How many times have you heard our politicians say: "Tell no lies, claim no easy victories?" Many (or perhaps even too many) times, I bet. Our politicians like quoting Franz Fanon, the late freedom fighter and philosopher, born in the Caribbean island of Martinique.
Often, when I hear our politicians quote this revolutionary thinker, I get angry because I sense that most of them have never really bothered to read Fanon.
If they did read Fanon, they would not even dare quote him because he had nothing but scorn for self-serving politicians of the type we have in our country and continent today.
If they cannon read Fanon's book, The Wretched of the Earth, in its entirety, our politicians need to read at least one very relevant chapter, aptly titled The Pitfalls of National Consciousness. Therein lies some profound lessons.
Fanon predicted, long time ago in 1961, the corruption, laziness and selfishness we see in our body politic today. He predicted that the new rulers of independent and free African states will try to emulate their former colonial masters in their thirst for power and greed.
"The national bourgeoisie of under-developed countries is not engaged in production, nor in invention, nor building, nor labour; it is completely canalised into activities of the intermediary type. Its innermost vocation seems to be to keep in the running and to be part of the racket," said Fanon.
Fanon also predicated that free African political organisations, having just tasted the spoils of power, will see nationalisation not as a means of governing their states with regard to new social relations, but simply as "the transfer into native hands of those unfair advantages which are a legacy of the colonial period". Was Fanon talking about BEE, which we have seen to be of benefit only to the political elite and their business friends?
The new middle class, the so-called Black Diamonds in South Africa, would use its class aggressiveness to corner the positions formerly kept for the previous oppressive rulers. Upon attaining freedom, the new middle class attacks colonial personalities, fighting to the bitter end against these people "who insult our dignity as a nation".
The "Black Diamonds", in South Africa's case, would then wage a war of aggression against the way of living of their previous oppressive masters, with their activism "more and more tinged by racism, until the bourgeoisie bluntly puts the problem to the government by saying: 'We must have these posts'."
To Fanon, policies such as BEE would be "cheap-jack's function", characterised by "meanness of outlook" and absence of all ambition, symbolising "the incapability of the national middle class to fulfil its historic role of bourgeoisie".
"In a certain number of under-developed countries," says Fanon, "the parliamentary game is faked from the beginning. Powerless economically, unable to bring about the existence of coherent social relations, and standing on the principle of its domination as a class, the bourgeoisie chooses the solution that seems to it the easiest, that of the single party."
At this point, if you have been voted into Parliament or any other public office by poor people with the hope that you will bring some positive change to their dire living conditions, you take a deep breath; tell yourself that you will immediately stop sitting in Cape Town and pushing paperwork and start doing actual work with actual people, your constituency.
You stop thoughtless sloganeering and demagoguery; you stop quoting Fanon out of context and dedicate yourself to the service of humanity.
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.