Their Patience Is Not Endless

By Vusi Moloi © 2009

South Africa’s City Press Newspaper has published a shocking revelation that South Africa’s opposition parties like DA (Democratic Alliance), COPE (Congress of the People) and others have held at least two secrete meetings in which concrete talks were focused on formulating an anti-ANC front designed to unseat the ANC during the 2014 Provincial and National Elections after gaining momentum in the 2011 Local Government Elections. In the article Zille and Shilowa Plot New Anti-ANC Front published on Sunday the City Press is in possession of the minutes of the meetings that took place in Cape Town on July 21 and another that took place on July 7 in an undisclosed location.

A vehement defender of the white establishment, the DA boasts a powerful financial backing and seeks to use COPE as a political instrument of Black mobilization in order to drive a wedge between the ANC and its core base.

An Arranged Polygamist Marriage

The calculation is to foster an arranged marriage in which DA is the polygamist husband and COPE is the chief wife while other smaller parties like UDM (United Democratic Movement) and others are junior wives who get married into such an arrangement for purposes of concocting a witchcraft mix that poses a deadly threat to the administration of President Jacob Zuma.

The charismatic and charming President Zuma was swept to power three months ago by his economically disenfranchised African natives who saw him as a true and loyal vanguard of their grass roots economic aspirations after those whom they had elected to serve their interests jumped ship to form COPE, the new nemesis of the ANC.

To Inflict Backstabbing Wounds

Instead of focusing on working with the Government of the day to expedite delivery of basic services to the historically disadvantaged majority in the spirit of Ubuntu and the rainbow nation, the DA and COPE see the suffering of the people as an opportunistic window to inflict backstabbing wounds on the ruling party in what appears to be a calculated risk.


News24 interviews Helen Zille from News24Video of Youtube

Can this work? Can the financial muscles of a White based DA and a politically disaffected COPE (led by ANC defectors) command the credibility that will sway the African majority in their favour? Both parties collectively enjoy nearly a quarter of the vote estimated at four million votes.


Frost Over The World - Mosiuoa Lekota - Nov 21 - Part 1 - from AlJazeeraEnglish of Youtube

Grassroots Economics

First, let’s understand the situation of the African natives on the ground. When freedom arrived in 1994 which ended brutal apartheid many believed that the time had come to live a better life. For the most part, that time came and went without producing any material change on their lives while their former oppressors continued to enjoy legally protected privileges.

Fifteen years is a very long time to wait for something that never comes. Even rain eventually comes down while the rain clouds of economic emancipation remain an empty threat. Currently more than 50 000 White farmers enjoy an exclusive stranglehold on more than three quarters of the food producing land while many African mothers and their children scratch the dusty ground for food. The extreme suffering from the deplorable grassroots economic conditions, has only served to catapult the economically disenfranchised African majority into action as demonstrated by a variety of political actions on the ground in recent times.

Arrested Development of 1994

The ANC has been consistently working to improve the lives of the people on the ground but has gotten stymied by voodoo economics of contractual agreements that were guaranteed in 1994 and stipulated, among others, that the bureaucrats of the apartheid administration must be retained. In a case where they needed to be removed, they had to be given prohibitively expensive gold parachutes to cushion the blow of forced landing.

The Administration of Mr. Mandela walked that path but backed off after a harsh realization that the billions of dollars in payouts were bankrupting the young democratic country. The regrettable alternative was to let the status quo be and hope that things would change by themselves. As it turned out under the highly skilled and Western trained economist President Thabo Mbeki who ruled between 1999 and 2008 the South African economic milieu had no intrinsic desire to change by itself unless there was someone willing to drive a fundamental change. As a corollary the many promises of 1994 became an arrested development.

Interestingly, the African natives and their leaders psychologically find themselves in a state of arrested development or self-effacing state of inertia where they are too tentative to take what is rightfully theirs. Somehow (through colonial indoctrination using religion and rule of law) they are not aware that if they marched and took what is theirs, the new generation of former colonial powers would understand and morally support those initiatives because the African sons and daughters would be taking what is rightfully theirs. This sentiment has been expressed to this writer by many young Caucasians. It's the old folks who still want to maintain the status quo.

The New Era of Charismatic Msholozi

Now enter the new era of the charismatic Msholozi who pushed aside the less than bold Mbeki and threw his Umshini Wami gauntlet into the fray by vowing to bring about the much needed change which led to his sweeping victory in the last elections.

Some elements of South Africa’s white establishment are uncomfortable about the strong mandate received by President Jacob Zuma and would like to get his wings clipped. To achieve this the white based DA, under the leadership of the strident and confrontational Helen Zille, has embarked on the path of forging an alliance or possibly one political party as previously illustrated with a polygamist marriage in order to work for the demise of the administration of Jacob Zuma.

Their strategy seeks to create many speed bumps on Zuma’s rapid transit of economic change in order to slow down the already slow pace of economic change. By rolling and throwing hurdles at the existing aggravation of grassroots economic conditions (i.e. frustrating delivery services through under spending), the DA’s death wish is to create faults in the core base of the ANC.

Is this possible? Theoretically yes but practically no and here is why.

The Teachings of the African Jungle

The answer lies in the African jungle where the need to survive is the supreme law of self-preservation. An African fly commonly known as drosophila has often times been faced with a situation of attempting to carve out a home in a plant using its rich and diverse nutrients.

Some evil plant that seeks to repel and discourage the drosophila from enjoying the fruits of the African motherland releases toxins to dislodge and even kill the bold insect that ventures far enough to the tasty reserves. The modus operandi of the toxic plant is to keep the tasty and nourishing nutrients away from those who need them the most.

The African fly has seen and counted the casualties of this great struggle including injured and dead bodies of those who have tried and failed to access the food reserves of the plant. What does this African fly do?

One of the things that happens in the African jungle is that if an organism feels threatened by some threat it must modify its behaviour to avoid the source of that threat. In this case the African fly can walk away in order to eke out some inferior lifestyle elsewhere. Well not quite. The African fly does not accept that. The African fly views this antagonistic situation as a special case where avoidance is not an option but rather an opportunity to mobilize its body mechanisms to either eliminate or render the threat useless by developing resistance to it.

He fights back by continuously attacking the plant and developing immunity against its toxins in the process. He gobbles up the toxins and internally converts them into antibodies that help him to defy and prevail over the toxins. If he dies, those who come after him are even stronger and in better shape to take on the toxic plant from a fresh angle. If they persist long enough by sustaining their struggle, the African fly eventually becomes like a god who now enjoys privileged access to the food of the gods otherwise known as ambrosia. Not only has the African drosophila solved the impossibility by upholding the supreme law of self-preservation but has gone on to conquer the whole world.

Why African Fly Follows this Strategy?

The African drosophila felt that it was cornered by lack of access to food reserves of the plant and that behavioural avoidance through brainwashing was not an option but had to face the toxic plant with a view to resisting its killer toxins. As a consequence, the fly has developed natural defense mechanisms that effectively render it immune from the toxicity of the killer plants. In fact, as the plant increases its toxic effects, the African fly gets even better at defending its territory making it a home to raise its babies and the future generation.

The moral of the story is that inventing ways of economic exclusion by making the political environment toxic for those who seek to gain their rightful access to the economy (currently reserved for the white establishment) is not sustainable over the long term. Moreover, the patience of the people is not endless as they agitate and seek ways and means of gaining forcible access to what is otherwise their inalienable right to enjoy the natural wealth of their native land given to them by their foremothers and forefathers.

Conclusion

The DA and COPE have raised the stakes and stoked new fires by opening a new front in the great struggle between those who seek to halt the wheels of economic emancipation vis-à-vis those who have nothing to lose but their crushing chains that perpetuate their extreme suffering. The African fly has demonstrated that determination, consistency, adaptation and boldness can overcome the impossible and make it possible to build a better future for the new generation.

About the Author

A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.