.@MbuyiseniNdlozi a polite comment.
As the Prof said, black SA was completely blindsided by white supremacy during the transition of the 1990s. They didn't know the ecosystem they were dealing with. Yet, yet... if they had studied the Kenyan example closely, they would have seen this coming. Kenya did the same thing: pontificated about sending out the British through armed struggle, but settled into aspiring for the same institutions that had oppressed us. If you read Maloba's analysis of Jomo Kenyatta, you understand that Nelson Mandela was being repurposed to fit that model: the old man who forgave his oppressors and wanted a rainbow nation. Yes, Kenya did that.
Meanwhile, Kenya does the same performance as South Africa: loud pontifications about ethnic culture and decolonizing, when really, we're virtue signaling to Massa that "yes, we Africans don't know anything and need you to give us access to modernity." This tribalism SA has sanitized as a concern with "illegal immigrants" is black S.Africans being sent back to their tribal cocoons, the same ones the British designed for Kenyans, and to which we Kenyans return at every election.
There's nothing original about Jacinta's and that other fellow's dancing around. We do it in Kenya all the time. It's a tragedy that it's presented as original. And that you didn't even discuss it in this conversation, yet it is the elephant in the room.
Whatever South Africa imagines it's doing, Kenya has been there, done that. The fact that South Africa has minerals and industry is a minor detail. Whatever South Africans do with industries, we Kenyans have conservancies. Be it industry or conservancies, they perform the same social function: keeping Africans poor and whites rich.
Irris warrirris.
As I have repeated countless times, while reading vastly sharpens your thoughts, it is important to never allow it to form every single thought in your head to the point of replacing your critical mind, because, first and foremost, you are reading someone else’s thoughts.
The problem with arguments like this is that you risk debating people who treat every ideological text the same way religious folks treat holy books. They turn ideas into dogmas that should never be questioned, simply because they have read so much of it, and sometimes forget that for every writer lies unspoken politics (sometimes individual politics or the politics of the hidden behind the author). In doing so, the ability to pick and choose the parts of these texts relevant to their present realities is eroded.
This is the same reason I’m not religious. I mean, some of these texts, to which religious ones are prime examples, are written in times entirely different from the present times.
For this reason, I’m only available for debate that’s largely shaped by what we can observe as people living in these present times, and not entirely anchored on texts written in ancient times. Yes, we can adopt ideas from those before us, whether Nkrumah, Marx, Senghor or whoever, but only on the condition that these ideas are relevant to our present realities.
Because at the end of the day, those folks didn’t possess two heads. If they could think, we can THINK as well. Everyone is capable of critical thinking, and that's what makes you intelligent.
As I have repeated countless times, while reading vastly sharpens your thoughts, it is important to never allow it to form every single thought in your head to the point of replacing your critical mind, because, first and foremost, you are reading someone else’s thoughts.
The problem with arguments like this is that you risk debating people who treat every ideological text the same way religious folks treat holy books. They turn ideas into dogmas that should never be questioned, simply because they have read so much of it, and sometimes forget that for every writer lies unspoken politics (sometimes individual politics or the politics of the hidden behind the author). In doing so, the ability to pick and choose the parts of these texts relevant to their present realities is eroded.
This is the same reason I’m not religious. I mean, some of these texts, to which religious ones are prime examples, are written in times entirely different from the present times.
For this reason, I’m only available for debate that’s largely shaped by what we can observe as people living in these present times, and not entirely anchored on texts written in ancient times. Yes, we can adopt ideas from those before us, whether Nkrumah, Marx, Senghor or whoever, but only on the condition that these ideas are relevant to our present realities.
Because at the end of the day, those folks didn’t possess two heads. If they could think, we can THINK as well. Everyone is capable of critical thinking, and that's what makes you intelligent.
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