Fanonian practices in South Africa: from Steve Biko to
Abahlali baseMjondolo, by
Nigel Gibson, Durban, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press,
2011, 312 pp., R248
(paperback), ISBN 9781869141974
In Fanonian Practices,
Gibson recreates Fanon’s philosophy of liberation in line with new realities.
He traces Fanonian practices in South Africa from Steve Biko in the 1970s up to
the emergence of Abahlali baseMjondolo in post-apartheid South Africa.
According to Gibson, Biko’s critique of the white liberal idea of integration was
derived in part from Fanon’s notion of Black Consciousness. Fanon’s Black Consciousness
is a critique directed at blacks who internalise white supremacist values and
beliefs. Black Skin White Masks basically maps out Fanon’s Black Consciousness
in detail. According to Gibson, Fanon later developed this critique to explore
how in the post-colonial context the black elite betray the emancipatory goals
of the anti-colonial movement partly because of a ‘desire for a place in the machinery
of colonial/capitalist expropriation’ (61).
Similarly, Biko’s philosophy of Black Consciousness
interrogates the impact of
racial oppression on black people’s psyche. In an essay
entitled ‘Black Souls in White Skins?’, Biko (2004) argues that blacks in South
Africa suffer from an inferiority complex due to being subjected to white
supremacist oppression for 300 years. After studying South Africa’s racist
history, Biko concludes that ‘the most potent weapon in the hands of the
oppressor is the mind of the oppressed’.
Biko further points out that white liberals in apartheid
South Africa were not
immune to the white supremacist ideology that the apartheid
societal institutions
encouraged the white population to adopt. What Biko was
arguing was that the fact that white liberals were opposed to the apartheid
government did not necessarily mean that they had fully divested themselves of
white supremacist ways of relating to black people. According to Gibson, both
Fanon and Biko’s writings show that they regarded white liberals as suffering
from narcissism which compelled them to recognise the slave as human only in as
far as the slave is an extension of the white liberal’s humanity. Gibson argues
that it was partly for this reason that Biko saw white liberalism as a great
threat to post-apartheid liberation. He explains that Biko held this view
because he reasoned that white liberalism would naturally expect postapartheid liberation
to be ‘mapped out on its contours with blacks having to prove themselves in
terms of its values’ (48).
Gibson’s comparative analysis of Fanon and Biko’s
philosophies is useful for
understanding Gibson’s claim that Steve Biko was perhaps the
most significant
Fanonian practitioner. The weakness of Gibson’s project,
however, is that it does not explore the limitations of the psychological
discourse that both Fanon and Biko utilise to discuss the main weaknesses of
this psychological discourse is that it often portrays blacks as damaged and
crippled people. The black elite is said to be relatively more damaged than the
masses, writes Daryl Michael Scott (1997).
It is against this backdrop that Fanon argues that
post-colonial governments and
the black middle class betray the revolution because, among
other things, they want to be white or to occupy the position formerly occupied
by the coloniser. The problem with this narrative is that it does not encourage
us to explore other reasons that may compel post-colonial governments to betray
the emancipatory goals of the anti-colonial movement. History teaches us that
revolutions are often betrayed due to a combination of issues such as the lack
of vision regarding the new institutions we want for a post-colonial society,
as well as a mixture of internal and external forces.
Internal forces refers to sections of society that might be
resistant towards the new regime due to their own selfish interests, while
external forces refers to the global economy and global political climate (see
Majavu 2008). By foregrounding the psychological discourse in our discussion of
the post-colonial society, our debate becomes narrow in scope.
However, to Gibson’s credit, his discussion of the South
African transition from the white supremacist system to the post-apartheid
society overcomes the limitations of the psychological discourse. For instance,
Gibson argues that the reason that the post-apartheid government has failed to
bring about fundamental societal and economic changes in South Africa is partly
due to the anti-apartheid movement’s lack of developing an alternative humanist
political vision. Instead, what the African National Congress (ANC) government
has done is to embrace neoliberal economic policies. Thus, the main
beneficiaries of post-apartheid economic redistribution have been South Africa’s
banks and multinationals, as well as the black elite. It is in this context
that Gibson argues that serious discussion of the socio-economic consequences of
years of apartheid has given way to a neoliberal discourse about how to manage
poor people’s needs and aspirations.
Poor people, on the other hand, have responded by forming
their own social
movements to resist the ANC government’s neoliberal economic
policies. According to Gibson, a post-apartheid social movement that has made a
significant contribution to the creation of spaces for alternative political
thinking is the shack dweller’s movement called Abahlali baseMjondolo.
Additionally, as far as Gibson is concerned, Abahlali’s political struggles
express Fanon’s dialectic. Fanon’s practice of the dialectics is based on two
ideas, explains Gibson. Firstly, Fanon ‘grounds his philosophy of liberation in
the lived revolt and creativity of the damned of the earth, and second, from
this standpoint, he maps out the internal contradictions of national liberation
as it unfolds’ (10).
Similarly, Abahlali subscribes to the notion of ‘living
politics’ an idea that
communicates the fact that the movement’s politics are based
on its daily struggles.
Through this radical praxis, Abahlali has repeatedly exposed
the internal contradictions of the post-apartheid democratic government. For
instance, in April 2006, Abahlali organised 5000 South African shack dwellers
not to celebrate the public holiday called Freedom Day, but instead to mourn
‘Unfreedom Day’. Gibson quotes S’bu Zikode, the Chairperson of Abahlali, to
explain why the movement decided to mourn ‘Unfreedom Day’.
How can ‘we celebrate freedom when we only hear tales of freedom or see people’s lives changed for the better in other parts of the country, but never in our communities?’
asked S’bu Zikode, questioning, in effect, the state of
freedom in the whole country. (153)
Although Gibson explores what the concept of ‘living
politics’ means as far as how Abahlali organises itself, he says very little
about the kind of alternative economic vision the movement subscribes to. S’bu
Zikode also does not say much about the movement’s alternative economic vision
in the preface of the book. It is my view that this is one of the weaknesses of
the concept of ‘living politics’. To fight against neoliberal policies is
absolutely necessary; to develop an alternative economic vision is crucial.
Similarly, Fanon and Biko write insightfully about the
impact of white supremacy
and colonisation on black people’s communities. However, I
am of the view that the challenge facing African activists in the twenty-first
century is how to augment that insight with radical economics that address the
needs of poor people. Gibson’s book does not address this question.
Nevertheless, Gibson’s Fanonian reading of Abahlali baseMjondolo’s politics and
struggles makes this book an important contribution to the field of
post-colonial social movements. Further, Gibson’s novel exploration of the
South African transition adds a new dimension to our understanding of South Africa’s
negotiated political settlement.
References
Biko, Steve. 2004. I Write What I Like. Johannesburg:
Picador Africa.
Majavu, Mandisi. 2008. ‘‘Life after Colonialism.’’ In Real
Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, edited by Chris Spannos, 112129. Oakland, CA:
AK Press.
Scott, Daryl Michael. 1997. Contempt and Pity: Social Policy
and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880-1996. Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press.
Mandisi Majavu
Independent Scholar
PhD Candidate in the Sociology Department
University of Auckland
Email: majavums@gmail.com
