SOUTH AFRICA — We live in an age where the neocolonial status quo and phantom equality are paraded throughout our society.
Especially in everyday life, there is one important demographic that is merely forgotten or utilized atrociously by this system: the African woman.
African women in South Africa have the highest rate of unemployment at 41 percent and are the most vulnerable to violence with over 9,516 cases of sexual assault being opened between the months of April and June alone. Many more remain unreported.
In July 2022, rape was in the headlines again with eight African women reportedly gang raped by more than 20 men in Krugersdorp, a mining city in the West Rand, Gauteng Province.
The women were part of a film crew preparing to make a music video when a group of armed men overtook, robbed, and raped them.
The police dragnet of the area following the rapes led to the arrest of over 80 men, none of whom could be linked to the rapes through DNA.
Instead, 14 of the 80 detained men who were discovered to be in South Africa without documents are now facing deportation.
Incredibly, the focus in the bourgeois media hasn’t been on getting real justice for these women; instead, the struggle has been to get them mental health support from the government. This is the same neocolonial government that sacrifices the needs of the people to colonizers every day.
Months later, little to no help has been given to the victims, with only the words of the police minister stating, “One of the victims was lucky to only have been raped by one man.”
This proves that the legacy of violence in Occupied Azania is so commonplace that one can only hope to have been raped by one person rather than 20.
No safety under colonial domination
The colony of South Africa is as unsafe a place for African women as it has always been. Not because of African men, but because it was born of violence that resulted in the European colonizers having all the power and using violence to maintain that power.
Now our land is ruled by petty bourgeois toy soldiers like the African National Congress who will defend colonial rule, which continues to molest, kill and bury African women.
It’s almost too incredible to believe. This was a heinous attack that made national headlines. However, the reporting and investigation have been paltry at best and now it’s faded into the background along with other astonishing stories that lead nowhere.
This is the settler colony of South Africa. Just like other settler colonies, what happens to and among the colonized, oppressed African masses is of no consequence to the white ruling class and the African petty bourgeoisie whose only interest is to steal the labor of the African poor and working class and the resources that come from that labor.
The white ruling class and African neocolonial puppets still hold all the power. The squabbles of rape and murder among the African poor and working class only reassure that their ownership over the means of production is not in jeopardy.
They do not care about what happens to any of us.
Colonial violence lives on today
Violence has been the norm since the arrival of European colonizers to our land, which changed the social blueprint of African people to this day.
It has gotten to the point where the colonial baby that we call patriarchy encourages and brainwashes African men into inflicting violence against the very women they are meant to build nations with and keep black unity intact.
For all forms of violence against black women, girls, and children to stop, dismantling and eradicating the colonial system is necessary.
It is of the utmost importance that as the African National Women’s Organization (ANWO) in Occupied Azania, we unite and encourage black women to join us in the struggle. I call upon every single comrade within ANWO, from Occupied Azania all the way to the United States of America, to heed the urgent call of uplifting African women who walk and live on this land as well as the blood of those who were killed by the consequences of living in a system that never cared for them.
We can no longer stand still. Now is the time to fight; otherwise, we will be one of the “lucky ones” as declared by the police minister.
Vanguard Up
Uhuru!
Learn more about the African National Women’s Organization at ANWOUhuru.org.
