By Festus Mbuva,Boston
Napoleon once said one could do anything with bayonets except sit on them. It’s fairly accurate to conclude the violence in South Africa won’t end well for the young nation.
My father fondly reminisces of the day the apartheid South African troops withdrew from Angola and Namibia, retreating back into mainland South Africa with the mystique of white superiority completely shattered, thanks to the Cuban intervention under Fidel Castro.
To him as he puts it, finally Africans could be people again and a people forever. Finally, our humanity would have a chance to find our destiny under the sun.
The last of the chains was breaking. And under Mandela, fortunes could only rise. Nobody thought of “what” after the aging Mandela.
I say what instead of whom, coz a nation is bigger than individuals.
Would ANC accommodate healthy political competition for the nation’s sake? We now know the answer to that.
Could ANC articulate the future and keep its citizenry zeroed on the dawning bright future? Big nyet! There was a lot to love about South Africa especially for my generation. The Bafana Bafana football team, the springbok rugby team, and Lucky Dube . But as time has come to pass, it is really a fact that time does tell all stories.
African national congress is no different from most post-colonial governments that are riddled with corruption, moribund school of thought and a stagnant imagination. But they are old and cunning when it comes to the blame game and deflection.
After spending fortunes buying weaponry, all sorts of luxuries for themselves and their relatives they find themselves with a disillusioned millennial generation that’s angry but doesn’t know where, who, and how to direct its frustrations.
Enter fellow African immigrants… most of whom have been there since early independence days and provided crucial brainpower.
Some have escaped the turmoil in their countries but all are simply seeking to make a life and find some meaning in this short life.
They control less than 0.001% of the South African economy. So why are they targeted by their brothers and sisters? Simply, they are helpless and unable to defend themselves hence perfect scapegoats. They have no one to speak for them. They have a muzzled presence.
Politicians can stir chaos and get away with it. They’ll continue to do so and seemingly get no pushback from the dysfunctional African Union.
But new leaders who can sway African millennial are starting to make a push into the political scene.
There’s a Bantu proverb that cautions about this way of thought…. if you bent over to assault someone’s backside, you also leave yours open to same fate. I sure hope Ubuntu will prevail and the African continent shall forge forward, and always upright as ever.
