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Continuity in the post-1994 era

by Andile Mngxitama, from Pambazuka: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55639

South Africa is on the verge of going to its fourth national election since 1994.[1] The socio-political changes which have occurred in the country for past 15 years point to a dramatic failure to realise the dream of liberation as developed by Steve Biko. Here I develop an argument for why Biko, like so many, would not be voting.

BIKO'S CONCEPTION OF LIBERATION

Biko's idea of liberation is fundamentally anti-racist and anti-capitalist, as opposed to being anti-racialist, non-racialist and intergrationist - these latter conceptions of change naturally lead to the de-racialisation of capitalism and thereby the legitimation of the white supremacist political, economic and social existence created over the last 350 years in South Africa. Biko's framing of the fundamental contradiction in South Africa as one of white racism emanates from his conception of capitalism as it emerged in the country as an inherently racist project. In his words then:

'[T]he color question in South African politics was originally introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between black and whites so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel free to give moral justification for the obvious exploitation that pricked even hardest of white consciences.'

For Biko this initial subjugation of black people for economic reason has over time created the 'white power structure'. This is to mean white racism, while based on the historical dispossession and oppression of blacks, has come to assume a position of relative autonomy, where whiteness normalises itself as a power dynamic based on a superiority complex linked to skin colour on the one hand and the supposed inferiority of blacks on the other. The actual existing circumstances of blacks (historically and systematically created) actually reinforce the reality of this white superiority and black denigration. These propositions are not merely mental states, they are material, and determine life chances and privileges. To be white is to be human as to be black is to be subhuman. Biko sharply makes the point that '[t]he racism we meet doesn't only exist on an individual basis; it is institutionalized to make it look like the South African way of life.'

It must be said that in fact the normalisation of racism is ingrained in the psyches of both whites (the beneficiaries) and blacks (the victims). It was on the recognition of this reality that Biko and his comrades argued for the 'conscientisation' of the blacks, because black people at the time 'often looked like they have given up the struggle'. Key to the conscietisation process was always the totality of black awareness and pride for the purpose of struggle. For Biko, 'Liberation is of paramount importance in the concept of Black Consciousness, for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage'.[2]

By Richard Pithouse
From http://sacsis.org.za/site/News/detail.asp?iChannel=1&nChannel=News&iCat=250&iData=258.

Poor people’s movements like the Landless People’s Movement in Johannesburg, the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town and Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban and Cape Town, along with a host of smaller community organisations around the country, have announced their refusal to vote in the coming election.

This is not a new phenomenon. In the 2004 national elections, activists in the Landless People’s Movement were beaten, arrested and tortured after they announced an election boycott under the slogan ‘No Land! No Vote!’. In the 2006 local government elections, Abahlali baseMjondolo joined the boycott and changed its slogan to ‘No Land! No House! No Vote!’ They were also subjected to all kinds of unlawful and violent state repression.