Mbembe+false+prophet+analogy+faulty,+David+Masondo,+City+Press

City Press, Johannesburg, 10/06/2006 17:04 - (SA)
=Mbembe's false prophet analogy is faulty=


 * DAVID MASONDO**

AFTER reading Professor Achille Mbembe's article "SA's //mprofeti// is leading us on road to national suicide" in City Press, last week, I said to myself: Here is another professor professing a prophecy by analogy.

The prophetic analogy has an interesting rhythm which goes like this: African countries fail to reach a "modern and cosmopolitan society" because of "populist rhetoric" which justifies "self-destruction" or "national suicide" as a way of "salvation".

Jacob Zuma and his supporters are treated like barbarians who are leading the nation to "national suicide", and the cosmopolitan elite possess a prevention and a cure to this imminent suicide.

To sustain his argument, Mbembe deploys his intellectual mechanism of "nativism" to demonstrate how barbaric and uncivilised the prophet's supporters are. Stripped of its euphemism, the concept of nativism ignores the cultural specificity and general colonial experience of the colonised "native".

Mbembe's imperialist cosmopolitan project draws or assimilates the historically oppressed into the mainstream, on the assumption that its values and culture are universally shared.

Those who refuse to be assimilated into the cosmopolitan fold, are despised and labelled subhuman. This was the ideological basis for colonialism which sought to remould Africa in the image of the western bourgeois.

It is these assimilative cosmopolitan ideals which give rise to the Native Club and SA Jewish Board of Deputies. Recognition of cultural difference should not be the basis of exclusion and oppressive practices. There must be equality. Perceived physiological differences shall not form the basis for citizenship.

Mbembe should know that abuse of state power by African elites is one of the ways "self-destruction" was carried out in post-colonial societies. The elite justified "national destruction" in the name of creating a "modern and cosmopolitan society".

The current political situation, personified by Zuma, should be located in class struggle and how the post-1994 state has been used to deal with the working class, revolutionary dissent, competing business interests and leadership that may be sympathetic (real or perceived) to the working class.

These masses have dedicated themselves to fighting the abuse of state power to pursue class interests in the name of building a "modern and cosmopolitan society".

Mbembe is correct that there is dissatisfaction with the pace and direction of the transformation process in South Africa, which has left the masses poor. But he does not explain how the elite have contributed to this reality through their "technocratic" style and policies.

The masses are not craving for a messiah. For the last 12 years they have been struggling against this capitalist modernising project, and in the process earned labels such as being "ultra-left".

By defending the principles enshrined in our constitutional democracy they are now said to be following a "false prophet", as if our people cannot think for themselves.

Out of anger and unfounded panic, the professor suggests that the alliance should break, presumably because the communists, trade unions and the youth leagues are making the ANC and society "uncosmopolitan".

If the professor would study the situation closer, he would see that this is not a trade union/communist/youth league versus ANC issue. The ANC NGC (National General Council) supported the "prophet" when the elite were about to butcher him.


 * From: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/Columnists/0,,186-1695_1949239,00.html**

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