the arising #FillUpFNB beneficial critique

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo

Congratulations to Cassper Nyovest for achieving his goal last night, this young man continues to show us in practical terms what can be achieved through dreaming ‘’correctly’’ (depending on what correctness means to each one of us), channelling one’s energy into achieving that dream, and most importantly going against the odds and conventions considering his personal struggles, because everyone of us has got a story to tell. Re a go lebogisa ngwana wa thari e ntsho! And to all those who attended the event, hope you had fun as these ‘’things’’ are necessary to unwind in what has become a very stressful and pressured life we live in nowadays.

Out of each and every major event or public figure, there arises an opportunity to pass a critique, particularly public events and figures. A certain portion of the people that I have observed tend to see the act of critique as negative or even automatically assign negativity to the word critique itself, without recognising that there is constructive critique that is meant to draw progressive lessons from whatever situation, and of course a negative and destructive critique exists as well but mine in this particular instance is aligned with the former. Other people also tend to critique the social critics saying that they (social critics) are doing nothing, but when you define ‘’doing something’’, you actually realise that the act of critique is to do something because you are at pain in mental labour to give birth to thoughts and ideas and essentially attempting to contribute! That is why for example, individuals can develop low self-esteem as a consequence or outcome of negative critique or vice versa, so critique in its nature does produce outcomes and that is proof enough that it does something. This is necessary to understand before anyone skins me alive out of emotional impulses.

Just two weeks back, a chief marketing strategist from the US indicated that their profits from the Black Friday moment, which derives from the American history of thanks giving, were more or less about R 17million for the second last moment, for the previous moment the profits were more or less R 56million and that with the current Black Friday their target profits were between 86 to R 100million. This is just for Black Friday! Days prior to Black Friday we had in SA what the white Afrikaner supremacist establishment termed Black Monday, in which unity amongst the ultra-right and conservative whites was observed in a selective protest against crimes on whites under the guise of ‘’farm murders’’. The interesting thing between these two is that of unity and capital power, whatever the circumstances.

Last night we saw Casper Nyovest hosting #fillUpFNB in which it is reported that he did fill it up based on the number of sit allocations of 68000 vs the number of tickets sold, so whether all of the 68000 physical bodies did go there or not is immaterial really. Now, how does this relate to both Black Monday and Black Friday? It actually indicates the capital power inherent in unity when people come together for a common course, whether to consume, have fun, support someone/something or whatever the case may be. To give you an idea of what we are dealing with here, I saw on some website that the general standing ticket was worth R 300, this gives you R 20,400 000 mil just for #FillUpFNB, it’s not even for 24hrs actually. And yes, I’m aware of the effort that goes into the logistics and all of those things that must be paid etc. so this might not necessarily be the net profit but it gives you indication of the capital involved, it’s a lot of money from people.

What point am getting to with this? In our respective Black communities, we always complain of not enough this or that which is true, particularly the sending of our children to institutions of higher learning due to the obvious material conditions of Black people produced from our economic structure inherited from the past apartheid regime and maintained through the current anc lead government’s ideological flaws, gross incompetence, corruption and poor leadership. But given all of these, the government has assisted where it could given their budget constraints, but this has not been enough to significantly alter the socio-economic in our communities as we continue to cry for free education.

With respect to the Black Monday (unity), Black Friday (capital) and #FillUpFNB (unity + capital) experiences, I want to take the case of Phokwane municipality (Jankempdorp, Ganspan, Hartswater, Pampierstad) as a whole and Jankempdorp in particular as an example to demonstrate what can be achieved in one day through the same principles of unity and capital.

Based on the 2011 census, this municipality has an estimated population of about 63000 people at 0.27% growth rate based on the 2001-2011 window/time period. Of these 63000 people, 81.9% are black people which amounts to 51597 blacks. Jankempdorp itself has a population of about 24220 people. Now, leaving the politics out of this and simply focusing on people, if each person black person in the whole of the municipality gives R 50 just for one day (even those who are not working because they are able to organise it for drinking purposes anyway), R 2.579 800 mil can easily be arrived at with no effort at all, just through unity and understanding.

Now if you take an approximate value for a University of Technology student, which includes monthly allowance of R 2000(food), R 4000(registration), R 24 000(residence for 2years because third year they will go for in-service training and earn something), R 10000(laptop, once off), R2000(books), R3000(photocopies), you get to about R 79 000 for the first year. But because books and laptop are really once off, the following year the amount becomes R 67 0000, the total becomes R 146 000.

So, divide this R 2.579 800 mil by R 146 000, you get 18. Which is the number of student you could take to tertiary from the money derived in one day without any bureaucratic nonsense! For the sake of fairness, you would then divide 18 by 4 so that each area (Pampierstad, Ganspan, Jankempdorp and Hartswater) making up the Phokwane municipality can take at least 4 people to tertiary each.

If the same is done every Saturday of the week for a year and then doing it for 5years you will derive about R 619.164 000 mil (over half a billion), 4241 people could go to tertiary with 1060 people from each area. Jankempdorp has a population of about 24220 people as at 2011, 32% are 0-14 years of age and 6% are over 65+ years old, so if you remove these from 24220 you get 14992 people. This 14992 is made up of all sorts of people, let’s assume 10000 are ready for tertiary because I don’t have the actual number. You could really make a serious change away from politicians, just from local people’s capital and unity for purpose.
These amounts are can become cheaper or expensive depending on whether we take people to TVET’s or classical universities depending on the needs of each local economy, anyway they are approximate as they are.

So, free education for our community children is there in a way as demonstrated by the #FillUpFNB events. These sort of events serves to prompt us to think of what else can be done along the lines of how they manage to mobilize, unite and entertain people while deriving excessive amounts from them. The critique should not necessarily be negative but rather look for opportunities from these events.

Mosia Motobatsi a.k.a Mokubung

How I see Biko today

by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo oa Mosia Motobatsi

the Bible tells us that when Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, they suddenly realized that they were naked! . . . in other words, we are told that sinning brought them to self-realization. One of the world's renowned scientists, Professor Stephen Hawking recently expressed fear that, what if robots through artificial intelligence came to self-realization?.... wouldn't that pose a danger to human existence? .. Hawking warned through questioning.
for me these two conditions metaphorically expresses and resonates in a well known Biko's expression that says that "the most potent weapon at the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed"

within the context of the garden of Eden, Biko's life and BLACK consciousness represents a sin metaphor for the BLACK folk in that it attempts to bring him/her to consciousness or self-realization, it essentially sharpens the mind of the BLACK folk out of the schizophrenia of the garden of Eden. therefore, Biko is a forbidden fruit which reveals the naked "truth"!

in relation to the Stephen Hawking worries, Biko must be seen through BLACK consciousness as a programmer of the BLACK mind (programmer not in static terms of channelling the mind into a singular stereotypical path) whose resultant intelligence poses dangers to the metaphoric human existence represented by the oppressor. This danger appears to be in line with what the Afro pessimists call "the end of the world as we know it", which really means that the oppressed(dehumanised) gains human value similar to those of the oppressor hence collapsing human relations as we see it today with an emergence of a new relations, this situation poses danger to human existence(the oppressor) hence a resistance towards it as it endangers the oppressor's inherent privileges.

Steve Biko rejected certain liberal thoughts, of these, the idea of integration and non-racialism are of interest to me in how they continue to play a destructive role in BLACK affairs as Biko had already warned. Certain reactionaries claim that these are racist views by him, Biko indicates that we should not waste our time with those because ourselves we are aware that we are simply responding to provocation. What he was arguing was that if integration happens between an inferior and superior states, the resultant "superior-inferior-complex" formed out of this type of integration will disadvantage the inferior. however, if integration happens under the condition in which both the inferior and superior states are liberated mentally and through justice to the inferior via land return for example, then the formed complex becomes of benefit to progressive human relations. so in this context, I would conclude that Biko was not against integration per se, he was more worried about the terms and conditions of that integration.

regarding non-racialism, what he proposed was that BLACK people must be able to do things on their own without white supervision and interference. In other words, BLACKs must recognize their capability and do things in how they see them from their perspective so that when they go to a global village or are involved in modern global contexts, they do so as BLACK Africans attempting to position BLACKs as leaders in their own local affairs of land, commodity resources, culture, education, technology, economy etc. these "kind" of Blacks, capable of existing independent of liberal non-racialist cages, would be those capable of questioning why is that the owner of mineral resources has no greater influence in the currency exchange rates to the effect that his/her currency is even of less value as determined by the anti-BLACK capilist economic system? . . .In doing so, the BLACK is then capable of "standing" outside of the confusing dust of liberal non-racialism and asking fundamental questions that do not necessarily impedes "human progress" but attempts to reposition himself/herself as the main player in global affairs of "human progress".

therefore, for me Biko was "progressive" within both the "BLACK arena" and collective human arena, for it was him who spoke of "a march towards a quest for true humanity".

Biko was an existentialist, he recognised questions of concrete material needs of BLACKs in addition to psychological and hence mental health issues.

for me, the death of Steve Biko represents a recognition by the collective oppressor camp, of the dangers posed by the walking out of the schezophrenic state of the garden of Eden by the BLACK folk through the act of coming to consciousness of self, an act that poses a collapse to a metaphoric human existence represented by the oppressor.

Bantu Biko lives ✊. .

#Biko12September

the divisive effects of exceptionalism amongst BLACKs

**the divisive effects of exceptionalism amongst BLACKs **

by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo

when I first came across and really got head to head with the cold ugly face of exceptionalism was in my early days of schooling when I was in Jouberton after I had left Valspan where I was born. I must admit that at that time it didn't mean anything to an untrained, young, unsuspecting and naive mind, it was business as usual and life was going on. In other words, it was built within and incorporated into the DNA of life as it were. So we saw nothing wrong at all!
One example of how this phenomenon manifested was when it was during those athletic seasons when competitions were held within schools and between schools and those that came out tops would proceed to compete at regional levels etc. Because of the apartheid spacial design of segregation, black people competed amongst themselves while white people competed amongst themselves as well.

it was only later at the advent of the so-called model-c schools where black people because of their socio-economic status, could mingle and compete with whites at a school level on athletics. Apart from this socio-economically
driven integration which actually collapsed over the years as whites began to migrate and move out of those schools as they began to feel uncomfortable been shoulder to shoulder with the subalterns, the competition amongst blacks and whites really occurred at higher levels such as regional levels.

From our school there were guys who could really sprint and were really fast. It was out of these guys that one of them, after winning at the intra school competitions made it to regional levels and went toe to toe with his white counterparts. Therefore, it was not long that news began to spread like fire in the school and classrooms that, apart from the fact that this chap did well in the race even though he didn't win the race, he was the only black amongst whites and for that reason it was considered an exceptional achievement indeed! Even when the poor chap came back to school and was paraded around, the teachers made it a point that the whole school got it through their skulls that the champion was the only black there!

And when I think about it now, it's actually scary how normal this was, how the whole school appeared to have internalised this whole "thing", how our presence alone amongst white presence was considered an exceptional performance! . . 😦😦

fast foforward to 2017, the many and various black centered readings by yours truly have served as a trigger to what was happening and what was at play then. Black inferiority complex playing itself out as exceptionalism and fed into the younger children to cement the supremacy of whites against which standards of excellence were to be measured, "if you are the only black amongst whites then there must be something exceptional about you and therefore you are not like the others" type of thing.

From my latest reading of "Die nigger Die", a beautiful autobiography by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin indicates that apart from the mental damages and scars this "exceptionalism" inflicts upon the black community, it actually devides the community.

Jamil writes that "...had I identified with most of the white-minded negroes at school, I wouldn't have been able to relate to brothers on the block. Worse than that, I would've thought that I was better than them.

It's like the whole school busing thing now. Busing Black children to schools outside the Black community is nothing but a move to divide the community. If integration is what's wanted, then bus the whole community.

But to take individuals out of the community is a very dangerous and immoral thing. The "brightest" students are taken, students who can fit into the white man's program best, and they're bused out of the community so they can come back and articulate the white man's program. That splits the community. Parents who sent their children to white schools in the South made a mistake. They injured those students mentally for life".

what comes out of this is that, "exceptionalism" is used to "develop" individual students in accordance with white standards of education, which instills individualistic sense of self-importance instead of a collective orientation of development which would go a long way in resolving the material black conditionality of the community instead of dividing it along the lines of "exceptionalism", which in turn breeds class divisions where blacks see themselves as being different to other blacks.

Prof Mabogo More, a scholar and philosopher by training, relates an event where a fellow white Professor at a conference expressed surprise to the fact that he was indeed a philosophy Professor, the white interlocutor said to Mabogo More that "wow, you must be good and different being a black professor of philosophy", so Prof Mabogo became what somebody elsewhere refered to as an "anthropological curiosity", an ointment of interest to the white window shopper. Also, the Prof was meant to feel "exceptional" and different to other blacks in accordance with white approval. Fortunately the Prof was conscious and aware of these subtle but mentally violent characters of whiteness.

so in all, you are presented as this mysterious alien with super special capabilities simply because you could enter spaces previously reserved for whites only, and that should make you feel good and special from the "others"...

Lessons to be learned are,

blacks must be aware of the subtle yet divisive implications of seeing oneself as an exceptional case within the black community's social constructs.

If our excellence is measured by our mere presence in white establishments which in turn instills individualistic sense of "exceptionalism", we need to be careful of its toxic effects in how we relate with fellow blacks. so to strive for excellence must not equal to striving for a place within whiteness and its heaven or to become a different black

our individual excellence must be seen as something that can contribute to the collective benefit of the community instead of something that affords us imagined social status that further divides us,

.. .. . #BlackUnity ✊.

the Church as a revolutionary vehicle towards BLACK emancipation

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

the church itself became a refugee camp of comfort for the run away slaves who were trapped in the projects, in fact it contributed in providing stomach needs for that immediate time and shelter etc. in this good breath however, bad breath was also exhaled by the church in that it said to the BLACK run away slaves that "you need to accept your condition, for the poor will receive the riches of the kingdom and you must forgive the sinners against you", in the political context, sinners then incorporates the people who classify themselves as whites who happens to be the oppressors of BLACK people. ..

therefore, the effect of this thing is that BLACK people are trapped in perpetual oppression because when they look on the one side, they see the church providing soup and shelter for immediate needs!... and when they look on the other side, they see sinners(whites) who must be forgiven.

the irony is that, the sinners are the very ones who have created the very projects whose negative consequences are dumped into the responsibility bin of the church, the church in itself being a construction and an institutional tool designed to cool the anger of the slave to the effect of not revolting.

so this whole thing becomes a perpetual cycle in which the slave becomes a central object that cannot make up its own mind due to the implications of immediate material needs and questions of eternal riches promised to the poor in some imagined Kingdom and requirements of sinner forgiveness.

... .because churches have been so successful in bringing the runaway slaves together in millions for colonial reasons, they could serve as strategic centers in which both the decolonisation and conscious projects can be carried out! . . . simply because of the numbers and financial resources that are available there as derived from the very slaves anyway . . . speak of using colonial gains to reverse colonialism

.., the one former editor of Pambazuka Press Firoze Manji was quoted in "The thinking Africa Newsletter", which is a newsletter published within the "Political and International Studies" at Rhodes University as saying that "In the struggle for emancipation private organisations such as NGOs role has to be focused on acts of solidarity, not acts of charity. Their role is to amplify the voices of the oppressed, not to speak on their behalf".

therefore, the churche as part of the NGO establishment could be "used" to unify the voices of the wretched of the earth(now that it has managed to bring them together) and to burn a revolutionary flame of the struggle of BLACK people towards a BLACK revolution in response to its opium effects upon my people.

.
.. .BLACK Africans in Haiti prior to a successful Haiti revolution engaged in a Voodoo ritual, they didn't pray or call upon some white Jesus or white God, in this regard I quote the following,

"Various accounts from that night(night of the revolution) describe a tempestuous storm, animal sacrifices, and voodoo deities. During European colonialism and the Haitian revolution Voodoo played a singular role for slaves:

As a religion and a vital spiritual force, it was a source of psychological liberation in that it enabled them to express and reaffirm that self-existence they objectively recognized through their own labor . . . Voodoo further enabled the slaves to break away psychologically from the very real and concrete chains of slavery and to see themselves as independent beings; in short it gave them a sense of human dignity and enabled them to survive.”

therefore, we can derive courage from our fellow Africans, but given the current context and times, we should think of the possibility of locating the struggle within the realities of the church given the numbers of our people organised by the institution as I have mentioned.In that way, we are deriving unity benefits out of a colonial congregation and amalgamation.

. . . sometimes it's possible to find a solution within the problem!

........ . . AFRIKA ✊

Chaos

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae



come to think of it that one actually grew up in a matriarchal setup in which grandma was quite vocal and influential on family affairs. also, there were democratic aspects in which grandpa would ask you what your thoughts were regarding particular issues though there were authoritative elements as well, but these were really meant for good intents within the context of upright upbringing under moral supervision.

one of the interesting and perhaps strange things was how both grandma and grandpa fused Afro cultural/traditional components with religious aspects of the church as we were raised within the Lutheran church. so both of them were neither "cultural purists" nor religious fundamentalists.

out of these kind of fusions, one learnt that life is composed of a chaotic setup within which exists all sorts of things. therefore one must develop the skill to extract useful aspects from each chaos in order to construct one's final analysis and therefore a method of living, instead of a stereotypical singular path.

yesterday I read some philosophy related article in which the author argues and highlights that certain historical or antiquity philosophers such as Islamic philosophers, Christian philosophers, Jewish philosophers etc mingled amongst each other and really extracted ideas from each other without being dismissive of each other. He further highlights that we need to move away from the racist notion of statements such as "western philosophy" as if that philosophy wasn't influenced by North African philosophy via the interaction of the Greeks with Africans for example. he suggests that we rather speak of "global philosophy" whereby we only zoom into local contexts to see what was happening at a particular place in space and time in order to learn of that local thought. the idea here is to demonstrate the chaotic benefits of a world order in which the "whole" is composed of aspects from localised contexts as reflected in how my grandma and grandpa fused things together.

the people looking for an initial orderly setup of things in life are actually the ones causing problems because they are looking for a perfect world which does not exist, the orderly configuration aspects of the universe such as the solar system itself emanates from a chaotic expansion of the universe as the stars continue to collapse and form in the galaxy!

Mahlomaholo also writes that it is out of contradictory processes of death, rot and decay that life is formed such as in the case of a worm for example.

therefore, chaos appears to be a precursor to an orderly world.

so, I am thankful for their insights and understanding of the chaotic structure of this life and how they continue to impact my thinking. . . . .

Women's month ending

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

closing off women's month with the following "amateur" words I put together some time back when I was not feeling well....

"had it not been of my disgruntled mental state I would write at length about black women!...but let me just construct a few sentences in regards to the subject woman,,,..

there will of cause be many opinions, views/perspectives, differences, thoughts, feelings and even imaginations etc. about what would reflect the qualities of a typical good woman in accordance with whatever criteria being imposed# this would merely be a reflection of our different experiences and desires...

in the course of my scientific journey I have learned a great deal about the nature of objective science, in that it[objective science] accepts that there comes a point where nature does not and cannot conform to the laws of science and this is fundamental, so at that point, nature has taken its own cause and therefore it behaves at its own will and cannot be predicted!...this is exactly the analogy I want to relate to all black women, that you ought to establish a cut-off point where you also ''behave'' independent of society's established criteria, whereby you become an unpredictable active actor and subject in the narrative story of a black WOMAN!...

in other words, there shall be no rules or laws by which you are bound in restricting you to unleash your potential...having said this however, I encourage our black sisters to reflect on the classical mirror of indigenous African society to experience the great reflections that will inform them of the critical role played by black women in society in shaping a positive and constructive future based on the humane African principles and culture, where black women were subjects and not objects...

in support of this I quote “Herodotus [Greek philosopher] left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens. He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt, a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents!’’...

our black women need to reflect on Africa based mirrors, which will indeed support and reflect a true and accurate nature of their roles in ancient times which they can model, it remains a fact that Africa had strong matriarchal aspects that respected women as opposed to the twisted stories about the realities of African women in Africa,....

Our women must therefore be assured that we support whatever roles they want to play in society, just like our great black ancestors did!!...............

to finish off, I end with a typical tragic reflection I borrowed elsewhere. .

"So women, if they have access to feminine respectability, must either stay at home (femininity as domestication), to be careful in how they move and appear in public (femininity as constrained mobility) […] the construction of “the fearsome” is also bound up with the authorisation of legitimate spaces: for example, in the construction of the home as safe, ‘appropriate’ forms of femininity become bound up with the reproduction of domestic space".

this must end!

Decolonisation

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

decolonizing education has got nothing to do with graduating in a Zulu attire or any other traditional attire for that matter. .. it's more a fundamental question of curriculum as outlined by the likes of Prof Molefi Kete Asante who once gave a lecture at Unisa in the presence of Thabo Mbeki.

so in as far as graduating in a traditional attire is concerned, it is merely a theatrical or artistic act or expression. ...

Prof Irvan van Sertima warned of the tendency to compare what he termed "peripheral Africans to mainstream Europeans", he was speaking of a situation where Europe prides itself in the civilization peak of the Greeks while Africa as a whole needed to pride itself in the civilization peak exhibited in Egypto-Nubia as opposed to referring to Afrika in terms of the less developed parts of it.. Europe also had (has) less developed parts by the way, so this is not unique to Afrika. ..

.... in this way we should be able to derive the Afro character in the fields of science, astronomy, engineering, architecture, philosophy etc on the basis that they peaked in that geospace of Africa. ... not that they were not developing elsewhere in Africa! ...

.... once we've done this, it is then that we can decide to introduce certain aspects of our cultures such as attire, particularly those revealing attires which in my opinion must be reviewed and redefined, or spared for certain occasions and ceremonies since they appear to be an important part of the metaphysics of the BLACK "being" ...

..it is important to note that the way that these astronomies and engineering etc developed at the peak of African civilization in Egypto-Nubia, they reflect the African culture... so culture was not independent of these developments, ...

so, with all this said, decolonisation of education must form part and parcel of the broader global trends in Technology and Economics. we cannot be left behind while the entire world is "progressing" in these seemingly important aspects because these are existential realities.

.... Dr Lushaba at UCT speaks of knowledge in and of itself ... the decolonisation must focus on knowledge in itself in order to rehumanize BLACK people by including other forms of their knowledge that reflects their "being", as opposed to knowledge of itself which tends to focus on knowledge as a commodity to be consumed and "sold" in the markets! . . .

... Afrika ✊

........ . . . knowledge is power!