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Perpetual captivity: The story of Africa

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IN the apartheid days, Jacob Zuma alongside other ANC stalwarts, staunch revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and many others were always on the ‘wrong side’ of the Constitution. 

For this, the Boers incarcerated, tormented and, murdered them. 

But for this they never gave up. 

They soldiered on until final victory. 

Is it not strange then that today, decades after freedom, Zuma is still told ‘you are on the wrong side of the constitution’?

Those who tormented him and many others for decades, Sharpeville, Soweto June 16, and on many other occasions got away scot-free, and for the simple reason that they had been fought so hard, so relentlessly, and defeated but they sought terms of surrender. 

Nelson Mandela was released, negotiations got underway, and the Boers relinquished power which they had brutally exercised over the South African blacks for centuries. 

They relinquished power to the ANC as the custodian of the will of the South African blacks, as the major victor in the struggle for freedom.

The salient point here is that they got away scot free. 

They were never punished although they had committed unconscionable crimes, crimes against humanity, untold crimes.

But today Zuma is being accused of crimes, alleged crimes and he is being treated as no other perpetrator of crimes against South African blacks has ever been treated and all in the name of constitutionalism and democracy. 

We wonder whose constitutionalism, whose democracy, whose song this is?

How soon we forget? 

To suture this situation whereby thieves and merciless, heartless murderers would get away with the murder and theft which spanned centuries, would pay nothing for such heinous crimes, a song was created and spread across the world: ‘A new constitution, a new song, a rainbow nation’.

Who crafted this song? 

It was not the ANC, it was not the blacks as the blacks were still busy taking stock of the situation; still trying to find their feet in a strange land where others, their arch enemies had ruled for so long, where each instrument, political, economic, socio-cultural had been crafted to entrench their perpetual demise. 

They now had to ride the albatross, to ride the wild beast, they hoped to tame it, alas, a song had already been crafted, a new constitution, their song, not that of the blacks, the song of the former oppressors, the former tormentors.

The enemy knew the ropes. 

A maze of booby traps was set up. 

The Africans would limp alone, they would try to rule. Mandela tried but sooner than later the silent cold war took its toll. 

His health which the beast had destroyed in 27 years of cruel incarceration succumbed. 

Others followed, gingerly riding the albatross, the wildest beast with many horns. 

The beast fought Thabo Mbeki and he fought back, their intellect no match for his, his revolutionary mettle no match for their thieving and murdering wills, there was a debacle and he left.

And it was Zuma’s turn. 

The West was livid? 

The untamed African who dared cross each line drawn by the thieves and murderers who had ruled South Africa with impunity. 

They could not bear an unmitigated African, Zuma. 

The maze of booby traps was boosted and extended everywhere. 

Their lackeys everywhere were activated. 

The loudest alarm was raised: “Tapera!” 

Zuma did not blink an eye. 

He knew them, and instinctively, he could tell who they are in his sleep. 

He had fought them during the apartheid era and he would fight them still. 

He rolled up his sleeve, it was de-ja-vu, Aluta continua!

Nothing scares the whiteman like an unmitigated African, the one who eschews to be an evolue’, to be an assimilado because he has his own language, his own ways, and refuses to speak the language of the whiteman, refuses the ways of the whiteman, and still stands tall, unapologetic.

It was a test of the South African revolutionary mettle. 

Zuma stood firm. 

He knew they were closing in on him. 

The Democratic Alliance, Julius Malema, all of them, they were mere instruments and he knew about it all. 

He also knew of the betrayal within the ANC. 

He knew in the end he would stand ‘alone’ and he did. 

To his credit, he never balked, they removed him but he was standing still – a remnant of the old sterling generation of South African revolutionaries, who would no longer be able to sing their revolutionary song. 

It was a strange land still. 

It still was the era of Joshua; Moses had left but it was not yet Canaan, not yet Uhuru. 

The ‘rainbow nation’ has no place for unmitigated Africans like Zuma. 

The West says, ‘every man has his price’. 

They lie, they could find no price for Zuma. 

They set their machinery into motion, and temporarily, they seem to have succeeded.

They sang their song, relentlessly: ‘Zuma must go!’ 

The conscience of Africa got disturbed but they carried it through.

‘We have to make an example of him’, they said. 

‘These Africans must know what happens to any African who is bigger than his shoes, who forgets who the real masters are, who forgets that the seat of power is only on loan and you keep it if you remember who the master is’. 

Zuma knew this, but instead of giving in, he chose to honour the blood and sacrifices of all those who for centuries fought apartheid, the most evil foreign rule imposed on the Africans of South Africa.

The machinery moved in to finish off Zuma as they purport but you never finish any spirit, especially the revolutionary spirit. 

If that were true, centuries of untold cruelty to South Africans should have silenced them and freedom day should have never come. 

They never learn, those of the West.

The new tune’s refrain is constitutionalism, democracy!

Whose constitution? 

We want to know. 

This is not a rhetorical question. 

This has to be answered unequivocally.

It is not an African constitution and that is not surprising? How many African nations have African constitutions? 

Why is it so urgent for the West to fund the crafting of constitutions in our nations? 

Why do they fall over each other to reform our constitutions, to reform our laws without anyone inviting them? 

The West is not a philanthropist. 

They are doing it for returns which are fundamental to what is their eternal interest in Africa, looting and plunder of resources and for this they need constitutions and laws inimical to the African interest, pliable laws and Zuma got caught in this maze of inimical laws. 

He knew it but he would not be daunted. 

He decided not to ride the albatross, but to take it by the horns. 

When you do that, you get hurt but you are the winner, you are the hero. 

The children of Soweto did that. 

They got hurt, but they triumphed in the end because freedom day came.

It is not an African constitution when it is not based on the African conscience. 

If its precepts, its practices deeply disturbs the conscience of the land of Africa, it is not ours. 

It serves those who authored it, enemies of Africa.

In Africa we do not jail 79 year old fathers. 

Should there be problems, there are ways to deal with them, so we do not incarcerate them. 

It is to disturb too deeply the soul of the land.  

He is a father, a father of the South African nation. 

He is one of those who put their lives on the line for this land, to end one of the most brutally criminal rule in the world, thus the best friend of the land, the best friend of South African blacks who endured so much for them. 

How soon we forget?

What has happened to us? 

Have we truly forgotten who we are? 

It is more honourable to us to please the authors of ‘constitutionalism and democracy ‘than to honour ourselves as the true authors of the freedom now embracing everybody including our former oppressors and tormentors. 

It is more important to be good boys to the West than to tell the West: ‘you never wanted us to be free, you oppressed and fought us for centuries until we defeated you with our own blood and sacrifice now leave us alone to chart our own destiny, to honour ourselves and our own’.

To torment Zuma is to fight harshly the legacy of the freedom struggle and we know why. 

Once this legacy is weakened, it will be so much easier to bury it and then it will be so much easier for the West to accelerate the plunder and looting of this rich nation in Africa. 

Zuma chose to be crucified rather than dishonour the blood and sacrifice of his comrades by accepting to be a ‘good boy of the West’.

Aluta continua!

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