Andile Mngxitama reexamines the revolutionary potential of Black consciousness via a critical look at the politics and philosophy of the Black Consciousness Collective (BCC).
The idea of writing this letter struck me whilst at my home village eNgcobo in the former Transkei. Our village, which is know as eNyanga is part of a place with a strange name- “All Saints”. eNyanga is situated in the belly of mountains. To the North is Kalinyanga, the south is Gilindonda and east the Qhuthubeni mountain. These are enchanting plains. Here I was generally engaged in the rituals and other festivities of our people, when my mind drifted to the Black Consciousness Collective (BCC).
Walking the land of Ngqika, it occurred to me that the BCC is far too important to be ignored. I also realized that I harbor some sense of impatience if not utter contempt at some of the habits (what I consider intellectual snobbery in particular), and gestures of arrogance from its members. I also acknowledge that my interaction with the collective, its members and sympathizers is rather perfunctory to say the least- but still the BCC is such an important and promising initiative that I would be remise to give it a miss. So I thought I should attempt a structured engagement which could afford us a basis for engagement.
Let me say it at the outset, my intention is to seek clarity for myself on the role, politics and philosophy of the BCC amongst others. I regard this as the first installment in what must naturally be a mutually educational discourse for all of us. Yes, old dogs can ans should learn new tricks too!
I gather from the name of the collective that it is committed to or rather it is about Black Consciousness. That’s well and good but which of the various contrasting and contending BC streams does the BCC align itself? Like in Marxism, we can no longer take for granted that when we say “bc” we are all referring to the same thing.
THE FOUR FORMS OF BLACK CONSCIOUNSESS IN CONTENTION
I can immediately think of at least four contending versions of bc for instance: Firstly there is the BC of sterile cultural expressionism which is about promoting mindless consumption in aid of the capitalism madness of our age. It’s the BC of Stone Cherry and Eric Miyenis of this world, its in agreement with the thesis proffered by the author of that despicable pamphlet of death, masquerading as serious work of on the black question- The Capitalist Nigger (which is our national best seller by the way).
Secondly, and this is the off shoot of the first type of BC, its the noisy status bound hip-hop and urban spoken words projects with their “African” regalia to boot. Practitioners of this bc simulate rebellion whilst they work their ways towards acceptance in the existing anti-black mainstream of the commercial cultural beast. The Rosebank Underground. These are by and large poets for hire. Their dead poetry repeats itself into a deadening crescendo utterly devoid of the beauty of authentic black rage.
Then there is the BC of monuments and icons. This is primarily promoted by institutional custodians of BC like Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO). This kind of BC is mute and deaf on the prevailing black condition; it finds refuge in past glories and burdens the dead with the projects of now. It thrives on “ifs”, and exists in an inconsolable sorrow devoid of the impatience and appetite for “Bolekaja.” Bolekaja as you may recall means “Come down let’s fight!” A term used in western Nigeria by passenger lorry touts and made famous by Nigerian literary critic Chinweizu. This BC cannot inspire blacks to rebellion and fire.
Then there is the BC of BEE, the least said about this the better (of course this version has strong affinities with the first two alluded to above). BEE is about a new class of plunderers who use their black skin and our black collective experience of sorrow to insert themselves in the economic mainstream built and sustaining itself on stolen black land, labour and the African “being”. These new agents of accumulation by theft and dispossession provide legitimacy to white monopoly capitalism, which must be vanquished if blacks are to have a chance to liberation. Capital in our country needs to be brought to justice and answer for its sins and atone for the near death agony it inflicted/afflicts on the black body.
The last version is what I’d like to think of as the real living BC, which resides within the excluded multitudes. It’s a bc of the black margins. This BC finds concrete expression in the young girl of Khutsong hurling a rock at an oncoming Caspire in an act of courageous defiance and rage against the arrogance of post apartheid democratic power which looks and acts like the apartheid monster. Its stones against bullets again, produced by the arrogance of state power instead of the uncompromising commitment to the art of persuasion/engagement/listening/dialogue/response/respect. These are the birth marks of true freedom. This living BC resonates with the thousands that partake in what the media calls “service delivery protests”. For me BC and Biko live in those cracks of the great unwashed every time they cry ya basta! From Khutsong to Chiapas. It may be opportune to remind ourselves of how Biko’s philosophy of black liberation. Biko said
“Blacks are out to completely transform the system and to make of it what they wish. Such a major undertaking can only be realized in an atmosphere where people are conscious of the truth inherent in their stand. Liberation, therefore, is of paramount importance in the concept of black Consciousness, for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage. We want to attain the envisioned self, which is a free self
PHILOSOPHY OF CHANGE AND THE BCC
I realize that I have been presumptuous on a number of points, but I have now gone too far to halt myself, so I am going to ask this: Is the BCC at the beginning again? In other words at the point of re-imagining BC? My question really is this, what does the BCC mean by BC? Implicit in this question is both a philosophical and practical consideration, what does BCC wants to achieve with its BC? A related but side and inconsequential issue is this, what is BCC’s BC attitude to the ANC’s politics of non-racialism and integration -as a theory and now as practice of party in government? I am sure you also may have to allude to the existing political formations such as Azapo, SOPA and BPC which proclaim bc as their guiding philosophy or ideology (a rather oppressive term really, this ideology business).
I think it a little passé to raise the old question of the unity of thought and action. But I think I need to be explicit in case its not taken care of in the broad set of “identity” questions I ask above. In my engagement with members of your collective it seem to me that one can read a few contradictory attitudes toward this question of the unity of action and thought or lack thereof. I heard, I hope correctly, for instance that action is already implicated in thought. This means there is no action, which is not preceded by thought. I agree that this is generally a truthful assertion. But is it automatic that thought ends in action, or thought here is also action? A dialectical unity? But then how do we judge effectiveness? Or is there no physical materiality in this process? Then of course I think there are certain forms of “thought” which are anti-thought and action, such as formulistic Eurocentric “logical” philosophy.
I also recognize that Nazis, colonialists and imperialists have their own intellectuals and philosophers. So from this point of view there is nothing progressive about philosophy a priori. I would not now want to raise my ‘pet hate’ subject - the anti-black origins of most of western philosophy (how do you deal with this?). I think a bit of Foucault quickly shows how everything is implicated in power, self- interest and subjectivity. But of course I am not interested in abstracted philosophical assertions. I am interested in the specificity of your collective’s “thought” process and its relation to “action” aimed at the structures of oppression and denigration of back people.. Surely, the sum total of your “action” cannot be reduced to creating spaces for “critical dialogue”, although I would under duress accept such engagement as action too.
If I were to walk ahead of your response on this one, I would say, I’m inspired by the likes of the originators of the negritude movement (Suzanne Ceseair, Aime Cessaire, but less so the likes of Sengor). These pioneers “culled” a lot of fire from the Surrealists and gave that philosophical movement some flames of rebellion in exchange – and in the process created the possibility of action against all sorts of colonialisms. I also remember well, old Karl Marx admonishing his German fellow philosophers for being obsessed with interpreting the world when the point was to change it.
Allow me to go religious a little. You see, I grew up in a religious family even if later I bacame agnostic- I have done my time in the trenches in the service of god, so there must be some residual matter of this past in me. I agree with Terry Eagleton, we can’t but be what we are. So I beg your indulgence, just to draw a parallel if not a lesson from the holy book. In the book of James, James postulates on matters of “Faith and Actions” (I hope to substitute “faith” for theory if not philosophy), he teachers us that; “ suppose there are brothers and sisters who need clothes and not have enough to eat. What good is there in you saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!”- if you don’t give them the necessities of life? So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions then it is dead…. So then as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without actions is dead”.
I think it was Lenin who said he has yet to see a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory, but he also laughed at the idea of theory without action. Cabral said something alone those lines when he theorized on the issue “theory and practice”. I find Paulo Ferere much useful on this score, personally. His dialogical method, of cause is not perfect, shows that there is no possibility of learning or clarification, or even building critical consciousness without doing. Action allows reflection on the concrete, leading to improvement and critical awareness. This is the revolution!
Of course those students who started SASO in the late 60’s were deep into philosophy but they understood oppression as a concrete truth, deeply implicated power. Racial capitalism or apartheid is as concrete as the N1. SASO students understood very well that oppression couldn’t be dislodged by philosophic disputations alone. It’s my contention that no one has yet contributed to changing the world for the better by simply holding a “correct philosophy”. In fact under certain circumstances, to “philosophize” is a great sign of betrayal and cowardice. My view in fact is that its of little use to philosophize outside action aimed at dislodging the white supremacist edifice deeply ingrained in the structures of politics, economics and even the whole cultural plain (here I understand culture in its broadest sociological sense). To try play philosophers without action is actually a self-serving and a safe option which also provides an alibi for doing nothing, it’s not unlike the “superfluous men” of 19 century Russia. This reminds me of the warnings from the pen of the mad one- Dambudzo Marechera, in his majestic “The Black Insider.” Somewhere Dambudzo writes;
“An excessive indulgence of the senses and thoughts… leads to the kind of decadence which can paralyze all action. To tick all the orifices of pleasure and stimulate all the possible orgasms of intellectual heights would be to sort of contrast demanded by this sordid war”.
Incidentally, I happen to think that black people the world over live in a state of a one sided sordid war which has not given us respite since the disastrous encounter with the white world starting with slavery, moving to colonialism, and imperialism to day. I’m permanently flabbergasted by the patience and laxity from the black world living through this living hell. Only we blacks can afford this type of absent-mindedness in the middle of war of decimation. We are wont at keeping us busy with inane, irrelevancies; this is the curse of our black skin. Somewhere else in the same text Dambudzo raises a matter which I think is relevant to this letter and to people like us;
“…we used to joke about being fucked out by everything but never to the extent of seeing the uttermost truth at the center of the jest. There was the gulf –as we saw it- between student thinking and activities and the workers-themselves whom I did not feel we had any qualifications to lead in anything. I had seen how “education” had given us too early a veneer of experience which our own elders mistook for mature and solid knowledge of a world that has rapidly ceased to be ours and had become a whiteman’s play ground for investment, good living, and casual tormenting of Caliban”.
My point is that we (western educated black middle classes) are already deeply implicated in whiteness, our souls and minds are held captive by whiteness. Our philosophies are by and large alien. We have nothing to say to the great multitudes of our people except to give them disdain and scorn- we call them “the masses” with no sense of irony. I have heard some of you say, “the masses think….”, and generally this would be to create a caricature- a mass of undifferentiated beings gravitating in colossal confusion and ignorance, and then we self congratulatingly arrogate clever philosophic positions to “ourselves” – we are the philosophers! The end result of his snobbish and vulgar valorization of our philosophic prowess leaves the “masses” all looking like Zuma. This in my mind is the perfect colonial representation of the black world.
Marechera on the other hand displays a liberating self-awareness of the place and general uselessness of the “educated” classes. Cabral, was crude but in my mind hugely correct to call for a “class suicide” of the “educated” anti-colonial African classes. No one listened and we have reproduced what Chinuweizu correctly calls: “the black colonialists”- with no discernable exceptions all our African political, academic, intellectual and business leaders are black colonialist!
BCC AND AVENUES FOR CHANGE
This brings me inevitably to politics. And here I understand politics narrowly as the exercise of power at state/government level. I wish to raise a few questions, here. Firstly, does the BCC have any shared conceptual clarity on the “nature” or “character” of the post apartheid state? I argue that there has been no rapture in this post apartheid state from the white supremacist one which was designed for serving white interest, the only substantial difference is that now this colonial, racist state is managed by black former liberation movement cadres. This reduces these managers of the racist state to indunas of whiteness.
Secondly, and I think we reflected a little on this, does the BCC have a general attitude to the state qua state? If so what? This is really a ‘question of power’, to borrow from Bessie Head. I was reminded of the sterile exchange we had with a member or sympathizer of BCC sometime back- it went on like this (I’m paraphrasing)-
“The state has failed everywhere?”. person 1
“No the state can and must be subordinated to serve the interest of the people”, person 2.
“no there is no record of the state ever serving the people” person 1
“what about Venezuela and Bolivia…” person 2
“oh! Venezuela is going to save us all now. Hahahaha”- person 1
“ok, the Ven experiment is flawed buts it’s the real and existing example of what can be done”, person 2
“oh! No! my lord! Examples are poor substitute for argument, all which one needs to do is just to provide a counter example”- person 1 (reclining on his chair with the smile that talks victory).
The poverty of the above encounter, resides not in the bad formulation of argument and counter argument, in my book, but on the politics/philosophic perspectives informing the interlocutors (of course the arguments can be improved a lot and shed some more light). For instance is person 1, making a universal statement which they purport to be true in all situations? Then of course this becomes abstract disputation, which would not yield to evidence. Then we have abandoned philosophy and have entered the world of ideology.
Is the second person on the other hand postulating that the state is necessarily a good thing in all situations over time and space? I think not. But I think the above drunken exchange points to sterility of a kind of argumentation devoid of “people centered” perspectives. The issue of the state or non state can no longer be debated outside the history of the state and the different perspectives/ideologies informing the theorization of the state. To argue against the state without distancing one from the likes of Milton Friedman and his latter day apostles in the form of the World Bank, IMF, the WTO and other agents neo-colonialism is to be on the side of death by default. There have always been various anti state positions, and one must be aware of this to avoid confusion. For instance I find the example of Zapatistas and theory of “changing the world without taking power” ala John Holloway quite seductive, but I realize that one must deal with the impressive current now sweeping Latin American, signified by the state driven left transformations ala Bolivia. Ecuador, Venezuela etc. Then there is the Chiapas example and multiple peasants and other movements of the excluded.
These are some of my initial thoughts, questions and postulations. And I realize this intervention is more “pragmatic” than “analytical”. This morning, in this new year, the sun is shining bright outside. 2007 was indeed a year of the Zunami. Let 2008 be better for black people the world over.
Mao Tse Tung was on to something when he penned this poem:
So many deeds cry out to be done
and always urgently
the world rolls on
time presses
ten thousands years are too long
seized the day
seize the hour
* Andile Mngxitama is a Johannesburg based land rights activist and member of the Wewrite editorial collective.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
cc As South Africa nears its fourth election since 1994, Andile Mngxitama laments the country's overall lack of progress toward genuine black liberation in the post-1994 era. Highlighting Steve Biko's emphasis on 'conscientisation' to counter the normalisation of black people's material and mental subjugation to the entrenched white power structure, Mngxitama decries th