27 April 1994 was characterised by euphoria of black people in long queues to cast their votes for the first time. They had been disenfranchised for all their lives and were exhilarated by the realisation of the principle of " One man, one vote."It was at this time that Sarafina's hit song "Freedom is coming tomorrow" found resonance in black townships.
Little did they know they were queuing up for a product with factory fault - freedom without benefits. Nithi sixole kanjani (how are we supposed to find peace) when our freedom begins and ends at the ballot box?
As South Africa celebrates April as freedom month - let me say without any measure of ambiguity that freedom is not liberation. I hold an iconoclastic view that South Africa is a "society" of free classified individuals therefore, not a liberated nation.
Suffice it to say, the freedom that dawned on 27 April 1994 was only academic. It was devoid of benefits as it failed to free the oppressed masses from the malaise of hunger, landlessness and unemployment. Econo-political matrix of the new dispensation failed to give freedom a discernible expression in the lives of mine workers, shack dwellers and farm labourers.
Nithi sixole kanjani when sate employees don't qualify for mortgage bonds and are not illegible for state subsidised houses?
From 1994 ANC has concocted a cocktail of economic policies that failed to radically transform lives of ordinary South Africans. First there was Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) which was aborted in 1996 with the advent of Growth Employment And Redistribution. In 2005 we were introduced to Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGISA) which made way for New Growth Plan (NGP) in 2010.
Then came National Development Plan (NDP) amid much fanfare in 2013. Looking from a black man's eye view, however majestic these policies were, they were never realistic. They fell short of incubating emerging township entrepreneurs into full-scale industrialists. RDP failed to reconstruct the spatial patterns so as to herald black people into economic heartlands. Black masses are still condemned to the periphery of the economy in sync with tectonics of apartheid spatial planning.
GEAR also failed to redistribute state land into the hands of people for industrialisation, agagrarian economy and urbanisation. On the other hand, ASGISA could not accelerate growth of township economy and massive introduction of black women into mainstream economy. Considering all these chronicled failures to build an inclusive growth conducive for capital flow and cash fluidity, I have a feeling NDP is also on the high-way to nowhere.
23 years later, black people are still recipients of freedom without benefits. The freedom that Robert Sobukwe and Chris Hani went to prison and died for respectively, still doesn't allow for free higher-education. The same freedom that Ruth Mompati was exiled for, doesn't make free sanitary towels part of the education system to keep a girl child at school.
Nithi sixole kanjani when a destitute woman who cast her vote in 1994 is now a mother to a 23 year-old unemployed graduate? How are we supposed to find peace when the ruling ANC is oblivious to Amilcar Cabral's clarion call "Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, things in anyone's head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward to guarantee the future of their children."
The trivial gains of South African freedom are not commensurate with sacrifices made to attain it. People didn't fight for the right to vote, yet still go to bed hungry. They didn't fight against unfair labour practice only to be leased out to abusive employers in the name of outsourcing. The ability to shout " Viva Mandela" without being arrested is not freedom. For past 23 years we've been at the receiving end of liberal reform packaged as freedom. Nithi sixole kanjani when the economy of Africa's most industrialised country is in the hands of the minority while the majority are mere spectators?
