Political parties will use and abuse blackness to hold onto power, writes Madala Thepa.
Blackness is a key demographic. Everyone wants it for validation. Everyone needs it to survive. It has been the source of ethnographic interest for centuries. Not the depth and soul of blackness but its outer saleable layer, the physical husk, its validating dark gloss patina and the so-called unfettered original mind.
It is the zoological specimen that the world is after - blackness as curio, naked as his spear, raw, untutored and in original form.
Blackness puts corporations in business - politics in the never-ending-hamster-wheel of promises and the business of God safe in faith until the biblical rapture.
The church wants the lion’s share of blackness to survive and control the soul. It has used magic, miracles, murder, lies, distortion and sorcery to capture the soul of blackness.
A local pastor has recently claimed to have ascended the heavens in his physical form and while there given carte blanche to take photographs of the social scene in the firmament for a PR exercise on earth. When he descended he apparently misplaced those photographs.
This was of course a fib.
But to the untutored mind that lives on faith alone, the pastor has magical powers.
Mantshe Masemola in Marishane in Limpopo forced the hand of her parents to kill her because the church had captured her soul by making her to turn against barbaric mores and practices of blackness.
Her soul has been captured by the church, buried in Westminster Abbey in London and immortalised with a statue and deemed a Christian martyr.
Apartheid used the services of Dr Wouter Basson to administer a chemical and biological warfare on blackness in Project Coast and Operation Duel.
Ten million US dollars was budgeted for the blackness project because blackness is curious and valuable - valuable for use and abuse.
Doctor Death as he was called was acquitted for crimes committed on blackness because in the bigger scheme of things blackness was just a lab rat in his hands.
The world needed African art in the late 19th century - something out of the ordinary. They looked into blackness for the material for culture and art.
They stole and plundered in wars such as the Anglo-Zulu War, Isandlwana and the battle of Ulundi - elephant tusks, ivory, Zulu shields, bows, spears, horns and knobkerries and art. The cache was shipped to Britain, exhibited and locked in the museums, auctioned off, some taken by the church and others in private homes.
When Lobengula Khumalo died around 1894, history tells us his magnificent knobkerrie was then given to Cecil Rhodes because “it seemed particularly fitting that this emblem of authority should pass from the grasp of the most powerful black monarch of Africa into the hands of the strongest white ruler who ever dominated the continent”.
To political parties, blackness is ownership. When political parties speak they use the refrain “our people” and “our artists” when they want to sell something. The curious are lugged out when politics want to make a point. When mainstream parties want to poll high at elections they go to the street and not just any street but where blackness pervades. Manifestos claim blackness - the one blacker than the other and yet blackness still suffers the injustices of poverty.
The ANC wants to own blackness and maintain their power base. For almost 22 years they have rejoiced the hearts of blackness with promises - a T-shirt and food parcels during election time and more promises.
In the last two months, even with scant research, we see we have had more than 90 demonstrations in the country. And yet the black folks demonstrating are not given their respect in as far as being responsible for their anger.
We are told there is a third force in the works because blackness is of simple mind and can’t conceive of demonstrating against their party that liberated them.
In the ANC’s Local Government Elections Manifesto, the president made no new promises but rehashed old ones. “The ANC remains the people’s movement. It puts people at the centre of its activities. For this reason, we have involved communities in the process of nominating candidates for the forthcoming 2016 municipal elections,” he said.
“This has helped in choosing the best candidates to be ANC public representatives. We believe that councillors must sign performance agreements. They must also report regularly to communities.”
The DA had intimated they want to take over Gauteng; the crown jewel of the country, through the ticket of blackness and its leader Mmusi Maimane has said jobs are his priority and that the country has 8.9 million jobless folk.
He called this SA’s “supercrisis” and that “job-creating economic growth is our apex priority.”
A comparison of the manifestos underscores there is clear “blue water” between the DA’s approach to local job creation, and those of the ANC and EFF. The key differentiator is the DA focuses on private sector investment and small businesses as the best drivers of growth and new jobs.
By providing the local regulatory and infrastructural environment that will attract and fuel entrepreneurs and existing businesses, big and small alike, the DA in government helps the real job creators - entrepreneurs - to flourish, he wrote in his Bokamoso newsletter.
The EFF election manifesto also makes claims for blackness.
Though the most part of it is off the cuff from its leader, blackness is still the message we get. It’s all rhetoric.
On the fringe you have the Black First Land First agitating for blackness. Promises are not meant to be kept in politics.
While the ruling party might clench their buttocks in the coming elections, as long as they agitate for blackness, they might pay a small naughty price for not delivering - just a slap on the wrist.
Blackness will be used and abused for parties to hold on to power. The political sphere is not changing much but instead produces lively competition between those who claim to be blacker than black.
Opposition seems just theatrical these days. It’s a blackness pantomime. There is nothing in the canon, just powdered dust.
The contestation of blackness is what keeps politics alive, what keeps it going.
This is saying: if blackness is enlightened the industry of rhetoric in politics would crumble.
This has helped in choosing the best candidates to be anc representatives, this will give power to the people.
The Sunday Independent