Vuyolwethu Toli
Frantz
Fanon, the Algerian theorist of revolution and social change, is dead but
alive: he continues living through his profoundly luminous work that remains
influential to the thinking and actions of many a people across the world even
today.
- Munyaradzi Mawere
Nigel Gibson’s book, offers us a
critical analysis of the post-colonial society. Inspired by Frantz Fanon, the
text is peppered with references to Fanon’s texts such as Black Skin White Masks, and the Wretched
of the earth. Fanon was a philosopher and a liberation thinker who
emphasised the importance of the masses being the deciders of their own fate.
Gibson draws very much from Fanon’s work and his text stresses the importance
of shifting of the geography of reason. Post-colonial South Africa has been an
anti-thesis of the colonial South Africa, whereby the masses played the
decisive role in bringing the pernicious ideology of apartheid to its knees.
This paper will therefore look at the failures of the transition period, and
also argue that these failures led to this current crisis we are currently
experiencing-of the masses of our people being not taken seriously by the
government. The paper will also discuss the notion of ‘shifting the geography
of reason’, to actually start recognising the voices of the marginalised.
Post-colonial South Africa, has witnessed a situation whereby the masses of our people were now told subtly, that their role was now over. During the apartheid years, these were the people who gave impetus to the resistance campaign. However after the political breakthrough, the ANC technocrats took it upon themselves to direct the economic and a political direction of this country without the masses. This for me and also for Gibson was catastrophic, in the sense that the economic policies that followed after the leadership reneged on the promises of the Reconstruction and Development Programme were neo-liberal. One would agree with Gibson (2011:25) when he argues that “Fanon understood that liberation remains incomplete when the colonial or apartheid city is not reorganised but simply taken over…This is one of the pitfalls of a national liberation, where the nationalist elites, seeking economic and social advancement, not only rush for advocated political positions, but also adopt the colonial mentality, leaving the lines of force intact and reproducing urban spaces where the logic and power of money and the political state, not human needs, are sacrosanct and value”.
According to Gibson (2011:220)
“after gaining power, it becomes quite simply a means to control the
inconvenient and unruly masses…it gradually transforms into an intelligence
agency, gathering information and spreading disinformation, eventually using
means to suppress grassroots opposition that threatens it”. Followed with its
decision to adopt a neo-liberal project, the government of the day has
continuously ignored the voices of the poor. The current Premier of Gauteng,
David Makhura has repeatedly said that there was a third-force behind the
service delivery protests in Gauteng. Recently, Gwede Mantashe the Secretary
General of the ruling party, said that there was a foreign third-force behind
the mineworkers strike. These comments shows clearly the stance of the ruling
party towards the masses. Gibson does note in his text that civil society is a
space for critical engagement and for the organisations to put pressure on the
state. But certain NGO movements have adopted the top-down style whereby they
impose policies and programs on the poor, without allowing them to contribute.
One would agree with Gibson (2011) when he postulates that “civil society is
for the bourgeois individuals…the masses are mere objects for state’s welfare
programs”.
The notion of the state that the
people are only fighting for service delivery is very myopic. One would agree
with Kota (2011) when he argues that “we are not only struggling for service
delivery…we are struggling for justice and dignity, equality between men and
women and a democracy that includes and allows poor people to plan their own
communities and their own future”. This basically summarises the gist of
Gibson’s text in general, and the Fanonian liberation philosophy in particular.
Gibson emphasises the importance of the shift in the geography of reason.
Within the state discourse, the masses are seen as mere objects for policy
planning and welfare programmes. This is just an attempt to contain them as
people who do not have the capacity to think, and who should rely on the
nationalist bourgeois for political direction. The opposition parties are also
not an option for the masses because they have so much appetite for power and
that on its own implies that they will not radically breakaway from the
status-quo.
I vehemently agree with Gibson
(2011) when he asserts that “ideas are not the exclusive property of the
intelligentsia, the party, the expert or any elite group…any Fanonian practice
must be rooted in strict adherence to the axiom that everyone can think”. Hence
the emphasis by Gibson on the shift of the geography of reason. The masses
cannot rely on trade union movements such as COSATU because these have become a
lobby group within the ruling party. Gibson also challenges the Gramscian and a
Leninist notion of the vanguard party, because even there it is only a selected
‘intelligentsia’ that is considered to have a monopoly over thinking. Sbu
Zikode in the foreword of Gibson’s (2011) text states that “we have learnt to
draw a clear distinction between those forms of leftism that accept everyone
can think and which are willing to journey with the poor, and those forms of
leftism that think only-middle class activists, usually academics or NGO people
can think and which demand that the poor obey them”. These words by Zikode are
powerful as they stress the importance of the recognition of the poor people’s
capacity to think. The social movements in my opinion need to unite and fight
for what is just and right. The constitution is meaningless and inaccessible to
the poor because it basically talks about equality that is not matched with
justice.
Reference List
Gibson, N. 2011. Fanonian Practices in South Africa: From
Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. UKZN Press: South Africa.
Mawere, M. 2013. The Journal of Pan African Studies: A
critical review of Nigel Gibson’s Fanonian Practices in South Africa.
Vol.6, no, 6.
