There are so many conceptual flaws around Siphokazi Mbolo and Ashley Nyiko Mabasa’s boring critique of the EFF’s Election Manifesto, yet we still need to provide some political education to the weak arguments made. The first problem is that this article just talks about citizenship, but it does not delve deep into anything else. It does not talk about how an egalitarian society can be built, and whether we have achieved that egalitarian society or not. The writers claim that ‘South Africa is struggling to form a nation-state due to the complex demands of balancing unity and differences among different cultural, ethnic and racial groups’. That is false because the fractured state of South Africa situation is because of both colonial practices and apartheid and that is where the root problem is. In reality, taking the process of reconciliation and wanting to impose it on people has failed.

The writers go on to make a claim that ‘Nelson Mandela highlighted the significance of normalising differences in South Africa if the nation is to create a unified’ and how ‘Mandela conceded with the Freedom Charter by alluding that South Africa belongs to those live it, black and white’. Clearly the Mandela project has failed, and that should be said. The Mandela project was based ‘rainbowism’, and it has failed primarily because of the foundations on which it was laid upon were not firm enough to bring about a unified, purposeful society. In reality, we are still at odds with each other. Now the shortcomings, even of the Freedom Charter deals with the notion that because people are dispossessed, they ‘suddenly’ are able to reconcile, just purely because there’s a democratic state. That is not necessarily the case because the inequalities still persist and also, the process of dispossession is still persistent within society.

The EFF Manifesto refers to the White minority as ‘settlers’ mainly because indeed they are settling. There is no way that one can say that white people are not settlers. Their ideological framework of whiteness is based on settler-mentality, and not based on citizenship. As Fanon has alluded, white people see themselves as the only humans before they see Black people as people. You should remember that black people are dispossessed. Till today, white people have not returned the land. So how can you then say that they are citizens?

Now one might own their allegiance to where they are born but if the derisive and divisive inequalities still persist, one cannot enjoy that particular privilege and then want to still be on the other end. The writer’s proceed to claim that the EFF’s politics are a ‘narrow discourse’. If ours is a narrow discourse then their discourse on the failed ‘Rainbowism’ is even narrower. The question is, has rainbowism solved anything?

Politics of identity are very real, and we should not deny them in South Africa. Issues of gender, etc. have become very real and it has shown, and we need to interrogate them as to what are the basis of that particular politics. We cannot just simply say that because we are a democratic state then suddenly we are going to be totally melted into non-racialism. We need to identify the causes of it and how to deal with it.

The writer’s proceed to make pedestrian arguments, one being that ‘According to Mamdani, a settler is turned into a citizen through constitutional provisions and the formation of a new political community based on democratic and inclusive principles’. In the South African context, even though the settler has been turned into a citizen through constitutional provisions, they are not buying into the political community that is based on inclusivity, and especially within this particular democratic principle. They only play within the political arena to secure their rights, not to advance the society that is there. In other words, they are just securing what they have, and that should be called out.

Moreover, the writer’s quote Mamdani out of context, especially in the Ugandan context. What is critical about what Mamdani always calls for is justice that is not based on Western notions of anything else. It is in instances of a genocide, or say for example in the Rwandan situation – where people still need to come and live with each other. But where people have been dispossessed, it is totally a different story.

Lastly, it is clear that the writers have also turned a blind eye on their own leaders after stating that ‘Frantz Fanon warned us about the shortcomings of the post-colonial national elites – predicting that leaders such as Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu would use race and narrow nationalism to try and rise to power’. It is clear that these writers are driven by quoting work they don’t understand, otherwise they would recognize that the post-colonial national elites are actually the ANC much more than anyone because they are the ones that for the past 25 years have done nothing.

Down with shallow criticisms down!                                                                       

Forward EFF forward!

There was a video which was circulating the internet, of an incident in the University of Free State (UFS), popularly known as the “UFS Litter Video”. In that video members of the UFS EFF Students’ Command were seen taking part in a protest, in support of workers at the university. What sparked wide attention and discussion, was the fact that as the students emptied the dustbin in protest, there was a white student who relentlessly kept on collecting the dirt and returning it into the dustbin. As he did this, the students also persistently emptied the dustbin. A back-and-forth which caught the eyes of many around, hence the taking of the video.

Many in the internet hailed praises for the white student, whilst bashing the students of the EFF Students’ Command, going as far as dragging the EFF national leadership into what they deemed to be “barbaric” and “inhumane” behaviour.

The mainstream media of South Africa, and so-called analysists, ‘experts’ and reporters, typically, had a field day with this incident. This was no surprise as the media in South Africa has an orgasmic response to any small site of possible defame to the image of the EFF. Which is why many opted to obliviously join the bandwagon, and launch all sort of insults at the EFF. No one took the time to ask about the character of the protest, its’ objectives, and the plight of workers in the University of Free State. That said; the critical thinker and reader has a responsibility to look deeper into this frenzy.

It is not a new phenomenon for white students, particularly in historically white tertiary institutions, to mobilize themselves against any protest action which takes place in university spaces. At the height of the struggle for Free Education in very recent history, white students, academics and professors across the country embarked on back-breaking exercises to remove barricades, get into heated confrontations with protesting students, and some even engaging in violent physical encounters. These were often framed as heroic interventions by South African media houses. Many of them patronisingly claimed that they agreed with the “good cause”, but did not agree with the manner in which poor black students raised their concerns. A sentiment which is easily relatable to someone who is enjoying the privileges and comfort of the status quo. 

Anti-Apartheid Black Consciousness Activist and Leader, Steve Buntu Biko, writes of this toffee-nosed rationale of white South Africa which sits at the helm of black oppression and subjugation, whilst connivingly setting the moral standards and rules of how black people should respond to the violence of the system.

He writes, “Not only have they kicked the black but they have also told him how to react to the kick. For a long time the black has been listening with patience to the advice he has been receiving on how best to respond to the kick.” (I Write What I Like)

The pompous response by the white boy to the protest at the University of Free State cannot be looked at in isolation to this racist social and cultural ethic of the South African community at large. It periodically rears its ugly head whenever there is any form of protest in the country, from service delivery related matters to labour issues. You see those that are comfortable and privileged come out in their numbers to speak on the ‘barbarism’ of such protests.

The humiliating conditions which poor black South Africans have to live and work under never trend, until they take their frustrations to the streets. Even then the discussion becomes centred on the means and ways of protest, as opposed to the conditions which led to protests.

It is Biko again who writes, that for the white liberal the problem in South Africa is a peripheral one, which only requires slight changes here and there to be solved. This explains why they cannot speak with the same urgency as the oppressed majority. He stretches the metaphor by stating that liberals view oppression as,”…an eye sore spoiling an otherwise beautiful view. From time to time the liberals make themselves forget about the problem or take their eyes off the eyesore.” This is why it is very easy for white South Africa to even forget about the existence of townships, and the exploitative working conditions of workers until they protest.

The protest becomes an irritation to the smooth operations of white South Africa. Any disturbance to the status quo becomes a violent interruption of the life-support of white privileges and sensibilities. This is why the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) became a serious threat to white comfort and supremacy, and all those who seek to maintain and protect it.

This is when the hypocritical moral standards of white South Africa are most exposed. By calling protests and demonstrations violent and barbaric, it conveniently overlooks the violence and barbarism which is experienced by the poor black majority of South Africa on a daily basis. Being Black is a violent experience in South Africa. Being poor is a violent experience in South Africa. Being an exploited and underpaid worker is a violent experience in South Africa. Being young and unemployed is a violent experience in South Africa. Therefore, to elevate any resistance to this violent status quo as the epitome and height of violence is dishonest and phoney.

The incident at the University of Free State, was nothing but a performative expression of white toffee-nosed sensibilities and their constant fight to preserve the dominance of their moral standards, cultural and social ethic over society. What these type of incidents reveal to us is that privileged white South Africans are willing to put their bodies on the line to maintain the status quo, even if it means the subjugation of the black majority.