Bash+government+and+flourish,+Sandile+Memela,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, Letters, 16 May 2006
=Bash government and flourish=

Xolela Mangcu’s column, New blood needed to reconcile ANC populists and technocrats (May 11), refers. The suspicious role occupied by media-created intellectuals such as Mangcu is obscured when critical engagement questioning their prominence and success is dismissed as the voice of a government lapdog.

It is now an open secret that most analysts and commentators embraced by mainstream media flourish simply because they denigrate an African National Congress-led (ANC) black government.

We have to admit that there is no unitary African intellectual tradition in this era of transition. So government intellectuals need to carve out their own space and stubbornly resist approbation of the work of celebrity types such as Mangcu.

We have to shatter the myth that the prerequisite for joining government is removal of one’s thinking cap. In reality, government is full of intellectuals of integrity who have not necessarily sacrificed their independence of thought.

Yes, we have to examine critically the role of “coconut intellectuals” who are intuitively connected to the white, supremacist and racist superstructure whose antigovernment views are published widely to make them enjoy visibility.

Concurrently, many other government intellectuals abandon their zeal for the life of the mind simply because their views are not accommodated by mainstream media whose agenda is to promote a predictable and monotonous view of government.

It is sinister for Mangcu to suggest that I have put the spotlight on “coconut intellectuals” simply to “please my bosses” and to attract attention for its own sake. Instead, I want to believe that President Thabo Mbeki has always asked for black intellectuals to make their voices heard. It is inconceivable that his government would then expect intellectuals to toe the line or just “please their bosses”.

Unfortunately, bonds in so-called black intellectual circles are established not on the basis of respect for a fresh view of the situation but increasingly on banding together to prove one is not a government lapdog, or to show that Mbeki and his cabinet are not smart.

Of course, this situation is compounded by media criteria that militate against those intellectuals who put the aspirations of the African majority first.

In fact, intellectual voices that address issues of racism, wealth monopoly, economic injustice, white hegemony and land ownership are more likely to be isolated.

It is only fair that Mangcu, like everybody else, should be questioned on his agenda when he has become a celebrity merely for being a government basher.


 * Sandile Memela**
 * Spokesperson for Ministry of Arts & Culture**


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A200521**

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