Editors Note: The following essay first appeared in the June, 2014 print edition of The Burning Spear newspaper's "Build to Win – Opinions, Analyses, and Comments" page. Asanda Bakani, the author of this essay, is a young activist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is part of the growing movement to build th African Socialist International throughout the African world.
JOHANESBURG–South Africa is an artificial State created by white power and consolidated in 1910 as a white nationalist settler State.
The territory was brutally seized from Africans by European colonizers. The Dutch led the imperialist effort, imposing colonialism in the 1600s.
The creation of South Africa and the seizure of the land from African people here has been justified by white nationalist scholars asserting, firstly, that the abaQungu people—dubbed as Khoisan or Bushmen by white nationalist historians—are not African.
Secondly, they claim that other “tribes”—referred to conveniently as black Africans by these very same scholars—invaded the “Khoisan” tribe.
The conclusion of this conveniently pro-imperialist story sees the so-called Khoisan being protected by the Europeans and in turn thanking these white saviors by giving them as much land as they wanted.
The same colonial school of thought has many other alternative version, the most popular being that white people traded with African people by giving us mirrors and that we were so dumb-founded by this that we gave them all the land.
As unbelievable as the above stories may sound, South Africa is ideologically resting on these historical myths.
This is white nationalism. It unites the white settlers with the ideology that consolidates the white nation and justifies its actions.
To African people, this is offensive and the fact that we have not dealt with this is evidence of how deep this lie is in the minds of the colonized Africans in Occupied Azania as well as the settlers.
In fact, this school of thought does not see Africans as one people at all. It completely disregards social science and logic and claims that African people are a group of static tribes—i.e. Zulus, Xhosas, etc.
This is possible only because our oppressor continues to define the reality of the oppressed.
The African Socialist International’s Secretary General, Luwezi Kinshasa, when dealing with
the issue of colonialism and tribalism asserts: “tribalism is a defense of imperialism.”
By dividing African people into tribes, the colonizers can justify their actions against African people by claiming to be mediators.
They say, “See, they would be killing each other if we did not arrive in time to civilize them. This is the white man’s burden.”
Although the above theory is given and taught to this day by the Dutch in South Africa, it is a “concocted blue-eyed lie” as the great African hero, Malcolm X, would have remarked.
The people must have the ASI
This is why it is so important to give science to African people. This is why it is so important to build the African Socialist International (ASI) in Occupied Azania.
We must give reasoning and understanding for every human action, from Africa before the holocaust to the arrival of the white man and the reasons for his arrival.
We must explain the history of resistance as a result of this and the fact that all the contradictions we face as African people in Occupied Azania are due to colonialism.
The African Socialist International is the only organization that can reverse the verdict of imperialism by uniting the African masses in South Africa with the rest of the Africans on the continent and overseas.
We do not have to fight alone here in Occupied Azania. We are not South Africans. We are Africans!
We are one people. Our lack of recognition of this has led to Africans struggling in isolation locally against an international system, white power imperialism/capitalism.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by former African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, is a political organization that promises socialism and the return of South Africa to the black masses.
The EFF uses the present neocolonial political process and adheres to the method of voting as the means of acquiring political power.
However, we feel that if the EFF is genuine, then international imperialism will attempt to crush it with all its force to further demoralize the African masses.
Yet whether the EFF meets retaliation from the oppressor or not, it is in our interests to be on the safe side by arming the African working class with revolutionary ideology and organization to take power without the need for the colonially-approved political process.
This is a stance that will secure our people’s well-being and advance our revolutionary struggle to unite Africa and African people as well as oust white power from not only Occupied Azania and Africa, but from the world.
We are strategically based internationally due to our dispersal and therefore we can crush an international system if we are operating internationally.
This is the role of the African Socialist International, and this is why we must build the ASI in Occupied Azania by any means necessary.
Izwe Lethu i Africa!
