Discussion of SAFm This Mornin
By Thando Sipuye
Was listening to this discussion on SA Fm on whether people in
this country see themselves as Black, white or coloured before seeing
themselves as South Africans. It was quite disgusting and pathetic to hear just
how much people have bought into this false illusionary rainbow nationalism of
Tutu and Mandela. It was even more nauseating to hear a whiteboy, a so-called
Afrikaner, claiming that “we Afrikaners are African and we should stop this
thing of seeing people with colour – we are all South African”.
I tried calling in with no luck, couldn’t go through. But these
were my thoughts as I listened to the confusion:
We are Afrikan before we are South African; we identify
ourselves as Afrikan people, as part of the Afrikan nation and family before
anything else. It is the legacy of colonialism-apartheid-white supremacy which
continues to perpetuate regionalist identities (such as South African-ness) in
Afrika along the rigid lines of colonial borders created by whites (Europains).
It is this very same thwarted sick mentality that is the root cause of
Afrophobia, with Afrikans who have embraced the false identity and
consciousness of South African-ness hating and killing their own kith and kin,
simply because they come from across the fence.
South
African-ness is a white supremacist colonial identity – not all of us accept
being labelled ‘South Africans’ – we are not all ‘proudly South African’. South
African-ness was engineered by British & Dutch settlers on the 31 May 1910.
All the countries of Afrika constructed new identifies to define and identify
themselves: Gold Coast became Ghana; South-West Africa became Namibia; Upper
Volta became Burkina Faso; Tanganyika became Tanzania and Rhodesia became
Zimbabwe. South Africa has remained with a colonial name and identity. We
reject it. We detest it.
Mangaliso
Sobukwe & Bantu Biko gave to Blacks in this country an identity – they
referred to us as Azanians and called this country Azania. They coined this
political identity – AZANIA – because they overstood the importance and value
of constructing your own identity as opposed to sheepishly accepting an
identity constructed and imposed on you by oppressors – Europains.
These
whites who call themselves Afrikaaners (Afrikans) – these are primarily the
descendents and the progeny of Dutch settlers who constructed a political
identity for themselves –Afrikaner- thus indigenizing themselves. These Dutch
settlers started adopting and referring to themselves as Afrikaners (Afrikans)
after the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). Today, these people have convinced the
world and some unknowing Afrikans that they are a ‘white tribe of Afrika’.
Historical fact is that whites, whether of English or Dutch descent, whether
English or Afrikaans speaking – they are all descendents of Europain colonial
settlers. They are all responsible for the destruction of Afrikan identities
and the construction of new false colonial identities for indigenous Afrikans,
such as ‘South African-ness’.
Nations
and identities cannot be built and constructed on lies and falsification of
historical reality. We cannot falsify history and reality – racial differences
are a reality inasmuch as gender differences are a reality; and in our context
racial difference is a sour and bitter fact of life. We can never transform
people or create a race/colour-blind society. It is only those who wish to
distort, forget and/or erase history and historical reality that perpetuate
this intellectual political fraud of race/colour-blindness.
WE ARE AFRIKAN BEFOFE WE ARE ANYTHING ELSE.
