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Liberation, Civil Rights & Democracy
The Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial Lecture
N Barney Pityana
Principal and Vice Chancellor
University of South Africa
Pretoria, South Africa.
22 January 2004
"...Movements for justice throughout the world and
throughout history always begin with and are sustained by a moral
statement, a value idea. ... It often begins with the notion that all
human beings are equal regardless of race or colour and that the
achievement of equality was in itself the pursuit of justice. But for
such a notion to become sustainable one must have worked with a
theological tradition, a
philosophical construct, a
historical interpretation and a social
and cultural context. Movements are
sustained when there are enough people
whose imagination is captivated by a vision that lifts them beyond
wherever they may be and which encourages them to have a better idea of
themselves and their history into what they might or could become. In
other words an expansive view of history
and a range of possibilities are critical to capture the imagination.
... Values are the essential principles of life without which life would
be without meaning – things would fall apart, and the centre cannot
hold. They are agents of social cohesion.... revolutions succeed
best and their objectives achieved and sustained most where the moral
legitimacy resides not just in terms of the end-product but also in the
manner of the execution of the struggle...if intellectuals do not
hold the flag of analysis high, it is not likely that others will. And
if an analytic understanding of the real historical choices are not at
the forefront of our reasoning, our moral choices will be defective, and
above all our political strength will be undermined.... "
.... Today, we mark the commemoration of the late
Dr Martin
Luther King, Jr. We recall his gigantic contribution as a leader of a
movement dedicated to the transformation of American society. He became, by
dint of fortune and by mark of history, the ‘conscience’ of the nation, a
moral force that called this nation back to its founding values. In doing
so, of course, he reinterpreted American history and stretched the
imagination of many of his time to a meaning beyond anything that might have
been foreseeable to the founding fathers of America. He understood, and he
lived the American dream. He was not dismissive of it but re-created it in
order for it to become the rallying cry for the values that a modern nation
that saw itself as the first among many could embrace.
But I am here today not because Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was just an
American. He was a world figure. He awakened Americans to their world
responsibilities and the struggle for civil rights in the United States to
the anti-colonial movement the world over; and that of the African Americans
to the liberation struggles and the liberation movement in Africa. He was
not simply overawed by walking in the footsteps of the late
Chief Albert
Luthuli when
he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he embraced the
honour. In his sermon at Memphis, Tennessee on 3 April 1968, the night
before he was assassinated, he talks about “the masses of the people rising
up” and among this invisible cord that bound people who were in the struggle
for freedom and justice, he recalled the plight of the victims of apartheid
in Johannesburg, South Africa. He declared that “injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere” and in a sense became the pioneer of the
anti-apartheid movement in the United States.
Perhaps, James M Washington captures best Martin Luther King
Jr’s international dimension when he observes
"He was indeed a world historical figure. He captured the
spotlight of history precisely at the right time, and responded with a
blueprint for what America could become if it trusted its democratic
legacy...(1991:xix)"
I begin this address with these remarks on Martin Luther
King Jr because I readily acknowledge the inspiration of one person in
life-changing, history-making events. He had to take on the mantle of being
the personification of the civil rights struggle because, in his own words,
“... people cannot devote themselves to a great
cause without finding someone who becomes the personfication of the
cause.”
South Africans know this only too well.
The presumed consensus about American values, the common consciousness
crafted by the pioneers of America’s constitutional system, was shattered
when Martin Luther King, Jr demonstrated just how hollow they always were.
He fully understood, in my view, that the negro was never a participant in
the creation of the new America. The ‘consensus’ collapsed under King’s
close scrutiny.
As Washington puts it,
“consensus faded when the nation sought to unpack the
contents of its national moral creed” (1991;xviii).
King appealed to the same values that may have been intended
to exclude their inclusive meaning. He sought to give effect to the moral
code that gave legitimacy to the American Civil War and the decolonisation
of the New World. For King, the promise of liberty enshrined in the
Constitution was universal. The point of the civil rights movement was to
enforce fidelity to those ideals.
I omitted at the beginning to mention that the March to Washington and the
“I have a Dream...” Speech invoked memories of
some great moments in our own history. Notably, the moment Nelson Mandela
walked out of prison accompanied by Winnie Mandela - was itself a moment of
freedom for all South Africans, black and white, who had suffered for so
long under apartheid and white minority rule.
Nelson
Mandela himself personifies that cry for freedom that generations of
South Africans had prayed for and many sacrificed. Leadership that drives
the aspirations of the common people, is one which, according to Cornel
West, is democratic. Democratic in the sense that it is accountable and
draws its legitimacy from popular support.
In order to assist me to reflect critically on two towering figures of the
civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle for liberation
in South Africa, I wish to make some comments on the values underlying the
struggle and how these values have shaped the character of South Africa
today and the place of our country in Africa and the world .
Values in the Struggle
Movements for justice throughout the world and throughout
history always begin with and are sustained by a moral statement, a value
idea. It is an idea I prefer to find its source in a particular
understanding of human nature. It often begins with the notion that all
human beings are equal regardless of race or colour and that the achievement
of equality was in itself the pursuit of justice. But for such a notion to
become sustainable one must have worked with a theological tradition, a
philosophical construct, a historical interpretation and a social and
cultural context. Movements are sustained when there are enough people whose
imagination is captivated by a vision that lifts them beyond wherever they
may be and which encourages them to have a better idea of themselves and
their history into what they might or could become. In other words an
expansive view of history and a range of possibilities are critical to
capture the imagination. But values are more than just a strategy for
evangelisation of the unsuspecting into a mass movement. Values are the
essential principles of life without which life would be without meaning –
things would fall apart, and the centre cannot hold. They are agents of
social cohesion. Values make social interaction possible and human behaviour
predictable.
In his Speech from the Dock in 1964 ahead of what was generally expected
would be a death sentence, Nelson Mandela invoked memories from his rural
childhood, in his traditional homestead, and among the village elders. He
recalled the pride with which the elders told of the history of his people,
the stories of gallantry and courage, the culture of a proud people and the
responsibility this inculcated in him. He ended the address with this
ringing call
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to the
struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination,
and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal
of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in
harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to
live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal which I am
prepared to die."
The rest, of course, is history. He went on to serve 27
years in prison. If he had been martyred, the Speech for the Dock would have
inspired the people of South Africa to even greater heroic and sacrificial
dedication to the eradication of the evil of apartheid. It gave them a sense
of dignity and worth. It gave moral legitimacy to the demands for justice
and it rallied generations of South Africans to a persistent denunciation of
apartheid until it collapsed. It is a moral landscape, a sweep of history,
equalled perhaps only by Vaclev Havel in his lifetime and in their
martyrdom, surpassed, by Mahatma Gandhi
and Martin Luther King, Jr.
It came naturally to Martin Luther King, Jr to declare that civil rights was
“a ‘moral’ issue as old as the Scriptures and as clear as the American
Constitution” (Cone:199;82), two authoritative guides which, paradoxically,
he shared with the segregationists of his time. For him , however, they were
liberating sources to which America was to be held accountable.
Values are what remains long after the struggle is won, the building blocks
for the new creation. The values that formed the bedrock of the struggle
become the reference point that both judges and corrects when power is being
abused, or when corruption is rife.
The Intellectual Tradition
Social movements are given shape, form, and direction by their thinkers. It
is the thinkers who articulate the “original idea”, the “big thought”. Often
it is not because it is original in the sense that nobody has ever thought
about it or that is was never capable of such thought. A movement grabs an
idea and elevates it. So that it does not become a mere passing phase, a
fashionable idea, it brings to bear the analytical instincts, connects those
captivated by it and their thinking with a series of scattered ideas, pulls
them together.
Every modern idea, draws from previous ideas and what makes
it sound like it is a new idea is that it is generated from a series of
previous notions which may never have been conceptualised together in the
past in the same way. It is important to understand that by ‘intellectual’
we do not just mean a thinker or the educated elite. Warren French suggests
that if ‘intellectual’ is to serve as a valuable classifying tool, it must
be reserved “for those who have the gift of abstracting, who are able to
perceive the invisible patterns that permeate the disorder of superficial
appearances” (Bigsby:1969;132).
In all struggles for justice and liberation, the intellectual foundation is
often suggested by the ideas that see possibilities beyond the norm,
thinking outside the box, as it were; to interrogate received wisdom, reveal
its shortcomings, and to appeal to a greater idea to overcome it.
Criticising a version of WEB du Bois’s notion of a ‘talented tenth’ Cornel
West noted du Bois’ misplaced optimism and his dependence on the capacity of
the educated and cultured classes to lead and guide the masses. He charges
that du Bois was naive in his social analysis but he later observes that
“Victorian social criticism contains elements indispensable to future
critical thought about freedom and democracy in the twenty-first century.
Most important, it elevates the role of public intellectuals who put forward
overarching visions and broad analyses based on a keen sense of history and
a subtle grasp of the way the world is going at present...” (Appiah &
Gates:1999;1970).
Perhaps one needs to explain that there is a role for
intellectuals, and social critics not just to become part and parcel of
the organised force for change. At times it is as independent
commentators and critical voices that the analytical foresight of public
intellectuals can bring to bear on a movement. James Baldwin, for
example, says that in order to be a writer “you have to demand the
impossible. And I know I am demanding the impossible. It has to be – but
I also know it has to be done...” (Bigsby:1969;100). It is that capacity
to demand “the impossible” confident that it can be done, that the
courage and insight into the human condition which intellectuals
command, that social movements can draw inspiration from. Nonetheless,
movements thrive from those within them who can engage the world of
ideas and not be threatened by it, and learn from it, correct mistakes
and enhance the original ideas in the process.
The intellectual content of social movements is affected by
younger radicals within and without the movement, scholars and critics and
by writers and other cultural activists. They are the ones who spin ideas,
read the signs of the times, understand human nature and interpret history.
A leader then captures those ideas, gives them form and shape and elevates
them beyond what they may have been originally intended to serve. Hence the
leadership is never in despair, or pessimistic but is confident of victory
and the imperatives for change but ensures that sufficient numbers share
that belief to form a surging movement for change.
Taking these general principles and applying them to the civil rights
movement and to the liberation struggle in South Africa, one observes that
the confidence and the optimism of the leaders was critical. They ooze the
power of the message.
Martin Luther King, Jr stated confidently that “I know
that this is a righteous cause and that by being connected to it I am
connected with a transcendent value of right” (Cone:1991;70). The moral
claims of the struggle for justice were always uppermost as King often
quoted the poem “I must be measured by my soul/The mind is the standard of
the man.” To the victims of racism and segregation, King appealed to the
sense of innate humanity that African Americans believed of themselves:
“We
must no longer allow our physical bondage to enslave our minds. He who feels
that he is nobody eventually becomes nobody. But he who feels that he is
somebody, even though humiliated by external servitude, achieves a sense of
selfhood and dignity that nothing in all the world can take away”
(Cone:1991;72).
In King, the civil rights movement had one who dared to
dream the impossible and engaged the resources of American history and
Constitution and galvanised a people who had suffered for too long to
believe that the future held less promise than the past and the present.
The liberation movement in South Africa was built first and foremost by
African intellectuals, IP ka Seme was a lawyer at the turn of the century
who trained at Columbia University in the United States and was influenced
by the early civil rights movement.
John Langalibalele Dube (popularly known
as ‘uMafukuzela’), the first President of the ANC, educationist, journalist
and pastor also had very strong links with the American church. It has been
noted that there were seminal American influences on the men who later
became the founding fathers of the ANC. They were invariably American
trained, maintained strong links with the American thought and drew
inspiration from African American intellectuals like WEB du Bois and Marcus
Garvey, from the black church and the American Constitution. Booker T
Washington and the Tuskegee Institute, many studied at Lincoln University
and the fledgling black independent church movement, the Ethiopian churches,
was connected to the black church in the United States. Evidence of this
thinking can be judged from IP ka Seme’s famous address which won him first
prize in the Curtis Medal Oration at Columbia University in 1906. He said
"The brighter day is rising upon Africa... Yes, regeneration of Africa
belongs to this new and powerful period. By this term regeneration I wish to
be understood to mean the entrance into a new life embracing the diverse
phases of a higher, complex existence. The basic factor which assures their
regeneration resides in the awakened race consciousness..." (Meli:1988;25).
ANC leadership often drew from the civil rights movement in the United
States for inspiration and when Nelson Mandela addressed the NAACP
Convention in 1993, he repeatedly referred to “our common struggle”. But in
looking forward he restated the purpose of the struggle:
The historic challenge facing us all is to ensure that
as a result of those elections (the first democratic elections in 1994),
democracy wins, non-racialism emerges triumphant, nonsexism becomes the
victor, and the people take power into their hands. (1991:263)
African intellectuals were at the vanguard of the movement.
In their statements the liberation forces often maintained that no black
person would of their own accord be complicit in their own oppression and
that the policy was predicated on the lack of regard for the capacity of the
African people to think. The formulation of policy was very methodical,
rhetoric restrained but the determination to succeed was strong. The end
result of the struggle was always kept in focus, as Oliver Tambo so often
stated, as in this address to the United Nations General Assembly in 1976:
"We will create a South Africa in which the doors of learning and of culture
shall be open to all. We shall have a South Africa in which the young of our
country shall have access to the best that humankind has produced, in which
they shall be taught to love their people of all races, to defend the
equality of the people, to honour creative labour, to uphold the oneness of
mankind and to hate untruth, obscurantism, immorality and avarice..."
(1977:204).
It is widely acknowledged that the
Freedom Charter was the brainchild of the
legendary Prof Z.K. Matthews, one time Principal of the University College of
Fort Hare. It reflects the best intellectual efforts of the thinkers among
the oppressed, of an all-embracing vision and an ethical statement of the
movement.
Contemporary Challenges
The year 2004 is the one in which both our societies
commemorate two watershed events: 40 years of the passage of the civil
rights legislation in the United States and 10 years of democracy in South
Africa marking the end of legislated apartheid and white minority rule. In a
sense these events mark the realisation of the dreams of our leaders and of
our people. In truth they are mere beacons on a journey, marking a forward
movement and no turning back. They also mark a period where the democratic
ideals, ethical foundations and leadership was to be tested. The
intellectual claims of the movement and its epistemology will be under
critique.
When Brown I overthrew Plessy in the US Supreme Court and enshrined the
principle that separation could never be equal, it began the process of
dismantling the Jim Crow laws and declared them unconstitutional. It is
significant that many of the cases that enshrined the principles of equality
were tested in admission policies to schools and universities. Brown II
signalled a court that was gradualist and which sought to defer to local
cultures and traditions. It was precisely those traditions that Brown I
challenged and declared unconstitutional. In the words of Patricia Sullivan,
Brown II was “a licence to resist.” It is interesting to note that for the
next ten years the civil rights movement consisted of an interplay between
mass protests, court actions and gradual legislative enactment culminating
in the passing of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Civil Rights Act, 1964 declared discrimination and racial segregation in
public amenities, facilities and employment unconstitutional and authorised
the Attorney General to take federal action to enforce integration. In the
face of a relenting legal system, Martin Luther King, Jr called attention to
the limits of such action.
“A court order can only declare rights” he argued. “It
cannot deliver them. Only when people themselves begin to act are the
rights which are on paper given life-blood. Only when a people in mass
begin to act are they able to make all these laws real and meaningful”
(Cone:1999;70).
And so the momentum for change was unstoppable. From
desegregation of schools, enforcement of integration by busing of pupils to
schools, and by challenging discriminatory admission policies in schools,
attention turned to the fact that many black voters were prevented from
exercising their constitutional rights.
The Voting Rights Act was passed into law in August 1965 providing for
federal supervision of voter registration practices and protecting the right
of American citizens to cast their vote. The calls to bridge the racial
divide: a nation of two societies – one black, one white, separate and
unequal, could not remain unheeded. Perhaps, turning
W.E.B du Bois’ idiom on
its head, America itself was experiencing the problem of double
consciousness:
“... the two-ness – an American, a negro; two souls, two
thoughts, two unreconcilied strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body,
whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder...” (1994:2).
Democratic South Africa has unashamedly and demonstrably positioned itself
within the broad canvas of “African renaissance.” It is an ideal captured by
Thabo Mbeki’s “I am an African...” speech during the debate to mark the
adoption of the new Constitution in May 1996. Incidentally, these are words
that began IP ka Seme’s Columbia University Speech in 1906.
Mahmood Mamdani
characterises this renaisance as an “intellectual rebirth, a reawakening of
the mind” (Makgoba:1999;129). Mbeki himself often appeals to the African
intelligentia world-wide to become the ‘vital instruments’ in ensuring the
transformation the movement desires and seeks to create. The African
renaissance has been acknowledged to be the driving force behind the renewal
of African unity, in the establishment of the African Union (2000) and the
NEPAD initiative.
The Constitutive Act of the African Union, 2000 seeks to establish a
cohesion of values, principles and objectives within Africa, so that with a
common African identity, African states can take their place among the
nations of the world with pride and engage other nations on their own terms
and craft the process towards a better world.
In order to enhance the
dignity of the African people, in order to uphold the sovereignty of African
nations, and in order to increase the prestige of African leaders in world
forums, the African Union has adopted under its aegis, the programme called
A New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). NEPAD seeks to present a
common front in dealing with the developed world, in engaging globalisation
and brotherhood, in confronting the problems of the Continent, and in
adopting common strategies that seek to achieve common development goals,
mutual support and correction in promoting good governance, peace and
prosperity and in confronting corruption and maladministration.
The African Peer Review Mechanism is Africa’s own system of mutual
accountability. It is a voluntary system by those states that believe that
partnership with like-minded states in pursuit of common goals will
strengthen national cohesion and benefit from best practices. The primary
purpose of the APRM, is to promote democracy and sound economic practices to
the benefit of the people of the country. To date about 16 countries have
voluntarily acceded to this mechanism thereby submitting themselves to
self-monitoring and to be accountable to their peers. So far NEPAD is fast
becoming a model for African partnership in development
I have deliberately started our assessment of the extent to which the ideals
of the struggle are finding expression in the policies and practices of the
democratic South Africa. I wanted to demonstrate that, as I understand it, a
country’s foreign policy is only a manifestation of its domestic
imperatives. If the first principle of the American Constitution is liberty,
for South Africa it is equality. This for obvious reasons. The South African
political system was, since inception, unashamedly racist, in intent and in
practice. The European settler community’s designs were conquests and
exclusion and hardly ever partnership and sharing of the resources.
The racist ideology of white supremacy was widely
appropriated to give effect to policies of plunder and repression. There was
hardly any counter in law and the constitution. The courts were there merely
to give effect to the will of the white racist minority legislature in which
the black majority had no place. In that system black people were
conceptually invisible and nameless. Liberation becomes the determination to
assert being and dignity and presence which spells one’s humanity.
Human consciousness to use
James Baldwin’s famous idiom,
“it’s not a matter of acceptance or tolerance. We’ve got to sit down and
rebuild this house.” (Bigsby:1969;101). West asserts that “The most
effective and enduring black responses to invisibility and namelessness are
those forms of individual and collective black resistance predicated on a
deep and abiding black love” (1999;1976). What he appears to call love is
commitment to people and a sacrificial giving of oneself, prophetic thought
and action.
Social and political organisation at home is guided by the Constitution
(1996). The Preamble states that the purpose of the Constitution is to “Lay
the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is
based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by
law...” In this the Constitution makes a connection between the peoples’
aspirations which formed the basis of the liberation struggle and the new
South Africa. In another respect also, the new Constitution makes that
connection. Section 1 of the Constitution asserts that South Africa is
unitary, democratic republic founded on the values of “human dignity, the
achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms...”
Once again consistency with the ethical claims of the liberation struggle is
easy to detect.
Even more has been done in South Africa to advance the democratic
credentials of the system. Personal liberties and individual ideals are
allowed full expression as per a justiciable Bill of Rights, described as
“the cornerstone of democracy.” The judicial system is independent. Within a
short 10 years the judiciary, especially the Constitutional Court, has
established the integrity of the courts and in groundbreaking judgments in
matters like the death penalty, various forms of equality, the limits of
state power etc has interpreted the Constitution, laid the foundations for
an enduring system of constitutionalism and set the tone for an open and
democratic society based on the ideals of human dignity, equality and
freedom.
The judiciary is assisted by a variety of independent
constitutional bodies like the Human Rights Commission, the Electoral
Commission and others whose mission is to bring the immediacy of
constitutional protection to the people. The South African Constitution
represents not only the antithesis of the apartheid past of our country but
also a shared vision of all the people of the country whatever their past
role in whatever political system then prevailed.
It is now ten years since the democratic system, and the rights-based
constitutional order were adopted. The harder question is to determine how
well South Africa has done not only in giving effect to the Constitution but
also in living up to the promises of the liberation struggle. Inevitably
comparisons abound as we approach the 10th anniversary of democracy in our
country. Survey after survey has found that a growing number of South
Africans are more confident about the future under a democratic government
than they were before. South Africa acknowledges that the lives of many
people have vastly improved in the 10 years of democracy. Whereas when the
democratic government assumed office in 1994 the economic outlook was very
poor, today South Africa is acknowledged to have a very stable economy with
an improving competitive index and better social cohesion. Inflation, for
example, has been managed down from 15% to 6%. A sterling effort has been
made to reduce dependency on debt. Quality of life judged by the number of
people with access to education, homeownership, clean water, electricity,
transport system etc, more and more South Africans have enjoyed a better
life.
And yet serious social problems persist. Unemployment remains a challenge to
government. Programmes and schemes have been introduced to create employment
and employability, especially among young South Africans. South Africa
remains an unequal society with the gap between the rich and the poor
increasing. Although income levels have increased, there are still too many
South Africans, unemployed and living in dire poverty. The state, however,
has introduced programmes of state assistance for the poor especially child
allowance, disability and free health care for children and mothers with
young children.
But, there are certain areas of life where South Africa does not score so
well. First, South Africans always refer to the levels of crime, the fact
that too many people live in fear often in their homes or when they are
about their legitimate business. Many of the crimes are violent and brutal
like murder, rape, car-jacking, and corruption. It must however be
acknowledged that although the levels of crime are unacceptably high, much
has been done to improve policing, to put more resources into crime
prevention, to improve of the system of administration of justice and, to
address the problem of impunity.
Second, HIV/AIDS has remained a very
divisive issue in public life. The government has not dealt with this matter
with as much urgency as it deserved but public education, availability of
condoms, efforts to limit new infections and the spread of the disease,
research and, now, a commitment to treatment, have cost the government about
R7,5bn in this year’s budget. A very ambitious plan to roll out universal
treatment for those living with HIV/AIDs was announced recently. The impact
of HIV/AIDS on society is staggering. A growing number of young people,
economically active, the pall of death in many communities, robs South
Africa of her vibrancy and the economy of its much needed economic actors.
It has been said that the cost of apartheid on the people of South Africa is
incalculable and the dividends of democracy are elusive.
Third, racial inequality and discrimination prevails. South Africans today
speak less directly about racism than they would have done under apartheid.
This is not because there is any less racism in society. It is because the
language of society is tolerance, human rights and reconciliation. It is
also because systems have been put in place to investigate and prevent
racism. The duty to create a society free of racism remains. Justice and
equality across the race divide remain a challenge.
Frantz Fanon commenting on post-independence
Algeria, observes that “independence has brought moral compensation to
colonised peoples, and has established their dignity.” He goes on to say,
“But they have not yet had time to elaborate a society, or to build up and
affirm values...” (1977:81). In seeking to understand our society, one is
tempted to seek recourse to Fanon. When one contemplates the violence and
other pathologies prevalent in our societies, one despairs. As a matter of
fact, 300 years of a system of deliberate alienation of whole peoples is not
going to wear away consciousness that easily. Violence is a response of
despair and of hopelessness to those who have not yet reclaimed their
humanity. Fanon, moreover points out that the process of nation-building and
of entrenching values becomes the responsibility of those who consider
themselves part of the new society, whose values affirm their humanity and
whose dignity is assured.
This is hard to make out because one always believed that the struggle
itself was instilling particular values and morality on those of us who
engaged in the struggle. It is however also the case that much was done in
the name of the struggle that has legitimised forms of living and
entitlements that today generate the negative instincts manifest in some
behaviours.
We cannot completely absolve ourselves from responsibility. We
cannot make a renewed effort to build a new society and assert new values.
West (1999:1980) could be referring to some of the ghetto mentality
prevalent in some of our townships when he says that we must understand that
the multiple forms of social pathologies are forms of societal decay and
reminders that liberation is not an event but progressive. A more complex
understanding points to the fact that in the midst of despair and
alienations, therein lies hope of a better future.
Democracy, it may be
surmised, is not a state of being but a way of growing into being.
Martin Luther King, Jr predicted in 1964 “that the United States might have
a negro President within 25 years...” He confessed that he was “optimistic
about the future” (Cone:1999;87). In more contemporary assessments of
American life, analysts like James Cone boldly assert that America “is a
nightmare for the poor of every race.” Both West and Cone believe that
central to the failure to fulfill the dream Martin Luther King, Jr asserted
so confidently, is the centrality of the race question. It is not without
significance to an interested observer that even today Americans are still
debating matters one thought had been settled by Brown. The US Courts are
still being confronted with suits challenging or seeking clarification on
the application of affirmative action in admissions to universities. In
Texas, California and Michigan, in the face of an assault on affirmative
action by the courts instigated by white interest groups, the lack of
representation of black and Hispanic students at universities has led to
universities adopting special measures to attract more minority students.
The debate about affirmative action or percentage plans, I am aware, accepts
that higher education can best be enriched by ensuring that the learning
environment is “as diverse as this nation” (Judge Powell in Bakke). One
would have thought that in circumstances where, as some reports suggest,
colleges are experiencing a dwindling enrolment of black males as too many
are getting caught up in problems like drugs or populate the prisons of this
nation, a compensatory measure to encourage and advance those from that
social stratum who wish to undertake academic studies or skills training,
becomes a public policy imperative. Otherwise King’s optimistic prediction
of 40 years ago will simply become another unfulfilled dream.
Conclusion
My thesis in this address has been that revolutions succeed
best and their objectives achieved and sustained most where the moral
legitimacy resides not just in terms of the end-product but also in the
manner of the execution of the struggle. So conceived, revolutions benefit
from transformational leadership, and the values underlying the movement are
defensible and lasting. I have also stated, however, that the values of the
movement often judge it when it seeks to implement its programme.
Two thoughts spring to mind as to what makes for the building of the new
society that Frantz Fanon refers to. The first must surely be the capacity
of the nation to conduct its public debates. In such debates the nation
examines its shortcomings and strengths, surveys the infinite variety of
views and opinions and treats everyone with due respect, exercising
tolerance and promoting meaningful communication. When, however, public
discourse degenerates into “petty namecalling, fingerpointing, with little
room for mutual respect and empathetic exchange” (West:1980) then the nation
is bound to lose its soul. Such a nation is most unfree because “freedom is
first and foremost an inner recognition of self-respect...” (Cone:317).
Making the link between human well-being as freedom and a moral capacity,
Elena Mustakova-Possardt, develops the principle originally mortalised by
Brazilian popular educator
Paulo Freire,
critical consciousness or in
Portuguese, conscientizadora. In English that became translated as
conscientization. Mustakova-Possardt redefines “critical consciousness” as
“a ‘way of being’ that fully integrates the heart and the mind and so
creates in the individual a sense of highly principled morality,
philosophical expansion, and historical and global vision that represents
the acme of human consciousness” (2003). The connection between moral
consciousness, moral being and moral action cannot be lost sight of. In fact
it establishes wholeness of being. In this one can feel the resonance of
Jurgen Habermas’ “communicative action”.
The moral fibre of the liberation struggle gets stretched to breaking point
when leaders appear to be involved in corruption as the recent Arms
Procurement Investigation suggests. If one suggests that African Americans
have lost their sense of passion for that which is right, South Africans
post-liberation have become very individualist, self-centred and selfish.
When that happens then we can no longer occupy the moral high-ground that
served as such a powerful indictment on apartheid and the white minority
system.
A communicative environment is critical if the nation will be able to take
stock of itself. And here, the nation’s critical thinkers, scholars and
intelligensia – the cultural actors and creative artists, the historians and
analysts, present the moral character of the nation and appeal to the
nation’s own moral self-understanding. In a recent essay
Immanuel
Wallerstein debates the
role of intellectuals in societies in transition and
he emphasises how crucial intellectuals are at a time when nations are
rethinking themselves. He goes on to say
"..But if intellectuals do not hold the flag of analysis
high, it is not likely that others will. And if an analytic
understanding of the real historical choices are not at the forefront of
our reasoning, our moral choices will be defective, and above all our
political strength will be undermined..."
Wallerstein was speaking at the recent UNESCO Colloquium on
Higher Education, Research and Knowledge (December 2003). His comments,
especially about intellectuals opening up the vistas of knowledge and
understanding in order to enable informed choices to be made, are apposite.
The second imperative, is that such a nation must never tire of re-inventing
itself, rediscovering its values and its capacity to become better than it
has been. We must eschew the conservative inclination that suggests that “we
have arrived.” A transformative society takes shape when “human beings see
new possibilities, act upon them, and by so doing, transform their own
previous ways of thinking and alter the subsequent course of history, in
great or small ways” (Barnett:2002;216). This draws from advances in
education associated with Alfred Montouri’s models of transformative
thinking and learning.
Forty years since the civil rights legislation, and ten years since the
democratisation of South Africa, our two nations have never shared more on
the world stage.
References
1. James M Washington (Ed): A TESTAMENT OF HOPE: The Essential Writings
and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr; 1991: San Francisco;
HarperCollins Publishers.
2. James H Cone: MARTIN & MALCOLM: A Dream or a Nightmare; 1991,
Maryknoll, New York; Orbis Books.
3. Kwame Anthony Appiah & Henry Louis gates (Eds): AFRICANA: The
Encyclopaedia of the African and African American Experience; 1999; New
York, Basic Civitas Books.
4. WEB du Bois: THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK; 1994; New York, Dover
Publications.
5. CWE Bigsby (Ed): THE BLACK AMERICAN WRITER Vol 1 Fiction; 1969,
Baltimore, Maryland; Penguin Books.
6. Francis Meli: A History of the ANC: SOUTH AFRICA BELONGS TO US; 1988:
James Currey London.
7. ANC SPEAKS : Documents and Statements of the African national
Congress, 1955-1976.
8. Nelson Mandela Speaks: FORGING A DEMOCRATIC NONRACIAL SOUTH AFRICA;
1993: Cape Town David Philip Publishers
9. Nelson Mandela: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM: The Autobiography; 1994,
Randburg, Macdonald Purnell.
10. MW Makgoba (Ed): AFRICAN RENAISSANCE: The New Struggle; 1999;
Mafube/Tafelberg.
11. Franz Fanon: THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH; 1968; New York, Grove Press
Inc.
12. Lyn Holness & Ralf K Wustenberg (Eds): THEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE: The
Impact of the Arts, Humanities & Science on Contemporary Religious
Thought – Essays in Honour of John W de Gruchy; 2002: Grand Rapids,
Michigan: William B Eerdmans.
13.Elena Mustakova-Possardt: CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
: A Study in
Global, Historical Context; 2003;West Point, Connecticut/ London;
Praeger.
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