Cde Sbu I had the flu last week and couldn't respond in time to the issues you raised in the your interesting email. Several other topical matters of the day arose, such as the sudden death of Rex Nhongo (Gen Solomon Mujuru) in Zimbabwe and what this implies to ZANU-PF, and the continuing saga of the Zuma administration's appointment of Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng as chief justice of the Constitutional Court. I would have preferred to respond earlier, to stimulate the discussions and to consider other aspects of the topic around Africans, Arabs and Europeans. Let's utilise this forum to discuss these matters, without skimming over them or only rehashing the basic document positions. This will clarify our understanding of these vital positions or even identify the contradictions and weaknesses of the philosophical positions we hold. I don't think the definition of African is complex. We in the PAC are African Nationalists and this concept refers to indigenous people of Africa continent wide who share a common geographical area and a common history. The various language groups have evolved from possibly the same roots. Modern technology such as DNA link the indigenous people (from across the various dialects) to the same source, despite the spread in migration over the continent and in the diaspora. There is a bibliography of references to support this stance. Politically, since 1935 the debate that won the day was that every nation state of the modern era would have at its core the indigenous people with the right to self determination and sovereignty protected and respected. Mao Zedong called it the New Democracy. The (Afro-Asian) Bandung Conference endorsed this principle. The United Nations also gave in - with amendments skewed to suit European attitudes to the 'native problem', as they defined it. Jan Smuts of SA had the backing of the US and the Western centres to redefine settler colonies, and legitimise the presence of whites in Southern Africa, Canada, Australia and similar dominions. This is what made the settler colonies in Africa more complex and difficult to resolve. Kenya in East Africa is historically a settler colony - and a strong presence of rich settler communities with land tenure rights still exists today. The ex-Rhodesians are a powerful network of double passport holders with triple citizenships in Australia, SA and the UK. See how they felled Zimbabwe economically when threats to their properties were imminent. SA carries the extra burden and unique position of the presence of Afrikaners who also fought the British, using guerrilla warfare tactics, and they hold emotional attachment to the land and the sea and the fauna and flora, as if it were their own. In the complexities of settler colonialism, the indigenous people have been regarded as victims of circumstances. That is why Sol Plaatje and his cohorts in the Native Congress referred to Africans as "pariahs" in their own land. They sought pity and endeared themselves as trusting Africans to the leadership of white representatives. The early Africanists took the standpoint that the should be no collaboration with the colonials, or even to seek joint ventures with them, if the correct outcomes were needed in Africa. We must not dance with the devil, as WEB du Bois explained. The colonial mentality of some of the leaders in the Congress movement in its evolution over the years led to proposals for a national convention to resolve how to live together peacefully. The Africanists on the other hand insisted that master and slave are not on the same level, and SA is not exceptional to the rest of the continent. Let's face it, CODESA was a national convention that kept the status quo intact. They only brought about the vote to the disenfranchised. The post-1994 dispensation offers basic freedoms and human rights legislation, and a political economy that stands on the new world order of globalisation on the terms laid down by the US and its allies. This is my standpoint on the base and superstructure debate. Sobukwe argued that this unfolding scenario is apartheid multiplied. The national question is avoided as public discourse so that Mandela is not upset, and to appease big business. Their four nation theory of Whites, Blacks, Coloureds and Indians is porous and doomed to widen the gap of inequality and social injustice. Instead of being submissive to the dominance of global and bureaucratic capitalism, the Africanists should in my view turn the disadvantages into advantages. The new dispensation allows us room to pose critical questions without fear, as unflinchingly as Nkrumah and others did, and without currying favour with the Charterists. We must demystify the problems that lead to lack of service delivery, crass opportunism and corruption, and the betrayal of the African Revolution. Africa must be free. The stereotype of Africanists appearing in public discourse as racialistic and antiquated should come to an end, We understand the nature of the beast and understand how to slay it. Jaki
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