LET THE PATRIOTS STAND UP
A talk by the President of AZAPO, Cde. Mosibudi
Mangena, at the AZAPO Congress held on 2nd & 3rd
May 2008, Tshwane
Members of the Standing Committee
Our honoured Guests
Delegates
Comrades and Friends
Malaika, a young, gifted and vibrant group,
sings:
Sekonjalo
Isikhathi, SeAfrika
Sezonqoba
Tshifhinga ndi tshino
Ndi tshifhinga tsha Afurika
Ri do fhenya!
It is a tune that is at once forlorn, brave and
optimistic. It is a piece rendered with passion
and gusto by Malaika, rubbing their positive
spirit onto all of us.
Many parts of our continent are in pain. The
people of Zimbabwe are tottering on the brink of
disaster after a difficult election process.
Already millions of Zimbabweans have fled their
country to seek refuge and a livelihood in other
parts of the world. As African patriots, we
share their pain and wish them strength and
fortitude in their attempts to overcome their
immense challenges and hope the rest of the
continent, especially Southern Africa, will give
them unstinting support. They fought gallantly
for their liberation and in the process inspired
many of us. They deserve a chance to enjoy their
freedom. We trust they will in turn trust their
neighbours in Southern Africa to act in their
interest. They need us as much as we need them.
Elsewhere on our continent, Kenyans are just
emerging from a murderous episode in which no
fewer than one thousand five hundred of their
citizens died needlessly after a disputed
election. It is completely unacceptable that
routine events, such as periodic elections,
should become dangerous adventures for us on the
continent.
But our musicians, who more often than not are
the conscience of society, implore us to look
beyond those difficulties, because
Go jwalo
Ke nako, ya Afrika
Re tla fenya
The same message must go to the ears, and
hopefully to the hearts, of the people of
Somalia and Darfur, so that they may reach
peace, tranquility and development. We join our
brothers and sisters in Côte D’ivoire, the DRC
and others who have achieved peace after
devastating civil conflicts that visited untold
misery on their people, especially women and
children. We hope that they have learnt from
their mistakes, never to repeat them again. We
are tired of images of emaciated African mothers
and babies parading on world television screens.
We are tired of African people projected the
world over as objects of pity, misery and
charity. We desperately want to believe and sing
with Malaika:
Sekunjalo
Isikhathi, SeAfrika
Sezonqoba
We will succeed, if we hearken to the teachings
of legendary Bob Marley, when he exhorts us to:
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
For it is colonial mentality that is hugely
responsible for the miserable plight of our
continent; that ensures that we allow ourselves
to be manipulated by others; that we allow our
abundant natural resources to be plundered by
others for their enrichment while we remain
poor; that makes it easy for us to kill one
another with scant regard.
If it is not slave mentality, how come we take
political power in this country, but the
delivery of education to our young deteriorates?
How come our kids can’t walk to the nearest
school and receive quality education, delivered
by our professionals with the full support of
all of us in the neighbourhood?
How come we can’t guarantee the safety of our
communities from marauding criminals?
How come service at public hospitals and clinics
is so poor under our watch?
How come our mothers, fathers, fourteen years
after the attainment of freedom, willingly allow
themselves to be fed food left-overs laced with
urine by young white boys and made to perform
other demeaning acts? It was indeed an episode
that diminished the dignity and worth of all
Black people. Those of us who are imbued with
the philosophy of Black Consciousness should
feel particularly wounded by that occurrence,
but also propelled to do more to help our people
to overcome inferiority complexes.
Bob Marley and Malaika do not sing politics nor
do they preach the truth. They are our artists
originating from our loins, our soil and our
societal fabric. They prick our consciences in a
manner only they can, through their wizardry,
just as Oliver Mutukudzi and Thomas Mapfumo have
done and continue to do for the Zimbabwean
nation. Theirs is not the precision of science,
or the analysis of scholars, but rather the
wailings of eerie inner voices – intangible, and
yet profound.
Those with ears listen, those with rhythm dance,
those with a conscience are pricked and those
with political will act. We have all four. We
have ears, rhythm, conscience and political
will. We are able to say to Malaika:
Siyavuma, Re a dumela
Sekunjalo
Isikhathi, SeAfrika
Sezonqoba
But we need to fortify our ranks, deepen our
solidarity and intensify our actions. We need to
ensure that our units, branches and higher
structures in the organization are functional.
Structures should ensure that they service those
below them. We need to ensure that the necessary
resources are marshalled to enable the
structures to function. We need to maintain
organizational discipline at all levels! We need
to connect the activities of the structures with
the imperatives of our people on the ground. In
short, we must ensure that we have the basics
right. The relevance of an organization is not
in the stars, but rooted in it’s ability to
sustain itself and to serve the purpose for
which it was established.
An unorganized or disorganized people are a weak
people, unable to advance their cause or protect
their interests. That’s why the discussion by
the three BCM political organizations to embark
on an irreversible and irrevocable unity process
is so wise and so noble. We have all learnt from
experience that a house divided against itself
is a weakened house. We have confirmed through
real experience what we had known all along -
that unity is a basic principle of struggle.
We are confirming, through this unity process,
that there is no wisdom in throwing your toys
out of the cot at every sight of differences;
that non-antagonistic contradictions do not turn
us into political and ideological enemies; that
there is great virtue in engagements with one
another to resolve whatever difficulties we
might have.
We signal our resolve to build on points of
agreement whilst grappling with minor
differences of opinion. Through this
irreversible unity process, we assert that we
are not enemies; that the real enemies of our
people are poverty, unemployment, landlessness,
poor education and disease. We declare to our
people that we will pit ourselves against these
formidable foes.
The real enemy of our people is crime, that is
terrorizing our communities out of their wits.
We cannot claim to be free when our women are
raped, girls hardly in their teens are
kidnapped, raped and murdered, when even infants
in their nappies are raped by adults who are
supposed to be their protectors. We cannot
remain silent, no matter how much we adore guns,
when these guns kill more than ten thousand of
our citizens every year and are responsible for
50% of all heinous crimes such as robbery,
cash-in-transit heists, hi-jackings, rape and
murder. Our campaign to ban civilian ownership
of guns is motivated by our desire to save lives
and maintain secure and free communities. We are
glad that many in our communities share our
concerns and support our campaign without
reservation.
It is for the same reason that we are opposed to
the disbanding of the Scorpions, who have a
crucial role to play in the fight against
organized crime, which is indeed threatening to
destroy our country through criminal acts
perpetrated through syndicates, gangs,
racketeers and money launderers. It is our
position that whatever imperfections the
Scorpions might have, let those be corrected,
but the unit must be left intact, perhaps even
strengthened, to ensure its efficacy and
prowess. Otherwise we will be overrun by drugs,
illegal weapons and other forms of dangerous
mayhem.
The real enemies of our people are the high and
rising food prices and other basic commodities
in our country and the world over. In unity and
solidarity, we should grapple with these issues,
for they herald an era of immense hardship and
misery for our people. It means more families
will go to bed without food, more undernourished
children and more vulnerability to disease. We
need to organize ourselves in such a way that we
can help one another to grow our own food,
whenever and wherever possible. For too long our
rural communities have not been sufficiently
mobilized and supported to use the land more
effectively for their own nourishment and good
health.
We are duty bound to act on these issues because
we are an asset of our people; we are an
instrument of their struggles now, in the past
and in the future. We are compelled by history,
morality and conscience to gird our loins and
play the role thrust upon us by that history.
Black Consciousness and our socialist
orientation do enjoin us to action. And that is
no different from the exhortation of our
cultural workers as they sing:
Sekunjalo
Isikhathi, SeAfrika
Sezonqoba.
And once unity in our ranks is consolidated, we
should adopt an active policy, one that Comrade
Nkutseou Motsau calls the “big heart attitude.”
This should allow us to reach out to other
patriotic forces in our country to forge high
level co-operative arrangements in the national
interest. This should encompass both political
organizations and civil society formations. This
should ensure that whilst organizational
autonomy is acknowledged and respected, we are
able to work together on issues of national
importance. A little bit of this is already
happening among political parties represented in
parliament which seek to strengthen the
democratic space in the country by ensuring that
the playing field is even, fair and equitable.
Theirs is a quest to ensure that all political
parties are treated equally by all national
institutions, such as the media, the electoral
commission and others. Theirs is a deliberate
attempt to ensure all our people have confidence
in the electoral process and that we avoid the
pitfalls of Kenya and Zimbabwe. There are no
guarantees in life, except the absolute
certainty of death. Everything else is worked
for. Zimbabwe and Kenya have taught us the folly
of complacency.
There is no reason why, in one form or another,
perhaps with different configurations, this
co-operative approach cannot be extended to
poverty, HIV, land, high food prices and so on.
Our freedom came at great cost, including the
loss of our talented sons and daughters such as
Biko, Tiro, Shesi, Mohapi and others. We cannot
allow poverty, disease and ignorance to enslave
us.
All of us gathered here, are sons and daughters
of this common soil, and we share the same
dreams and inspirations as Bob Marley, Thomas
Mapfumo, Malaika and other such co-bearers of
our inner voices. We therefore have the correct
ears to hear, when they sing:
Sekunjalo
Isikhathi, SeAfrika
Sezonqoba
Let the obvious be stated again and again: This
is the only country we have. There is no other.
This is our only home. Let us build it.
Let all the patriots stand up, and in solidarity
toil for our people, countries and continent.
Mosibudi Mangena
02 / 05 / 2008
Tshwane