LEHLOHONOLO MAKHELE

Post colonial Africa has entered the era of total surrender to the “big other”, whether the prophet, the pastor or the political leader. A people buttered by racism and exclusion is holding onto anything that promises salvation. We see sane grown ups eat grass, drink petrol, allow pastor to walk over them or kneel naked for a kiss on the bum, we need to understand the madness of hopelessness. Our people terrorised by the neo colony are waiting for a miracle to get out of hell.

But the demands of the saviour are too great. The first act is submission completely to the pastor, the leader and prophet. From here the people themselves shall do whatever the saviour instructs, from eating grass to defending everything the saviour suggests. It can be said that increasingly our politics have taken a miracle church dimension. This kind of politics require one to throw oneself into the inferno with ears shut, eyes shut and refusal to think for oneself. This is surrender to the “big other”.

Whereas Black Consciousness seeks to create a thinking resistance, where the responsibility to think is not outsourced to the leader or the intellectual, but a responsibility of each individual, on the contrary, this new miracle-like resistance is fuelled by rejection of thinking for oneself. The prophet or the sangoma does all the thinking through access to “higher forces”.

I again say to students of society and revolution read the classified sections of the Sowetan my friends, the evidence of the sickness of our societies across Africa is right there. Prophets, inyangas and sangomas who can heal everything from premature ejaculation, small dicks to settling debts. They can even bring back a lost lover. You can even win the lottery. How do we pull back our people from the blinding impulse to simply follow the “big other?”