Black spiritual counter hegemony

written by Maleke Montshiwagae Mahlomaholo

For sometime now I have been undergoing both spiritual and religious decolonisation process against both the established religious and spiritual hegemony,....
in that process it became clear to me that there is a need for black people to adopt a counter-hegemonic "antagonistic spiritual consciousness" against the established religious hegemony. ..
.........

........ but in that adoption, it seems more appropriate at least based on how I view it, to have an agnostic position as the end goal because these matters can often lead to an unproductive chaos if caution is not taken or if a "believer absolutism" mentality is adopted as seen in certain sectors of black Christians of the self righteousness type, who openly declares that "Jesus is the only way and nothing else"... this is the sort of religious arrogance we need to avoid in order to maintain peace and be tolerant to each other ...... .

))))))))again, the agnostic position should be central((((((((

I found the following words by some researcher quite helpful:

"The decolonization of Africa, of which the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa is a recent example, led to a greater recognition of the wide variety of religions practising on its soil.

When confronted with this plurality, and the corresponding plurality of claims to truth or credibility, believers usually resort to either absolutism or relativism. The absolutist evaluates the religious other in view of criteria which violate the self-understanding of the latter. The religious other is thus being colonized by a hegemony (i.e. an enforced homogeneity) of norms and values.

In an attempt to transcend this hegemonic colonization, the relativist, on the other hand, simply surrenders the evaluation of beliefs and practices to subjective arbitrariness". . . . unquote

therefore as Africans, we can no longer allow the absolutist believer to evaluate our African religions and spiritual matters in accordance with the criteria that violates our own self-understanding, we cannot allow it! . .

because that in turn perpetuates hegemonic colonization of the African religion and spirituality as highlighted above. ..

Bokao jwa thuto ya badimo ba rona

e kwadilwe ke: Maleke Montshiwagae

tota thuto e re e amogetseng ga ese thuto e kgontshang ngwana wa mmala wa sebilo go ka akanya goya ka tsela e badimo ba rona ba neng ba akanya ka yone! . . .

dikakanyo tsa bone di ne di itshetlegile ka tlhago, semoya, modimo le badimo ba bone . ..

ke bua ka thuto e feletseng . . .

Ngaka(Dr) George James mo dikwalong tsa gagwe [Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy] o re lemotsha ka moo badimo ba rona ba neng ba tlhaloganya kamano ya metsi a noka, modimo, badimo, tsa science, tsa semoya le tlhago!.. .

ebile o tlhalosa gore maGerika ba ne ba sa tlhaloganye sentle bokao jwa se se bidiwang "atom" ka moo maAfrika ba neng ba se tlhalositse ka teng mo makwalong a dithuto tsa sedumedi . .

ka moo, science ene ya diega go tswelela pele ka go nne maGerika ba ne ba rile ba re yone "atom" e ka se aroganngwe ele gore dithuto tsa sedumedi tsa maAfrika di ne di ruta gore go se se tshwanetseng sa utulolwa mo go tsone di "atom" le one metsi a dinoka jaaka re tla kaediwa ke badimo ka fa tlase ga maatla a Modimo....

kgang ya tsone tse di tla utululwang mo metsing ke science re di lemoswa ke fa batho ba rona ba bantsho ba romelwa ko metsing a dinoka go ya go thwasa, kana go nna dingaka tsa setso.. . . go nale maatla a leng teng moo. ..

science e simolola go lemoga seo ka gore le se bareng "nuclear fusion" e kgona go ka dirisa dielemente tse di agang metsi go "gamola" matla ao.....

tsotlhe tse, go akaretsa le yone "nuclear fision" di ne di bonwa mo dikwalong tsa se dumedi le semoya!...

ka jalo, a thuto ya badimo ba rona e busediwe ko go rona.....

tswetswe

Structure

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

when being asked what is the practical thing that needs to be done in order to resolve the questions of both the continental and diaspora blacks/Africans in response to the international oppression . .

I often think of the momentary divergence, in fact not divergence but slight extensions of Fanon to Biko thoughts while they remained in agreement. ... in which Fanon went a step further to introduce the idea of "human relationality" in which he says,

"for the current human relations to continue to exist, black people must remain at the bottom of a vertical distribution of human values, because should black people aquire these values, it would result in an explosion of humanity into an incoherent mass"

therefore, what Fanon was highlighting was that, just like in a filal economy where a child is birthed into a particular family whereby he/she does not chose, in other words positioned already at birth. .. black people find themselves in that kind of structural positionality within this political economy, whereby their socio-economic position is already determined by virtue of being black! ...

the human relational question of fixed distribution of human values is essentially governed by whiteness, who can really only strive on the absence of blackness or black being, defined by absence within these values....

it therefore becomes instructive that, the only real way to practically deal with the international questions confronting black people, the white structure or supremacy must collapse in order to do away with this structural positionality issue, not the capital redistribution of the RDP of the anc... because that capital relation must die for the collapse to be meaningful. ..

anything other than this solution becomes a technical discussion similar to gay and women issues, which will take us beyond another five hundred years. ...

Biko however is correct also to say that, it is not enough to only gain economic freedom, because after that we have a slate of white values and culture to dust off! . . .

you can see micro examples of this in the black middle class who have fled to the white suburbs in how they represent the need to dust off white values and culture after economic freedom. ... not to suggest that they have economic freedom because they really only represent the buffer zone and not a real example of ownership of the means of production. ....

Black first. . .

anti-Black progressiveness

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

"black issues can't be lumped into progressive issues, gay issues, women issues, or even a religious issue. Race issues in this country is very specific and we need to address these issues as such.

a solution that does not address black people directly are solutions we should abandon, including this ridiculous progressive argument that West makes. a black person has been the face of global racism, that's all you need to know, this bullshit West is talking about is distraction! . . we need to focus on black politics, not this progressive bullshit". . he said. ..

after I read this comment from a black brother in America. .. I thought to myself that in South Africa we have in respect to Afrophobia, that. ..

suddenly even across the media houses like radio we have the "stop xenophobia for the sake of human dignity" kind of pronouncements!.... tv distributing similar sentiments. ...

soldiers and police being sent into inhuman hostels housing black people under inhuman conditions and I thought what a contradiction. ... who are these humans for whose sake xenophobia needs to stop? ....

we have some kak political diplomatic act of militarizing the black environment that is already in an inhumane condition for black people to leave in via the hostel dwelling. ... black people were assaulted, they had to get out of their crowded rooms only wearing shorts pants into the corridors, doors were kicked down in the middle of the night etc. .... even the minister of defence saying that "those people" must know that the soldiers do not know how to handle people nicely so they must be careful!

the remnants of the global racist and antiblack system of whiteness manifesting as Afrophobia, .... and the black government trying to diplomatically respond by showing the "world" or should I say investors that they can further dehumanise the black soul on tv screens as assurance that Afrophobia is been dealt with! . . remember how they killed black people in marikana to show white capital that they could deal with the black issue?..

we have similar progressive and bullshit technical arguments around how to control Africans into African countries etc. .. but no one speaks black politics of the situation. ... look at how black people are drowning in the Mediterranean sea in search of better life in Europe? ... the very conditions created by global racism they have to flee. ..

I recall the Nigerian Boko Haram abduction of the kids were the whole of the progressive world were calling for the USA to send troops to deal with boko haram and also bring back the girls campaigns mushroomed all across.. that would surely support the militarization of Africa project by the evil US whom are actually the fundamental cause of Africa's problems and thereby giving themselves a better military control over African issues and thereby recapture. .. were are those progressives as we speak?

the solution therefore to Africa questions is not some progressive arguments such as good governance and border controls, but reference to getting rid of global racism and therefore capital whose foundations are the suffering of African as the "other", just like we saw in the inhuman hostel . .

don't tell black people that we are all humans because we are not, otherwise we wouldn't have to have a constitution to tell us that! . .... we are black people and our issues must be dealt as such. ... once that is done we can then come back to the human issue. ..

... ... black first

hard work. . .

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

on concept of working hard

there is a general tendency to encourage the oppressed black masses in their various strata, the oppressed and basically the wretched of the earth who forms the foundational shoulders of economic "prosperity" of white south africa through cheap hard labour .....

this tedious "advice" seems to ignore the hardworking miner in the undergrounds of Africa-"land of London"- in Lonmin and really across the underground land of the rusternburg platinum belt within the Mzansi context. . .

these "advisors" of the need to "work hard" can either be assumed to have a convenient memory loss or "intentional ignorance" by any standards. . . intentional ignorance taking the form of "let's all work together and forget what happened for the benefit of "our" country", it's not to say that the "tedious advisor" is unaware of the already hard work that is taking place underground in rusternburg, no, he/she is aware but hides behind convenient memory loss. ...

he/she conveniently forgets that the very economics he/she seems to be preoccupied with in terms of hard work, hard work is already taking care of it! this is the tendency to rule out the black inhuman underclass because it has been ruled out of an everyday dialogue and memory. ..

these tedious voices typically emanates from the black and white petit-bourgeoisie who self-appoint themselves into positions of neutrality in accordance with the visions of a progressive reactionary tendency, rather than to see the need to free the black oppressed hard worker in the bowels of the earth at Lonmin shafts. .

these petit-bourgeoisie are a bribed force who partly and indirectly share from the petty rewards from the super profits of the racist economic capitalists in a form of a black middle class construction meant to neutralize the true proletariat revolutionary consciousness of the underground hard working black underclass. ..

black kids of these underclass slaves or hard "workers" are encouraged to work hard. .. to work hard for what? ... to be incorporated into the black middle class construction project? ...

or we are told again in the inverse rhetoric, to rather work smart! . well let tell you, global economics were never built on smartness, it was built on genocide, violence and gruesome dehumanisation of oppressed. . the smartness entered the white Anglo Saxon consciousness apparently post world war II, this was in realizing the need to construct future black middle class who will preach the message of working hard and importance of a "good" economy, while erasing the underground wretched of the earth off the daily memory. ...

so who is working hard? .. and who must work hard? ...

the brilliance of Jeremy Seabrook in analysing the etymology of the word "work" reveals disturbing latent violence contained in it as he would put it, at least in as far as its Eurocentric conception is concerned. ..

the underlying questions around the word "work" covers things like, is work a act of human free will for substenence purposes or is it a punitive act as understood in a Eurocentric world whose society like the Pilgrims of Plymouth rocks, as highlighted by J. Sakai, fled Holland because they did not want to work but own the land and slaves who would work for them as they enjoy the materialistic good things of life... and they did exactly that when arriving in America. ..

it therefore becomes scary when even the black petit-bourgeoisie screams hard work to the black community, because given the latent violence contained in the word "work" from a Eurocentric stand point, using "hard work" even doubles the trouble of the black oppressed in favour to the white economy. ..

therefore our task ahead whatever the form it may take, must be to bring back into national memory the knowledge of the existence of the wretched of the earth located under the Lonmin earth of Africa. . . just so that we can refresh our memory of the existence of on-going "hard work". . so that working smart also can be problematized because it implies the support of a black middle construction who represents a negativity in the struggle of the true black proliteriat as it were....

the problematizing of working smart can lead us to see it as meaningless unless the Afrocentric definition of the word work is formulated and used as a guiding word

in this way, the true proletariat revolutionary consciousness can become a focal point, rather than pitty-bourgeoisie revolutionary consciousness that is really concerned with petty self interests and the interests of a "progressive" country!

. .

Afrophobia unmasked

Written by Maleke

the international economic structure and basis are really an anti black/African at best, hence our battle for "inclusion" into it, one can just take as a example the figures of the local Johannesburg stock exchange to get an idea of what I refer to when saying "inclusion", this is irrespective of the disputes around what constitutes black ownership and the numbers depending on who did the research!

In any case, by international here I limit the definition to Europe and America, I deliberately chose to leave the other parts like the Arab world in my definition as that would constitute another topic altogether.

the history of racist capitalism and its foundations traces its foundations and lays upon the blood, sweat, dehumanisation and a complete dismantling programme of an African, both psychologically and physically through brutal and violent methods employed by the white men, with the current methods being the strategic nonviolent ones such as education.

a summary of the white men's history. ... the white men battles for resources amongst themselves in europe because being in a lower class in a white society was almost considerd a curse and individuals were almost treated as outcasts, with the upper class living and enjoying the materialistic life of gambling, drinking etc, hence even Karl Marx's theories being based on generalizations of historic materialism, the upper class was the class that eventually won and owned the land from the internal battles. now that the lower class felt humiliated by this, the started to travel out of europe to sick for a place where they could own land and hence be of upper class themselves!

this land becomes America and the Carrabians, they get there, kill indigenous Indians in millions in a violent land dispossession, they go to Africa to get Africans to work the plantations at free labour through slavery, they also disposes the Africans of their land and make them work the land for free.

the contact of the white men with the African is therefore a genocidal one of extreme forms of violence, only in pursuit of the status of upper class through land ownership! . . this is the nature of the white men in simple terms.

the white men then develops the industries in which the plantation produce by Africans for free would be processed, in these industries worked white laborers while in the plantations worked the dehumanised African.

It is out of this free African labour and selling of African slaves as commodities that maximum profits were derived to establish capitalism as we know it today. It is a known fact today that as soon as labour costs rises then the "market" collapses! . . therefore it makes sense that the racist anti African capitalist market rouse out of free African labour. .

the point here is that, America and Europe are the same white people. . . . . hence the IMF and World Bank as we know them....

in short, the economic structure as we know it today, is based on the materialistic hunger of the white men and his inhumane nature that thrived on the dehumanising programme of the African rendering the African subhuman.

Now, as an example, we have also seen the divide and rule strategies that has damaged Africa at large, we have seen different tribes within the same black nation being divided for example in Sudan where the one part of it was given education while the other part not leading to internal conflicts, Uganda is another example.

South Africa itself has a history of tribal conflicts arising from the migrant labour system, even in the mines today we see Xhosas from eastern cape being taken to work in Marikana mines whereby the local Batswana speaking then feels that the Xhosa "foreigners" are taking "their jobs", as a results of this, black on black conflicts arises! the other example is Nigeria who has large oil reserves where religious conflicts are a problem amongst black people. the whole intent is that Africa must remain unstable in order for Britain and America to continue extracting its minerals to maintain the upper class hunger of the white men.

Therefore, Afrophobia must be extrapolated from divide and rule strategy applied to the African tribes. ... basically African against African from various countries is an expanded version of tribe against tribe.

Therefore what we are witnessing here in Mzansi and Africa at large, can only be permanently routed out through the collapse of white economic supremacy. . You cannot resolve it with controls and security forces because then you are addressing the symptoms and technical issues rather than the core question!

Hellen Zille once refered to the Xhosa Africans fleeing poverty in the eastern cape as foreigners into Cape Town, imagine what could have happened? . .. ... so I agree our leaders must be careful of what they say

but the fundamental issue is clear to me. . Africa must free beyond colonial borders

We cannot as the picture depicts, raise the Bible and pray while the white men brutally attacks mother Africa. ..

a memory of place

On the question of a contention of a memory of place! . . . Written Maleke Montshiwagae

Ngugi wa Thiongo writes that, Waiyaki wa Hinga who resisted and harassed the British colonial forces was captured and buried alive with his head facing the bowels of the earth, which is in opposition to the Gikuyu burial rites' requirements that the body face mount Kenya, the dwelling place of a supreme deity. .

again....Ngugi points out that the same British captured King Hintsa of the Xhosa resistance and decapitated him, taking his head to the British museum!
. . . .

on another account...Professor Sechaba Mahlomaholo notes that the body of Sara Baartman was dissected, literally and physically cut open and piece by piece her brains and genitalia preserved in formaldehyde and kept in museums in order for future generations not to forget how different and diverse we are, with Africans at the bottom rank of civilisation. ... Sara was even mocked in the universities of Europe when still alive. .. Mahlomaholo continues to say that : "For me what is worth noting is how Sara Baartman’s story captures in a nutshell processes of disruption, interruption and dismemberment of the African at the global level, at the continental level, at the national level, at the institutional level, at the interpersonal and ultimately, at the intrapersonal level"..

Mahlomaholo and Ngugi reminds us of important aspects of the concurring of the African, the one aspect being the brains in Sara' instance and memory in the decapitating of Hintsa, both of which were kept in European museums, which is a symbolic representation of the fact that the African mind has been erased and is in possession of Europe! this possession and erasure is captured in practical action in universities across Africa. ..

. . the fact that Sara was also mocked in the universities of Europe with the statues of the likes of Rhodes celebrated and erected in eurocentric universities located in Africa for example, implies the degradation of the African identity and implantation of the European memory which would dominate how we remember. .

the burying of Waiyaki alive against the Gikuyu burial rites symbolically represents the erasure of African culture and spiritual aspects by colonial satanism of British. . that is why universities are referred to as cultural institutions which are there to violently get rid of and bury alive African culture and instill European culture. .

I remember the burying of Rhodes amongst the kings of kings of the Zim Kingdom because he wanted to erase that African Kingdom memory as he believed he was the superior king. ... hence the importance of removing his remains and sending them back to Europe as they continue to haunt Zim....

the one problem area as an example to memory erasure in the South African vote government is the question of education, in which the African child's ability and method of remembering is dominated and in possession of the British museum as is Hintsa's head! .

the African child's brains are completely dissected just like those of Sara, which is indicated in complications arising in the education system with respect to the educating of Africans. .

One finds educated black non-racial liberals analysing education by the very line of thought that created the very same problems without questioning whether the African should be educated in this way and under these dissected conditions? .. shouldn't a reconstruction programme come first and followed by a suitable education to the African mind to resolve the issue? .....

our being as Africans is nonexistent to date. .

it is clear that the African must be reconstructed at all levels of memory. . . the African should not die impoverished prostitute and lonely. ...