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South Africa has failed the dream of Africans

[ Posted On: 2008-06-11 ]

In the prime of our youthful blossom, we were strident youngsters, mouthing revolutionary slogans.

We bandied about Marxist cliches and assorted catcalls in the streets of Nairobi, screaming out for democracy and good governance all over the world. We claimed to speak for anybody and everybody who was the victim of injustice, real or imagined.

Injustice, we believed, must be condemned, regardless of the guise it should attempt to assume and regardless of where it sought to express itself.

And so we shouted against Zionism and Imperialism. We said the two were the same sides of the coin. We screamed for self-determination of the people of Palestine.

We screamed against America's big brother hand in Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Honduras. We spoke out on virtually anything under the sun, whether it was the Contradoras in South America or the war in Afghanistan.

When Moscow invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the world went wild, condemning the Soviet action. For our part, we wondered aloud why the same 'shoutants' never raised a finger when the US invaded Vietnam many years before.

But whatever we condemned and fought against, nothing engaged us, as did the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Azania was out commitment, we said. And Azania was the future free and democratic South African state; the society Nelson Mandela had once spoken of, when he said many years earlier: "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony, with equal opportunities. It is an ideal, which I hope to live for and achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

The South African struggle was the struggle of the African people, wherever they happen to be. It was the struggle of all who cherished a free and democratic society. And so we joined in, peppering whatever grievance – regardless that it was local or not – with calls for the release of Mandela and other heroes of the struggle.

We paraphrased Paul of Tarsus: "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true; 'Apartheid has been swallowed up in victory.' Where, O Apartheid, is your victory? Where, O Apartheid, is your sting?'"

The Kenya Government, for its part clobbered us silly on the streets of Nairobi. But we went on, relentlessly.

When Mzee Moi admitted us to the convocation of the University of Nairobi and melted us into the crowds, we threw away the revolutionary's blue jeans and T-shirts, replacing them with executive suits.

But the suckers of yesteryear stood where the old banana stem had stood. While the Kenya Government may not have overtly come out strongly to identify itself with the struggle against Apartheid, Kenyan youth were part of the struggle.

Constructive engagement

African youth were part of the struggle, from Cape Town to Cairo and from Mogadishu to Abidjan. Azania was our commitment. But against all this, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and caboodle were peddling something they called 'constructive engagement' with racist South Africa. They did everything possible to prolong Apartheid and conversely frustrate the struggle.

But, in the proper order of time, Africa liberated South Africa.

But free South Africa has been most disappointing, barring the first four years when the iconic Nelson Mandela was in charge. Part of the problem has been that characters who lived in the comforts of far away Europe returned home in the early 1990s to disinherit those who remained home of all the benefits of the struggle.

Those who languished on Roben Island, in the police cells and in pathetic exile elsewhere on the continent are today underdogs. The names you heard of in the days of the struggle from Mama Winnie Mandela to Bishop Alan Boesek have vanished. The disinheritance trickled all the way down to minion cadres.

Besides, South Africa remains a white economy. Even basic supervisory jobs on a packing factory floor remain in white hands.

Meanwhile, President Thabo Mbeki and his Government live in denial on this as on everything else – from the link between HIV/Aids to the Zimbabwe miasma. There has been wrong-headed expectation that South Africa could provide leadership in Africa. How could it, when Mbeki replaced Margaret Thatcher and co, in the call for 'constructive engagement' this time with Mugabe's Zimbabwe?

The chickens are coming home to roost with the ongoing xenophobic vote of thanks to those who fought so hard to free South Africa.

Ultimately, present day South Africa risks going down in history as the country that lost the opportunity to lead. Xenophobic South Africa stands where racist South Africa once stood. The politics pulsate with curious court cases in high places. An explosive election lies in wait, next year.

We truly live in the shadows of our South African dream. Can she really lead? Can she even be trusted to host foreigners during the 2010 Fifa football World Cup finals? Fifa might just begin thinking of Plan B before it is too late. Meanwhile, President Mbeki's dream of a South African led African Renaissance must remain a pipe dream.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Barrack Muluka is a publishing editor and media consultant with Mvule Africa Publishers

| View Profile & All Articles By: Barrack Muluka |

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