Over the years, one has heard many speak of forming a spider web network within black communities in order for the black man to elevate himself in the world we live. What has struck me the most, the network to be created is mostly a financial one. One of circulating the money within black neighborhoods but few speak about other areas such as black theology, black philosophy or even black sociology. I ask why is this the case?
At this point in time, one has come to the full realization that we can never go back to the traditional, pre-colonial ways of African living. The media continually painting the African living as living in villages with close to none basic services. In the eyes of the media, poverty is the currency of Africa and Africa is just a barren for the lost. In the eyes of the media, Africa is still the Dark Continent only revealed in a different shadow. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves, our can we go about changing the narrative? Within the current train of thoughts around African ways of life, how can we build our communities and neighborhoods?
Yes, money is a strong factor in this regard. Money needs to be circulating more within Black man’s hands in the full hopes that it will improve the conditions of the Black man and his family. However, we need to also understand that money is merely the lubricant that oils the gears of economics. What we need in our neighborhoods are factors of production that will enable the Blackman to effectively empower himself, his family and his neighborhood. Factors of productivity being labor, land, technology, capital and entrepreneurship. Money can enable the black community to acquire these factors of productivity in the full intention of improving the living conditions of the Blackman. This now leads me to the next point: Black philosophy.
It is all good and well to have all that money circulating in the black community but what good is it to have all that money yet fail to have the thinking capacity to alter the minds of those in the community? Money can circulate in a community but if the thinking therefore within the community is not enlightened with the knowledge to transform the minds of the members of the community, like the many Africa nations who are still trapped in that evil network of corruption and so forth, the money will only end with the elites within the black community. I believe this is why Thabo Mbeki is pro African Renaissance and held that the African Renaissance conference in 1997. The idea was to develop a framework of mindset that we as Black people can be governed by. A train of thought that its tracks will keep us grounded to the true course of our destiny as Black people. The framework from this conference revolves around Ubuntu and its culture is seen in Black communities across South Africa. The spirit of Ubuntu is so integrated within our communities we believe it was there since the dawn of time. When the truth is, it is conferences and effective decisions taken by great thinkers like Thabo Mbeki that established this thinking in black communities in South Africa.
The same can be said about the evil system we call Apartheid. The system was designed to enslave the minds of the Blackman. His body needed to remain strong so to work in the mines of Johannesburg and Kimberly but his mind had to be weak in order for him not to fight the system. Hence, it needed the powerful minds of Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, Oliver Tambo and so forth to effectively fight Apartheid. All politics aside, the intelligence of our freedom fighters is what freed us. Their ability to formulate methods of attack, to organize with international states and agencies to see aid pouring into South Africa for the Blackman, this level of thinking came from a higher level of thinking. Africa’s mightiest army SANDF could have wiped many black South Africans out. The same horrors seen in the German holocaust, the same could have been done here. It is imperative we take the time to understand that the architect of Apartheid, Verwoerd, received training under Nazi Germany therefore he knew the system quite well. However, the strategic thinking of the freedom fighters understood the powers they up against and thus were able to devise mental strategies to avoid the bloodshed that seemed so imminent in the early 90s. It is quite interesting that one finds those with mediocre intellect yell, scream how black people should have taken arms, went, and shot every white person at sight. My thinking not on the same level as our great fore fathers yet one can foresee how that wasn’t the most logical choice. South African National Defense Force, Africa’s most powerful army against citizens who had close to none military training. It would have be a mass massacre never seen on this Earth.
There are plenty of other facets to consider in building the black neigherbourhood in which money is the least important. Black people are still under the deceptions that were laid by the world of past. It is still common to hear a black South Africa speak about how better the white man is in terms of business or how better he is in living. White in our country is still associated with pureness and superiority and black is the inferior and dirty. The systematic geographical planning of our country programs the minds of its citizens to think this way. Systems such as having different bathrooms (differentiated by Afrikaans and English speaking classes- English mostly being other races other than white Afrikaners) in primary schools introduce the different races to their different roles in society. These bathrooms, like the ones seen in Apartheid documentaries, the English class ones are dirty and reek with the smell of urine. The Afrikaans class ones are beautifully decorated with posters of Barney the dinosaur and the likes. Fact that these systems still exist in our country should indicate to us the need to sit down and devise the mental strategies to destroy them. The war as always been to pacify the mind of the Blackman and we need to find means to actively destroy the mechanisms that continue to work against us black people of South Africa.
For us to build our neighborhoods, to empower and uplift our black communities, it is imperative we first work towards building the minds of those in it. I believe that it is time that the few that are privileged to pursue higher education, we have to bring that knowledge to our communities and begin constructing the fabrics that will strengthen and tighten the societal laws in our communities. It is time that we break the slave, robotic way of living that we go to a university, get a degree and then thereafter, go seek for a job. To work for some corporation or business that does not even acknowledge you as a human but as a tool of productivity coded with a HR number. The knowledge that we acquire in these higher learning institutes, it is time that we bring the knowledge in our communities. We are solemnly focused on money and how the black man’s money is circulating in white or Indian hands while our minds drain in the gutters of inferiority and utter desolation of existence.
No one can ever deny the importance of money. Money is important in the world of economics. However, understanding that the economic principles we live by were created by a mind of a human, whether Adam Smith or whoever, we need to understand the power of intellect within a community. As great and diverse as we are, I believe this is why Thabo Mbeki focused more on Ubuntu than seeking to return to the “ African way of life”. Colonialism and oppression has destroyed that life completely that we find us within this chapter in history. It is imperative that the ink we use to write in it- stems from our minds.