Wikipedia and to save face. Either way, book,’to I m not sure he is ready to embark on a second PhD in literary studies after his doctorate in political science. Because if you tease out the Nongqawuse analogy in light of The Heart of
Redness, the implications in 2019 are less than flattering to the EFF.
The postapartheid scenario in Mda’s novel hinges around “development” (building a casino) in Qolorha, which sees the reinscription of the Believers and Unbelievers division. In the 1850s, the Believers followed Nongqawuse; 150 years later they are the traditionalists, resistant to change, and it is the Unbelievers who follow the prophets of profit.
The issues Mda tackles are among the key concerns in EFF manifestoes: land ownership, income inequality, corporate opportunism, political patronage
– and, above all, the ways in which past injustices continue to haunt the present.
In the wake of the VBS scandal, however, and given the well-documented contradiction between the EFF’s doctrinal claims and the income received and spent by a number of its leaders (not to mention the dubious legality of the means of that income), one has to ask if the Nongqawuse analogy might be applied differently.
While Julius Malema has indicated that the party does not wish to “drive whites to the sea”
– yet – it explicitly positions itself as the heir to anticolonial struggles of the past.
EFF supporters are expected to be “Believers” in a future in which, as Nongqawuse pledged, the cattle will be fatter than they were before the arrival of the colonisers, and there will be enough food for all. It is an appealing vision. But poor South
Africans who lost their savings when VBS collapsed are less likely to fall for the millenarian rhetoric of the EFF.
There is merit in Ndlozi’s scepticism. We should not be swayed by this World Cup win to embrace some rejuvenated version of white-dominated 1995 rainbowism. That would be short-sighted. But here’s the thing: South Africans know better now. Siya Kolisi holding that trophy aloft doesn’t fix anything. We can accept that and still choose to celebrate a sporting accomplishment as a momentary, flawed, but still powerful symbol of progress and hope.
POOR SOUTH AFRICANS WHO LOST THEIR SAVINGS WHEN VBS COLLAPSED ARE LESS LIKELY TO FALL FOR THE EFF’S MILLENARIANISM