How the opposition parties failed blacks for the past 25 years
By Aya Ngubane and Steve Biko
Right now politicians are all out there trying to get that elusive vote of yours. These are crucially decisive moments that come once in 5 years where you are given a once in a lifetime chance to use your common sense to carve your own destiny...
The first question that should cross your mind before you make that important mark on the ballot paper come May the 8th is to do a feasibility study about a political party making all those promises to you; whether or not it will be able to accomplish them.
To verify that you need to ask yourself these questions: How many chances does that party you consider voting for have to become a ruling party? How much has its leader suffered for the downtrodden politically? What political milestone has the organization achieved in the past year or so of its existence? Be fair with your assessment here hence you are making a do or die decision about your own future.
When the odds become 1:10 then ask yourself one question: how will that party - if increasing social grants is amongst one of its manifesto items; be able to do so because budget allocation is the prerogative of a ruling party? Ask yourself where will all that budget come from if the party you want to vote for ends up in the opposition benches? If you decide that your favourite political party will just be another name in parliament; quickly cast it aside from the national ballot choice and think along the lines of those with more chances to lead the country.
The main reason why the ruling party has at some point struggled to meet its service delivery obligations in the past 25 years is the substantial presence of opposition parties in parliament whose objectives there are to hinder its progress than changing people’s lives. Tribalism and racism is the main reason these opposition parties exist without meaningful mandates; just saturating parliament space just to consume tax payers money without making any meaningful changes to their people’s lives.
The past 25 years in a parliament with so many talking heads from the opposition parties have taught us one sad reality; that too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth. Most often than not; just for the sake of being an opposition - smaller parties would oppose every positive resolution the ruling party makes merely for the sake of making their presence felt because they still harbour that elusive dream to become a coalition government one day. But our research has shown that even if all the parties that registered for elections this year agreed to form a coalition government; they would never be able to nudge the ruling ANC out of power by numbers.
Thus it makes no sense to vote for a smaller party nationally when you are fully aware that the party is nothing less than a tribal or a racist minnow representing people of certain ilk, tradition or language. Such parties are only relevant for provincial votes. So don’t be ashamed to vote for one particular party nationally and elect another provincially. Casting your vote nationally for a political party you know very well will never become a ruling party is a waste of your own precious future. Therefore use your common sense than emotions to put your mark where it matters.
Increasing social grants seems to be the campaign ticket for many opposition parties; especially new fishes like EFF and BLF. But most shocking is that their manifestos are either stolen from the Pan Africanist Congress or Black Consciousness Movement’s ideologies.
However; lessons from the past of what became of the leaders of such erstwhile imitations of the original movements like the ANC such as UDF has taught us a very sad reality; that plagiarizing one political party’s original ideology does not yield any positive results for a new comer. A reasonable person would rather vote for the PAC rather than its imitation like EFF and BLF. Indeed if the ANC could have an opposition like the PAC in parliament for a change; we can see firecrackers there that may result in the fast tracking of Radical Economic Transformation. The ANC needs a strong black opposition to keep it on its toes.
So don’t be fooled by Johnny come latelys trying to get a seat in parliament through the blood and sweat of those who fought and died for the struggle. If the ANC can not deliver on Land Expropriation without Compensation too quickly, rest assured that if there is another political alternative that can deliver on this mandate more swiftly than the ANC as a future alternative; that would be the PAC since LEWC was its own vision from the day it broke away from the ruling party in 1959.
We need a party that will not be told by a compromised judicial system what and what not to do when it comes to Land Expropriation without Compensation. A party that is not afraid to let the rand die because BRICS economy is ready to take over the gauntlet. A party that understands there is life in Africa without the Western economy. If the PAC also does not recognize BRICS; then no one should vote for it because its LEWC programme is a fallacy. Don’t be fooled: LEWC will never be successful in the presence of the Western economy in South Africa because it is the same economy that hampered its progress in Zimbabwe back in the mid 2000s.
Any new political party campaigning on social grants obviously has no plan to expropriate land without compensation; let alone creating jobs – whatever that means where people own the land - even if by any far fetched dream such a political minnow becomes a ruling party. Land owners need no social grants or jobs to survive. Have you ever seen a white farmer looking for a job?
In fact social grants were ANC’s contingency plan under the Reconstruction and Development Plan to take care of struggling households (indigents) temporarily in the hope that the apartheid economy would be able to deliver on its promises to create jobs after democracy as GEAR policy had reassured former President Nelson Mandela about this. The contingency plan was expected to be phased out when the expected positive aspects of the 'macro economy' started offsetting jobs to end unemployment. But for the past 25 years the Western economy failed completely to create jobs in South Africa as it had promised Mandela. The same way it has failed the country for 400 years in economically changing the lives of black people for the better.
So your RDP house and that social grant you get every month is a gift from the ANC. Therefore be fully aware that if by any chance you elect another political party to lead South Africa in May; there are very few chances for you to ever get an RDP house again. The DA has made no bones about its stance against social grants; what they call “the culture of black freebies and self-entitlement”. So there are no guarantees that people will continue to receive social grants or RDP houses if by any chance the DA or its coalition happens to lead the country. Is it not the DA’s idea to privatise SoEs and hike electricity tariffs to finance expensive Renewable Energy although its Western private sector is failing to create jobs for black people?
So most opposition party leaders during this time of the elections are like unemployed young men wooing women with empty promises of marriage bliss while the fulfillment of those promises depend on their own father’s consent to pay up for lobolas and all, not even sure whether the old timer will be able to grant such a wish or even if he does; how much will he afford to pay for the bride.
To this day many communities whose lives are still failing to improve are residues of unduly elected political parties to lead their municipalities during local elections. People putting their trust on an opposition party candidate who won’t even have a budget to take care of their basic needs because his party has no access to National Treasury to do so.
A municipality that is not led by the ruling party will never be able to assist you because it has no control over budget allocation. But will your opposition leader reveal this truth to you? No. Because your vote guarantees them another futile 5 years in office. 5 years that will never see you making any progress or development in life. After you have elected them their next line of defence when they fail you will be their traditional game of blaming the ruling party to cover up their own greed.
All municipalities get budgets from the provincial government every financial year to take care of their constituencies but an opposition party would rather choose to underspend the budget lest if they deliver basic services to you the credit will also be due to the provincial or national government. Now they won’t have that ammunition to blame the ruling party for lack of service delivery in the next elections if they assist you. So the opposition party’s job is to deliberately fail you provincially and in local government as well just to find that stupid reason to get your vote again and once again in the next election through a blame game; a vicious cycle of breeding poverty to blame liberators for everything.
If they are a local municipality; their most common line of defence is to tell you that they are not getting adequate budget allocation to service your needs from the provincial government. If they are a provincial government they will blame it on the national budget deficit. Yet if you go to their municipality website to download a pdf file of their financial expenditure you will be shocked that most often than not most of their allocated budget is spent on tenders and the balance is returned to the national coffers unused. Underspending of a local municipality budget usually earns an opposition party in charge an unqualified ‘clean bill’ of audit. That’s why when they campaign for elections they don’t miss a chance to boast about unqualified financial audits that render them "free of corruption.” At your own expense!
This will tell you that an opposition party politician is in the business of impoverishing black people for the sake of blaming the ruling party for everything that goes wrong under the sun. By our research virtually all opposition parties with the exception of the Pan Africanist Congress are owned and funded by the White Monopoly Capital. The very WMC business that oiled the apartheid machinery of black oppression has been importing cheap foreign labour to nudge South African black people out of its own workplace for the past 25 years. Hence a clarion call for BRICS to come over and replace it.
For example; in rural areas you’ll find an opposition party municipality official driving a 4x4 while communities around him are complaining about gravel roads or pot holes. If you tell this official about your dying livestock due to persistent drought crisis they will also weep with you and tell you they have also lost some cattle but a little follow up into this allegation will reveal that this is a white lie; their livestock are being taken care of by a white farmer in his own drought free farm who is handsomely getting paid to do so with tax payer’s money by the same official. This is the savagery of capitalism.
Most often than not drought conditions in rural black areas are manufactured deliberately through freezing the sky of rain with fly machine spread chemtrails.
This is done by white farmers so that they become the only source of food supply to rural communities. For this bureaucracy to work smoothly they need a black Judas in the local municipality – a partnership with local opposition party official to maintain that drought advantage so that you black people will always buy food from a supermarket or an Indian owned Cash and Carry supplied by a white farmer.
For example; 5 years ago in KZN rural communities got free tractors from the ANC government so that they would use them to cultivate their vegetable gardens free of charge. These tractors were put in the custodianship of local municipalities for the execution of these agrarian reforms on behalf of community members. But the opposition party led municipalities decided to break down these tractors because they would not only make the ANC government look good in terms of service delivery to the people; (something that would cost the opposition party a vote in the coming elections and that monthly salary and tender benefits in their municipalities) – but because their white farmer comrades on the other side would also go out of business as food suppliers!
The Institute for Security Studies reports that the apartheid government used to do the same thing with foreign funds that were earmarked to assist the ANC inside the country or in exile during the struggle for freedom by intercepting those funds to make sure they don’t reach ANC cadres. This is exactly what the opposition parties are doing to steal the ANC vote; starving the masses deliberately to turn them against their own liberators so that they stay poor and spiteful of the ANC; therefore dependent on their charities to be controllable.
Now do you realise the danger of voting for a smaller party whose comfort is guaranteed by your poverty and suffering? Our research found that the ANC would have made more remarkable strides in improving black people’s lives than it has already done had black people been smart enough to give it a 2/3rds majority throughout all national elections since 1994.
What has hindered the ANC progress in the past is not black corruption as the apartheid media would like to fool everyone; it is the politics of the opposition parties who dismantle every progress the ANC makes to improve black people’s lives in the hope that one day you the voter will grant a white man a license to oppress you once again through a ballot vote for the DA. Don’t be fooled by Mmusi Maimane’s black face; something terrible will happen to the black face if by any chance the DA wins elections to pave way for a white man to lead the country with an iron fist. Maimane’s job is to use his black face to lead black people into this trap.
Like Maimane; the Constitutional court judges have also become very complicit in this crime against humanity by overturning virtually every pro-black development parliamentary decision the ANC makes; especially those made by former President Jacob Zuma’s administration to improve black people’s lives during his tenure.
Opposing a Nuclear deal is another prime example of how the judicial system is used by the old guard to maintain the old status quo of making black people’s lives miserable to keep white racists happy. As a result of this red tape South Africa is experiencing incessant load shedding that is constantly blamed on scapegoats like the Guptas and "Zuma corruption", an administration that inherited the problem from Thabo Mbeki's administration and appointed the Guptas to fix it successfully for next to no cost at Eskom back in 2012.
In this sense the judicial system in South Africa has become Black people’s number 1 enemy. If you look at the biography of many opposition party leaders; almost all of them have no history of sacrificing their lives for Black people's liberation. Except for Terror Lekota; none of them were ever jailed for political struggle, yet you still think such a person could deliver you from poverty!
Now today in rural communities you still find people struggling to plough their own vegetable gardens because it is too expensive to hire a local municipality tractor yet about 5 years ago the ruling party gave them free tractors. As we mentioned before; these tractors ended up as white elephants in the Departments of Agriculture after they mysteriously got broken down at the hands of opposition led local municipalities who did not want to see this RDP programme working. So that these rural communities will always depend on the white farmer next door for food supply – the very same white farmer who helps these municipality officials take care of their own livestock during drought seasons while the rest of poor people count their losses. The death of your livestock means a white man's butchery will make more money!
This madness of opposition party politics has cost many rural communities improved road infrastructures. For example; many rural communities in KZN were told to reject the upgrading of their rural roads from gravel conditions into tar roads because the “ANC tar roads will break the hoofs of your livestock.” This coming from an opposition party official who drives around in a 4x4 SUV while the rest of the people living in these rural areas can hardly afford an offroader!
If it is electrification of these rural communities that is being proposed by the ANC government; suddenly people will be warned by the opposition officials whose houses are already electrified that this government electricity installation being mooted will scare off their ancestral spirits at home; something that makes absolutely no sense at all.
If it is boreholes that should be dug to fight water scarcity; the opposition official will warn the community that it is these boreholes that make rivers run dry! Opposition parties will do anything to keep themselves relevant to the people even though their relevancy died way back before 1994 with their assistance of the apartheid government. This opposition party official wants rural communities to stay without water so that a white farmer's food supply business stays afloat!
Now ask yourself how much your lives would have improved had you not wasted your precious vote taking an ineffectual opposition party to parliament to make sure that every step the ANC is taking forward in improving your lives is reversed twice backwards over the past 25 years!
How many times has the ANC government tried to build something for you only for smaller opposition parties to hamper that progress in parliament with the help of the Constitutional Court judges and racist white NGOs who win virtually every case against your liberators?
The aim here is for you to keep on voting for them so that they can get access to that parliamentary salary and that municipality tender to feather their own nests. People who never fought for your own political freedom will never understand a poor person’s pain because they were obviously assisting your oppressors during apartheid. Now how can you expect such a person to improve your life?
This is the misery of worshiping a god made of wood because you keep on praying for something that they will never deliver because all that they are are just wooden effigies. The power of radio, apartheid press and TV branding to lead you on a long backward spiral to nowhere.
STEVE BIKO’S TAKE ON THIS SUBJECT IN 1976...
LET'S TALK ABOUT BANTUSTANS (EDITOR’S NOTE: IN TODAY’S CONTEXT THE OPPOSITION PARTIES)
SOURCE: I WRITE WHAT I LIKE
It is now almost ten years since the bantustan idea was practically introduced by the Nationalist Government as a lasting measure towards the solution of the "native problem". Of course the idea of territorial segregation in South Africa is an old one. It was in 1913 that Sauer, a supposed liberal Cabinet Minister in the then Government, first suggested the apportionment of parts of the country to accommodate aspirations of the native population. In the many years that followed, the percentage allotted to natives varied until it was established in 1936 to the present 13%.
What the Nationalists did under the "able" guidance of their theoretician, Verwoerd, was to convert the naked policy of wanton discrimination and segregation to the euphemistic "separate development" policy which "guaranteed" the eventual growth into complete sovereignty of eight bantustans or homelands which would be autonomous states to cater for the various "nations" that make up the South African native population.
At first the whole idea of separate development was rejected by the entire population, including elements of the Afrikaner camp. It was rejected by the liberals, Progressives, United Party, and naturally by the blacks. It was seen by the blacks naturally as a big fraud calculated to dampen the enthusiasm with which they picked the cudgels in the broader political fight for their rights in the country of their birth.
People who took part in it were roundly condemned by everybody as sell-outs and Uncle Toms and nobody took them seriously. They were clearly seen as people who deliberately allowed themselves into an unholy collusion with the enemy. In the white ranks, too, the idea was heavily criticised and seen as extremely immoral. However as the verligte (Leftists) 9 elements of the Afrikaner section began to show interest in the ideology, a number of people began to pay attention to the idea. This was boosted up mostly by the attack launched by verligtes on what they called "petty apartheid".
Typical of opposition politics in this country, these verligtes were given a lot of support by the English press simply because of their small difference with the Nationalist staunch line. In the process, a lot of people began to see merit in the verligte view of separate development primarily because a number of newspapers had changed their policies in an attempt to appease the verligte movement.
With this background in mind it therefore became necessary for us black people to restate in very strong terms the case against the bantustan idea. There are two views regarding bantustans. The first one is that of total acceptance with the hope that any demands made by the blacks through peaceful negotiation will lead to granting of further concessions by the white power structure placement. The second is that as a strategy the bantustan philosophy can be exploited towards attainment of our overall goals. Both views are dangerously short-sighted.
The first one needs but little attention since it is an obvious sell-out and can only be accepted by people who have already sold their souls to the white man. The second one leads to a lot of confusion part of which is in fact a subconscious acceptance of the bantustan idea per se by the masses who cannot appreciate the nuances of the debate surrounding the so-called strategy.
Why are we against the bantustan idea? Black people reject this approach for so many reasons, none of which are as fundamental as the fact that it is a solution given to us by the same people who have created the problem. In a land rightfully ours we find people coming to tell us where to stay and what powers we shall have without even consulting us (Editor’s note: Ramaphosa and the Oppenheimers deciding to sell all major SoEs to private business without consulting the people). The whole idea is made to appear as if for us, while working against our very existence; a look at some aspects of the policy shows this very clearly.
Geographically, i.e. in terms of land distribution, bantustans present a gigantic fraud that can find no moral support from any quarters. We find that 20% of the population are in control of 87% of the land while 80% "control" only 13%. To make this situation even more ridiculous, not one of the so-called "Bantustan nations" have an intact piece of land. All of them are scattered little bits of the most unyielding soil. In each area the more productive bits are white controlled islands on which white farms or other types of industry are situated.
Economically, the blacks have been given a raw deal. Generally speaking the areas where bantustans are located are the least developed in the country, often very unsuitable either for agricultural or pastoral work. Not one of the bantustans have access to the sea and in all situations mineral rights are strictly reserved for the South African government. In other words bantustans only have rights extending to 6 feet below surface of the land.
Added to these observations is the fact that the operative budgets allowed the bantustans for development projects are kept so low (Editor's note: Biko here speaks about a meagre financial budget that is annually granted the ANC government for service delivery by the Spiderweb controlled Treasury. Biko was way ahead of his time).
Control of industry and its growth in all the bantustans is locked up in the hands of the Bantu investment co-operative which though meant to be non-profitmaking, is reputed for its exploitation of the aspirant African traders and industrialists in all the bantustans (Editor’s note: Its new version is a BEE scheme today).
The so called Border industries now beginning to mushroom at the edges of the bantustans are orientated to exploit the labour force from within the bantustans (Editor’s note: The same way our borders are compromised for cheap labour human trafficking). Most of them are subsidised by the government and their products are tax free (Editor’s note: All these foreign nationals operating informal business in our CBDs do not pay taxes).
In spite of such advantages, they go on to pay all-time low wages which are about one-third of what they would normally pay in urban areas. In addition it should be noted that these industries at border areas are often outside the geographical confines in which most Industrial Council agreements operate; and since the black workers have no trade unions to push their case they are virtually left at the mercy of employers who are under no obligation to pay them according to rates operative elsewhere in the country.
Politically, the bantustans (Editor’s note: opposition parties in this context) are the greatest single fraud ever invented by white politicians. The same people who are guilty of the subjugation and oppression of the black man want us to believe that they can now design for blacks means of escape from that situation. The point is that this is not the intention of the policy. The actual intentions of the bantustan practices are the following: To create a false sense of hope amongst the black people so that any further attempt by blacks to collectively enunciate their aspirations should be dampened.
To offer a new but false direction in the struggle of the Black people. By making it difficult to get even the 13% of the land the powers that be are separating our "struggles" into eight different struggles (Editor’s note: Different political parties in this context) for eight false freedoms that were prescribed long ago. This has also the overall effect of making us forget about the 87% of land that is in white hands.
To cheat the outside world into believing that there is some validity in the multinational theory so that South Africa can now go back into international sport, trade, politics, etc. with a soothed conscience.
To boost up as much as possible the intertribal competition and hostility that is bound to come up so that the collective strength and resistance of the black people can be fragmented. The question then that immediately arises is whether the bantustan leaders do not see the barreness and fraudulence implicit in this scheme.
We have some men in these bantustans who would make extremely fine leaders if they had not decided to throw in their lot with the oppressors. A few of them argue that they are not selling out but are carrying on with the fight from within.
There is no way of ascertaining the truth of these assumptions. Perhaps it is not necessary that this should be ascertained at all especially because no matter how one views it, the ultimate truth is that participation in the Bantustan (Editor’s note: opposition party politics) set-up is dangerously misleading to the black population. We shall concentrate here on the merits and demerits of using the system to fight the system, and forget about these bantustan leaders who believe sincerely in the policy of apartheid.
After all, as one writer once said, there is no way of stopping fools from dedicating themselves to useless causes. There are in South Africa at the moment a number of people whose participation in Bantustan politics has led the black people in part and political observers throughout the world to begin to take a second look at bantustans with the belief that something can be achieved through a systematic exploitation of the bantustan approach.
The argument runs that all other forms of protest, disagreement and opposition are closed to black people and that we can call the bluff of the government (Editor’s note: The White Monopoly Capital in this context) by accepting what they give and using it to get what we want.
What most people miss is the fact that what we want is well known to the enemy and that the Bantustan (Editor’s note: opposition party in this context) theory was designed precisely to prevent us from getting what we want. The authors of the system know it best and they give us any concessions we may demand according to a plan prearranged by them.
When they created these dummy platforms, these phoney telephones, (Editor’s note:Opposition parties) they knew that some opportunists might want to use them to advance the black cause and hence they made all the arrangements to be able to control such "ambitious natives".
Matanzima and Buthelezi can shout their lungs out trying to speak
to Pretoria through the phoney telephone. No one is listening in Pretoria because the telephone is a toy. The real lines between Pretoria and Zululand, between Pretoria and the Transkei are very busy day and night with Torlage and Abrahams telling their system every step Matanzima and Buthelezi are likely to take three months hence and how best the system should respond to such stances.
What is most painful is that Matanzima and Buthelezi are perhaps more than anybody else acutely aware of the limitations surrounding them. It may also be true that they are extremely dedicated to the upliftment of black people and perhaps to their liberation. Many times they have manifested a fighting spirit characterising true courage and determination. But if you want to fight your enemy you do not accept from him the unloaded of his two guns and then challenge him to a duel.
Bantustan leaders (Editor’s note: opposition parties) are subconsciously siding and abetting in the total subjugation of the black people of this country. By making the kind of militant noise they are now making they have managed to confuse the blacks sufficiently to believe that something great is about to happen.
As a result blacks are sitting on the touchlines cheering loudly while Matanzima and Mangope are performing. The picture is also confused by the exaggeration given by the white press to the possibilities open to these leaders. The white press knows fully well of course that it is to their advantage to misdirect the attention of the blacks.
The white press knows only too well the limitations of bantustan theory; that it is a far cry from what the blacks want but goes on to build up the image of Matanzima and Buthelezi in order to harness them to the path they have already chosen and to make the nonanalytic masses believe that a great victory is just about to be achieved.
Also, by widely publicising the pronouncements of the Bantustan leaders and attaching extremely liberal connotations to these pronouncements, the white press has confused the outside world to think that in South Africa not only is there freedom of speech but that the Bantustan leaders are actively plotting for the ousting of the white government without the government taking any action.
Thus for white South Africa, it is extremely important to have a man like Buthelezi speaking and sounding the way he is doing. It solves so many conscience problems that South Africa has been having for so long. It has been said that the combination of Buthelezi and the white press make up the finest ambassadors that South Africa has ever had.
For me as a black person it is extremely painful to see a man who could easily have been my leader being so misused by the cruel and exploitative white world. It becomes so apparent that whatever one does in the context of the bantustans is likely to be exploited for self-aggrandisement by the white world. When you agree with the government you are an exemplary native, who sees value in being led by whites.
When you use bantustan platforms to attack what you do not like you epitomise the kind of militant black leader who in South Africa is freely allowed to speak and oppose the system (Editor's note: like EFF's Julius Malema; who constantly urge his followers to illegally occupy vacant land and get away with it; anarchy statements that can put another person in jail for a long time). You exonerate the country from the blame that it is a police state. South African information bureaux throughout the world carry long coverages of activities and pronouncements by bantustan leaders to highlight the degree of open-mindedness and fair play to be found in this country.
No, black people must learn to refuse to be pawns in a white man's game. This type of politics calls upon us to provide our own initiative and to act at our own pace and not that created for us by the system. No bantustan leader can tell me that he is acting at his own initiative when he enters the realms of bantustan politics. At this stage of our history we cannot have our struggle being tribalised through the creation of Zulu, Xhosa and Tswana politicians by the system.
These tribal cocoons called "homelands" are nothing else but sophisticated concentration camps where black people are allowed to "suffer peacefully". Black people must constantly pressurise the bantustan leaders to pull out of the political cul-de-sac that has been created for us by the system.
Above all, we black people should all the time keep in mind that South Africa is our country and that all of it belongs to us. The arrogance that makes white people travel all the way from Holland to come and balkanise our country and shift us around has to be destroyed.
Our kindness has been misused and our hospitality turned against us. Whereas whites were mere guests to us on their arrival in this country they have now pushed us out to a 13% corner of the land and are acting as bad hosts in the rest of the country. This we must put right.
Down with bantustans!!! (Editor’s note: Down with opposition party politics in this context!!!)
