“Now, suppose the people who promised a new and better life, don’t deliver. What do you think will begin to build up?”
Patrick shot in on behalf of Simon. “But that’s why there are meetings and new elections.”
“Do you know our people, comrade?” Samuel Sitjala asked. “Just last week I heard a coloured woman in the Cape province
“That’s not just the coloured people, Patrick. That’s our people too. In our lifetime many will never again change their vote.”
“You’re saying nothing can be done about that?” Simon asked.
“No, but it does give some big loopholes for some people to misuse their councilor's position.”
“In what way?” Simon probed.
“Laziness in their work, which translates for us into lack of service delivery, incomplete construction of roads. And sewage. That’s not something that you hear or read. That’s something you smell around you - the whole stinking day.” Samuel presented like a seasoned politician looking alternatively to Simon and Patrick. “And then there’s of course the selling of the RDP houses, bribery, nepotism. People get fed-up, so fed-up that they say: I don’t want your clinics, your library or whatever. I want justice and fairness.”
“And that’s what they’ll get if they just go through the proper channels.” Simon said.
“No, Simon Makoena, that’s what they’ll get if they make a statement of torching property. A statement that even implies that perhaps the previous regime was not that bad …”
The above dialogue is fictitious. It is this blogger's attempt to kindle the imagination on what lies behind Jacob Dlamini's recent book about post-apartheid South Africa. Written in 2009, Dlamini examines the collective violence that happened in townships more than ten years after South Africa got a full democracy. He is honest about some troubling features in the so called new South Africa.
Dlamini does not want to go back to the past. He criticizes it vehemently. But he also challenges the stereotype thinking, that black people in South Africa have no happy memories of the past. Despite the poverty and the crime, there was still art, literature, music and morals. Dlamini is concerned that a one-sided ideological picture of the new South Africa may fall into the same ditch that the previous ideology fell into. The violence in the townships of protesters who are fed-up with the lack of service-delivery and especially sanitation, to the point of even burning down their own facilities, fills him with horror. He sees unsettling warning signs of the breakdown of a one-dimensional, revolutionary ideology among his own people. They will not be able to deal effectively with the present if all good things of the past are demonized with one broad brush. Recognizing the baggage of the word colonialism, this reminds one of the words of Anthony Pagden in his book, Peoples and Empires: "anti-colonialism and collective identity are not the same thing."
Dlamini's book is a call to realism in the new South Africa. The problems of the present can always be rationalized in terms of the mistakes of the past: "the scars of the past were deeper than we thought". Dlamini does not want to play that card. He wants to take the temperature on ground level and work honestly with the heat in terms of a multi-layered approach. A neat master narrative of redemption and overcoming the past that is at the heart of South Africa's struggle history will only confuse the complexity of black life under apartheid. The line between resistance and collaboration is one that Dlamini thinks needs to be walked with much more care. The smoke of councilors' houses recently burnt down in townships gave some definite signs in the new South Africa. Dlamini wants us to read the smoke signs and smoke screens with wisdom.
Dlamini does not want to go back to the past. He criticizes it vehemently. But he also challenges the stereotype thinking, that black people in South Africa have no happy memories of the past. Despite the poverty and the crime, there was still art, literature, music and morals. Dlamini is concerned that a one-sided ideological picture of the new South Africa may fall into the same ditch that the previous ideology fell into. The violence in the townships of protesters who are fed-up with the lack of service-delivery and especially sanitation, to the point of even burning down their own facilities, fills him with horror. He sees unsettling warning signs of the breakdown of a one-dimensional, revolutionary ideology among his own people. They will not be able to deal effectively with the present if all good things of the past are demonized with one broad brush. Recognizing the baggage of the word colonialism, this reminds one of the words of Anthony Pagden in his book, Peoples and Empires: "anti-colonialism and collective identity are not the same thing."
Dlamini's book is a call to realism in the new South Africa. The problems of the present can always be rationalized in terms of the mistakes of the past: "the scars of the past were deeper than we thought". Dlamini does not want to play that card. He wants to take the temperature on ground level and work honestly with the heat in terms of a multi-layered approach. A neat master narrative of redemption and overcoming the past that is at the heart of South Africa's struggle history will only confuse the complexity of black life under apartheid. The line between resistance and collaboration is one that Dlamini thinks needs to be walked with much more care. The smoke of councilors' houses recently burnt down in townships gave some definite signs in the new South Africa. Dlamini wants us to read the smoke signs and smoke screens with wisdom.
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