There is a War in Me
Great battle has been joined. A long time ago, I wrote that there are "too many wars, too many fronts." There are too many examples on this planet, even this country, that show that quality of life is threatened daily by many threats that seem unending.
There is this decolonization war that is quite pertinent in this country right now. It seems that statues are the first thing in mind. They are a symbol for a bigger gripe in the minds of our students and revolutionary minded. Education institutions seem like they are next against the wall. Rhodes has fallen. The Queen is next, maybe. The state of this nation is more than a questionable thing, as well. We know that land is also a big question. The foreign owned and non-locally owned land is a problem. We all know that there is an energy crisis, as well. A water crisis looms. An education crisis has been real for decades, now.
The war in me is against the extremes of rage and apathy. Inside my self, I constantly have to remember that I should not assassinate Jacob Zuma or Julius Malema and their bankers. I have to remind my self that I and all agents of resistance need to be smarter, more creative. Looking at the actions of Isis and Boko Haram, one cannot help but think that maybe an armed struggle here in South Africa was cut short. That another may be needed. These politicians obey force. Even if they don't obey, it is very difficult to argue with a bullet. The 80s were a very tough time here in South Africa and something was about to give, or so I think.
The release of Mandela placated and pacified most. But some of us are not satisfied. Resistance and decolonisation was cut short. The mega corporations kept their hold on South Africa. The oil, mining and food resources still move out of our land.
The shacks are more prominent now than they ever were. I recently stayed in a shack settlement and visited many others. Sometimes just for a smoke, a drink and to talk to the locals about their lives. I will tell you now that these shack settlements are not just 10 or 15 years old.
The children of this generation need to level up. They have so much to learn yet the schools are either too expensive or too under-resourced to deliver for some. I have met too many 15 year olds that don't read. They just don't. They are not nurtured and given the bother to read. And sure, we can debate about what they are reading some other time. But to think that our departments of government are not proliferating books, and building fresh ways to intervene with our youth, bothers me. And then there some kids studying under trees, or inside shipping containers. In African heat, people! It should fill me with pride, but it bothers me that I have reached the point where I have taken it upon my self to get my finger in as many pies as possible in order to change the miserable situation of South Africa.
Personally, I like Trap Hip Hop beats. But I don't abide by misogyny and banality. And I have sat down and watched these videos of our time. Our 10 to 19 year olds know lyrics to some of the most base song-writing known to man. And it involves womanising, violence, rape and debauchery I didn't even find in the most Brutal Death Metal. So when our youth is swallowing American swill yet don't know how to play African drums or even know who Fela Kuti is (also quite the womaniser), I worry. I personally have trouble calling a woman "bitch," even when I'm angry. And if Africa has one of many things to teach us, it is the respect for the woman that will one day mother our futures. The teenager in high school needs more than MTV after school. Maybe Credo Mutwa and Desmond Tutu should serve their sunset years in the Department of Education. Gods know we could use their works.
And the thing is, the capitalist rot is multi-layered. This is why, when you begin a discourse such as this one, you end up with a reference page at the bottom and a long list of alternate and complimentary readings. But I will do my best to make it as simple as I can for now.
See the layers:
I want a book. Someone has his book. To have this book, I need to make sure that the person I receive the book from has gained as much as he has lost or even improved his situation. Money will not do this. We should know by now that money is a fiction created to manage a new age of slaves. It is a middle-man. And no one likes the middle man.The most powerful people in this world do not use money.
So you still want this book, but if you dare approach many of this world outside of the money system, you are usually thought mad. There are ways to trade without this system. Why would they think you mad for wanting a world without money? Because the Value Ethic has become the Value Inethic. Things that are of true value are stripped of it and marginalised, while the masses are fed the worst or mediocre value resources. To get something, one has been forced to play a global game involving worthless paper.
And you look at your life. Driving to work for that paper,filling your car with oil from Nigeria pumped by a company from America, sold to South Africa and paid for with Gold from Anglo-America. Look at your life. We are not working for our selves any more.
My personal belief is that farmers should be the richest people on the planet. Because if money was about actual Value (upper-case v) and not banking and capital gerrymandering, the people who actually feed us should get the fat of the land. And yet, we find that farmers also want money, because even though they run the bellies of nations, other idiots run the land. And other idiots run the Law. And then another bunch is sent to police and control. And they all get tied by one fatal rope of the money system.
Political Science 101 in most Universities will make you aware of something known asThe Land Question. The Land Question rules all of politics and nothing is oitside of it.
WHO CONTROLS THE LAND?
With that in mind, you will soon realise that your daily job, your beer at the pub, you wine session with friends on Sunday braais, youe Eskom gripes, your stop at Woolworths or. Wallmart, all goes down to that one pivotal thing. The Land Question. And best believe most war goes down to that too.
The hooliganism and sheer powerhousing of a colonial entity, forcing its way in via Bible and gun, or Qur'an or whatever weapon of choice theychoose,has always come down to land control. Palestine and Israel are not seperate. Just as anarm is not seperate from a leg. They are on body. But oncebordersare built. Once you start messing with land politics and policies, see the manufactured complexity.
For the matters before us are not complex. China, America and now Islam want their own empires. They want land to do it. They will imperialise the minds of course. Empire says: Take our way of life, our religion and our problems. Make them your religion and your way of life. Your problems. Become dependant on us.
Once we have sold our lives to the empire, nothing short of war will pull us out. Do you think peace worked? In myth and reality, the peacemaker dies. The despot mass murderer lives until old age. And then the trick of colonial power is to "prove" that resistance is futile. That to be bothered by the sickening exploitation and perversion of Value is pathology. We then call our saviours madmen and train doctors to "cure" our best chances at escaping this madness we have accepted as everyday life. The whole global system is a mess because we have chosen seperation and personal gain over unity. Uniters and liberators get shot and acid-bathed, teeth scattered in forests where none may find them.
I spend times teetering between maniacal rage and suicide. Yoga keeps the dam wall from breaking. And why I learned to speak and write so articulately maddens me even more! What to do with intelligence and articulacy when it will not move the minds of men towards higher planes of consciousness? "Is there a point," I keep asking my self. Who's fight is this, anyway? What am I really fighting for? Why even fight? For the minds of our young? For the security of our water and soil? For the right to be as gay or as lesbian as I want to be? Why the fuck am I fighting for these things anyway? I keep reminding my friends that I am not a white blood cell. But I am starting to feel like a bastion against disease and virus. Everyday I get closer and closer to the idea that a global overhaul is necessary. STARTING HERE! In Africa, Azania, eMzansi. La. Mina mangidiniwe kuphophoma isiZulu, isiNgisi siyakhathala. Imilenze yaso imifishane. Ngivese ngiphelelwe amandla okuzichaza lezizinto ngalolulimi abalufaka kimi. Kodwa uyazini,live and let live. Umhlaba'm'khulu. Ngidinga ukuthinta abantu abaningi.
But best you believe,the war in me is real. I decided to work on becoming Emperor of Azania a few months ago. It is now in writing. It is now in working. Power mongers and party politicians. Mind your heads. I am going to Paris to get some retro guillotines.
I have tired of being your intellectual.
PS.
I have not forgotten, that Kwa Mashu, land of my umbilical cord, is killing and looting our fellow Africans as I write this. My sorrow runs deep that the Black has been ruined so by the economics and politics of our time. We have even lost sight of the true enemy. I could truly go on...But there are so many wars to fight. So many fronts.
There is this decolonization war that is quite pertinent in this country right now. It seems that statues are the first thing in mind. They are a symbol for a bigger gripe in the minds of our students and revolutionary minded. Education institutions seem like they are next against the wall. Rhodes has fallen. The Queen is next, maybe. The state of this nation is more than a questionable thing, as well. We know that land is also a big question. The foreign owned and non-locally owned land is a problem. We all know that there is an energy crisis, as well. A water crisis looms. An education crisis has been real for decades, now.
The war in me is against the extremes of rage and apathy. Inside my self, I constantly have to remember that I should not assassinate Jacob Zuma or Julius Malema and their bankers. I have to remind my self that I and all agents of resistance need to be smarter, more creative. Looking at the actions of Isis and Boko Haram, one cannot help but think that maybe an armed struggle here in South Africa was cut short. That another may be needed. These politicians obey force. Even if they don't obey, it is very difficult to argue with a bullet. The 80s were a very tough time here in South Africa and something was about to give, or so I think.
The release of Mandela placated and pacified most. But some of us are not satisfied. Resistance and decolonisation was cut short. The mega corporations kept their hold on South Africa. The oil, mining and food resources still move out of our land.
The shacks are more prominent now than they ever were. I recently stayed in a shack settlement and visited many others. Sometimes just for a smoke, a drink and to talk to the locals about their lives. I will tell you now that these shack settlements are not just 10 or 15 years old.
The children of this generation need to level up. They have so much to learn yet the schools are either too expensive or too under-resourced to deliver for some. I have met too many 15 year olds that don't read. They just don't. They are not nurtured and given the bother to read. And sure, we can debate about what they are reading some other time. But to think that our departments of government are not proliferating books, and building fresh ways to intervene with our youth, bothers me. And then there some kids studying under trees, or inside shipping containers. In African heat, people! It should fill me with pride, but it bothers me that I have reached the point where I have taken it upon my self to get my finger in as many pies as possible in order to change the miserable situation of South Africa.
Personally, I like Trap Hip Hop beats. But I don't abide by misogyny and banality. And I have sat down and watched these videos of our time. Our 10 to 19 year olds know lyrics to some of the most base song-writing known to man. And it involves womanising, violence, rape and debauchery I didn't even find in the most Brutal Death Metal. So when our youth is swallowing American swill yet don't know how to play African drums or even know who Fela Kuti is (also quite the womaniser), I worry. I personally have trouble calling a woman "bitch," even when I'm angry. And if Africa has one of many things to teach us, it is the respect for the woman that will one day mother our futures. The teenager in high school needs more than MTV after school. Maybe Credo Mutwa and Desmond Tutu should serve their sunset years in the Department of Education. Gods know we could use their works.
And the thing is, the capitalist rot is multi-layered. This is why, when you begin a discourse such as this one, you end up with a reference page at the bottom and a long list of alternate and complimentary readings. But I will do my best to make it as simple as I can for now.
See the layers:
I want a book. Someone has his book. To have this book, I need to make sure that the person I receive the book from has gained as much as he has lost or even improved his situation. Money will not do this. We should know by now that money is a fiction created to manage a new age of slaves. It is a middle-man. And no one likes the middle man.The most powerful people in this world do not use money.
So you still want this book, but if you dare approach many of this world outside of the money system, you are usually thought mad. There are ways to trade without this system. Why would they think you mad for wanting a world without money? Because the Value Ethic has become the Value Inethic. Things that are of true value are stripped of it and marginalised, while the masses are fed the worst or mediocre value resources. To get something, one has been forced to play a global game involving worthless paper.
And you look at your life. Driving to work for that paper,filling your car with oil from Nigeria pumped by a company from America, sold to South Africa and paid for with Gold from Anglo-America. Look at your life. We are not working for our selves any more.
My personal belief is that farmers should be the richest people on the planet. Because if money was about actual Value (upper-case v) and not banking and capital gerrymandering, the people who actually feed us should get the fat of the land. And yet, we find that farmers also want money, because even though they run the bellies of nations, other idiots run the land. And other idiots run the Law. And then another bunch is sent to police and control. And they all get tied by one fatal rope of the money system.
Political Science 101 in most Universities will make you aware of something known asThe Land Question. The Land Question rules all of politics and nothing is oitside of it.
WHO CONTROLS THE LAND?
With that in mind, you will soon realise that your daily job, your beer at the pub, you wine session with friends on Sunday braais, youe Eskom gripes, your stop at Woolworths or. Wallmart, all goes down to that one pivotal thing. The Land Question. And best believe most war goes down to that too.
The hooliganism and sheer powerhousing of a colonial entity, forcing its way in via Bible and gun, or Qur'an or whatever weapon of choice theychoose,has always come down to land control. Palestine and Israel are not seperate. Just as anarm is not seperate from a leg. They are on body. But oncebordersare built. Once you start messing with land politics and policies, see the manufactured complexity.
For the matters before us are not complex. China, America and now Islam want their own empires. They want land to do it. They will imperialise the minds of course. Empire says: Take our way of life, our religion and our problems. Make them your religion and your way of life. Your problems. Become dependant on us.
Once we have sold our lives to the empire, nothing short of war will pull us out. Do you think peace worked? In myth and reality, the peacemaker dies. The despot mass murderer lives until old age. And then the trick of colonial power is to "prove" that resistance is futile. That to be bothered by the sickening exploitation and perversion of Value is pathology. We then call our saviours madmen and train doctors to "cure" our best chances at escaping this madness we have accepted as everyday life. The whole global system is a mess because we have chosen seperation and personal gain over unity. Uniters and liberators get shot and acid-bathed, teeth scattered in forests where none may find them.
I spend times teetering between maniacal rage and suicide. Yoga keeps the dam wall from breaking. And why I learned to speak and write so articulately maddens me even more! What to do with intelligence and articulacy when it will not move the minds of men towards higher planes of consciousness? "Is there a point," I keep asking my self. Who's fight is this, anyway? What am I really fighting for? Why even fight? For the minds of our young? For the security of our water and soil? For the right to be as gay or as lesbian as I want to be? Why the fuck am I fighting for these things anyway? I keep reminding my friends that I am not a white blood cell. But I am starting to feel like a bastion against disease and virus. Everyday I get closer and closer to the idea that a global overhaul is necessary. STARTING HERE! In Africa, Azania, eMzansi. La. Mina mangidiniwe kuphophoma isiZulu, isiNgisi siyakhathala. Imilenze yaso imifishane. Ngivese ngiphelelwe amandla okuzichaza lezizinto ngalolulimi abalufaka kimi. Kodwa uyazini,live and let live. Umhlaba'm'khulu. Ngidinga ukuthinta abantu abaningi.
But best you believe,the war in me is real. I decided to work on becoming Emperor of Azania a few months ago. It is now in writing. It is now in working. Power mongers and party politicians. Mind your heads. I am going to Paris to get some retro guillotines.
I have tired of being your intellectual.
PS.
I have not forgotten, that Kwa Mashu, land of my umbilical cord, is killing and looting our fellow Africans as I write this. My sorrow runs deep that the Black has been ruined so by the economics and politics of our time. We have even lost sight of the true enemy. I could truly go on...But there are so many wars to fight. So many fronts.
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