Nigel Gibson. 2011. Fanonian
Practices in South Africa from Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo.
Scottsville, South Africa: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press. 312 pp.
The author employs a Fanonian
theoretical and ideological framework in his penetrating critique of
post-apartheid South Africa in an earnest commitment to the aspirations and
“living politics” of the shack dwellers of South Africa. It is a highly
important work that illustrates the relevance of Fanon’s philosophy of
liberation to the socio-economic and political developments in South Africa
since the ANC formed the country’s first multi-racial democracy in April 1994
to date. In short, “ultimately a Fanonian perspective insists that we view the
sweetness of the South African transition from apartheid as bitter, realised at
the moment when ‘the people find out that the ubiquitous fact that exploitation
can wear a Black face’ (Fanon 1968: 145) and that a Black, too, can be a Boer
(amabhunu amanyama)” (p. 5).
Gibson begins examining “the problem
of [South Africa’s] unfinished liberation” and specifically how Steve Biko’s
philosophical interpretation of Fanon informed the conception, ethos and agenda
of Black Consciousness, formed in 1969. This is the focus of Chapter 1. In the
following chapter, “the specific political economic choices [that] defined and
[were] made during the transition period by the nationalist political elites” (p.
74) are outlined. Such choices contributed to the prevailing systemic
inequalities of South Africa in which black poverty has increased. For the
author, “the shift from the Freedom Charter towards neoliberalism was an
ethical shift away from ideas of the social and public good” (p. 77). This
betrayal by the ANC occurred during the decade of the 1980s as the ANC elite
“outmanoeuvred its opponents on the left” (p. 78), encouraged a climate of
anti-intellectualism, and supported the 1986 slogan of making South Africa
ungovernable.
The forms of spontaneous educative
direct democracy that was spawned in the townships was hijacked by the ANC in
order to create an opening in the negotiations with the white minority elite
and consequently the “the rank and file of the movement became cannon fodder”
(p. 95). Neither did the collapse of the USSR help the unfolding political
developments, for the demise contributed to a continued defensive Stalinism
within the ANC and South African Communist Party (SACP) that became wedded to
the politics of compromise. By the mid-1990s the ANC had fully embraced the
fundamentalism of the market—heralding a shift away from a radical
social-democratic paradigm. Consequently discussions on alternative conceptions
of a future South Africa were silenced.
“The New ‘reality of the
nation’”(the focus of chapter 3) has been the rise of a small but significant
black bourgeoisie through the adoption of the Black Economic Empowerment
program (BEE). Gibson contends the program “is essentially a conservative
project that acts against empowering poor communities by naturalizing poverty
and reinforcing the neoliberal status quo.” (p. 121). The consequences of
neoliberalism are examined and the new forms of spatial apartheid in the
affluent gated communities as well as how the ANC elite has appropriated Biko’s
Black empowerment for narrow class interests that excludes the black majority.
The history of the founding of the
shack dwellers movement—Abahali base Mjondolo—is presented in chapter 4,
entitled “Unfinished Struggles for Freedom.” Here, the author presents a
detailed socio-economic and political context of the struggles of the shack
dwellers and how they draw parallels with former struggles against apartheid
but also their differences. However, the people of the shacks with their
“shack intellectuals” such as S’bu Zikode are demanding not only the right to
houses promised them by Nelson Mandela’s government, but dignity, recognition
and a right for their demands to be fulfilled in the unfinished project of
emancipation. More importantly, Gibson is convinced that their democratic
collectivist methods of solving community and societal problems is the new way
forward for South Africa in adopting creative and people-centered strategies or
what the organization calls a “living politics.” In their boycott of the 2005
municipal elections they sought to remind the ANC that their vote could not be
taken for granted in the slogan: “No Land, No House, No Vote” (p. 156). Gibson claims:
“Just as the struggle against apartheid brought the vote, the shack dwellers’
struggle has challenged the meaning of the vote and given a voice to the
poorest of the poor” (p. 157).
The final chapter, “Xenophobia or a
new humanism?” is a further enunciation of the Fanonian principles and thinking
of Abahali. It is committed to political self-education and eschews the
Manichean thinking of illegal and legal shack settlements, insisting that
regardless of their culture, ethnicity and language, all are entitled to
membership. The latter is made up of Indians, Pondo, Xhosa, young, and old in a
cosmopolitan urban reality. Unquestionably, in challenging the legacies of
post-apartheid South Africa, Abahali offers an inspiring new vision of
inclusive democracy and an alternative politics for not only the southern
region but the rest of Africa.
Ama Biney, Independent Scholar, London
