Share this
Mister Wong
Digg
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Facebook
Wikio
Hear this text
Print
E-mail
Malema is not an African nationalistThe media in South Africa has popularised the false notion that racist demagogues such as Jimmy Manyi, Julius Malema and most recently Eric Miyeni are what they have termed “African nationalists”, all because they preach a gospel of anti-white, anti-Western rhetoric that is somehow popular with South Africa’s unsophisticated majority.
At the risk of being accused of intellectual arrogance, I would like to challenge this widely held mantra, which would be an affront to authentic African nationalists of yesteryear such as Anton Lembede, the founding president of the ANC Youth League and Robert Sobukwe, the founding president of the Pan Africanist Congress.
African nationalism has nothing to do with racially divisive, polarising policies and ideologies as promulgated by the Malemas and Manyis of this world. To quote Robert Sobukwe, a genuine African nationalist if ever there was one, “If your thoughts go skin-deep, your mental development will remain skin-deep. A doctrine of hate can never take people anywhere, it is too exacting. It warps the mind. That is why we preach the doctrine of love – love for Africa.
“We can never do enough for Africa, nor can we love her enough.”
African nationalism is about a passionate love for this continent and a devotion to its well-being and development, which can be found among people of all racial and ethnic groups on the continent.
In fact, race is inconsequential and insignificant to true African nationalists as the following words from Sobukwe will reveal: “When I say Africa for Africans, I have always made clear that by African I mean those of any colour who accept Africa as their home. Colour does not mean anything to me.”
To speak of African nationalism is to speak of a racially inclusive, intellectually sound conviction founded on a common love for and devotion to the continent, not the imbecilic ranting and raving of the likes of Malema and Miyeni as our ill-informed media has led us to believe.
This kind of love and devotion to the continent is so strong that it can bind us together under a common vision and with shared values, despite the fact that we have different cultural persuasions, diverse ethnicities and even contrasting ideologies. It is found equally in peoples as culturally and racially diverse as Zulus and Afrikaners, for example.
African nationalism is about the African, freed of all racial and ethnic bias, making his contribution as part of the human family without being caught up in the parochial, narrow, anti-Western sentiment that characterises the views of Malema and his ilk.
It is about the African finally awakening to the fact that he has a critical role to play in the continued development and evolution of humanity. This is what Sobukwe meant when he said, “We have chosen African nationalism because of its deep human significance, because of its inevitability and necessity to world progress. World civilisation will not be complete until the African has made his full contribution...
“It is necessary for human progress that Africa be fully developed, and the opponents of African nationalism, therefore, are hampering the progress and development not only of Africa, but of the whole world.”
And lastly, African nationalism is defined more by what Africans stand for and aspire to, than what they are against and what they have experienced in the past.
Unlike the Malemas and Manyis of this world whose purported ‘African nationalism’ is characterised by a hatred of the West, a focus on our divided colonial past and anti-white sentiment, genuine African nationalism has a more positive, futuristic outlook that encompasses all those who have a history on this continent, live on this continent and are hopelessly in love with it.
It is best seen in the words of Chief Albert Luthuli, “The task is not finished. South Africa is not yet a home for all her sons and daughters. Such a home we wish to ensure. From the beginning, our history has been one of ascending unities, the breaking of tribal, racial and creedal barriers...
“There remains before us the building of a new land, a land for men who are black, white, brown, from the ruins of the old narrow groups, a synthesis of the rich cultural strains which we have inherited...
“Somewhere ahead there beckons a civilisation, a culture which will take its place in the parade of God’s history, beside other great human syntheses. Chinese, Egyptian, Jewish, European. It will not necessarily be all black: but it will be African.”
This is the African nationalism that Malema, Manyi, Miyeni and our media know nothing about.
Mugabe Ratshikuni
It is only a shame that our media itself is bias. But may you continue to spread the message.
Thank you.