By Tiro Makhudu
The modern day black man wears his shackles with an insulting pride to his forbearers, a slave in mind and body, he sees not his chains for they neither clink nor clank. Dressed in his colonial attire with his nose in the air at those from whence he comes, he is the cosmic joke that celestial bodies have no time laughing at. The modern day black man hands his master the whip and assumes the position without a shade of shame, pride or single cohesive thought towards strategy, legacy or the actualisation of the self; outside of the construct, those who have captured his self-worth have laid on the plate of crumbs he calls his identity, a plate placed at his feet so he thinks nothing of the fact that he must kneel before them to get to it.
So what is assimilation? In the simplest terms, it is a system of slavery/colonisation where you coax the victim into aspiring to be like his master. A stolholm syndrome of sorts that probably accounts for the ineffectiveness of the South African democratic aspiration and probably why an entire population walks on gold yet lives below the breadline. After all, no one went to the CODESA negotiations in their motshe/beshu or took with them their assegai, this in a process where they purported to claim their freedom and African-ness in the land of the people of old… the people of origin I’m ashamed to say my Tswana people called “ Masarwa” meaning lower than filth in order to replicate the model imposed by the imperialists who walked on their backs and stripped them of their identity and dignity. But true to a mind void of will and self-determination, we did not revolt. NO, instead we paid it forward like a deed wrapped in love and tidy red bow while singing BOTHO from the tiny rooftops that have defined the fiscal complexion of our people but at least from there we could see the wealth amassed by the masters we aspired to be like, not knowing that through such base thoughts he let us take keys to shackles home because he knew we hadn’t the capacity to use them. Crabs in a bucket seeing our success only through the presence of one lesser than ourselves, much like saying you are thin but only by virtue of being near an obese person.
If this angers you, then there is hope for you yet. That is entirely the point. Livid at the self because no one lie can evoke that emotion. Only a fundamental truth and if you own that truth, you can own the paradigm shift it demands. It was once said by a general that one cannot destroy a nation until that nation has begun to destroy itself from the inside. We continually fit that description without fail. So we adopt accents, burn our hair and bleach the golden brown of the earth the universe chose for us as the sun-kisses sons and daughters of the soil while pretending that the occasional doek is a reclamation of the African self but the truth is that we are so far removed we know longer know what it looks, tastes or smells like. We are the no man in the land that is our home and that sadness leaves a surreal chill in the pit of the stomach.
Still we walk proudly in our shackles and call ourselves educated, progressive and a myriad of regurgitations we believe make us at least tolerable to a minority that took a majority of our dignity while we sat and came up with justifications. Yes, you do have a vehicle you cannot afford and keep the other monkeys who only just came down from the trees from upsetting the apple cart and apparently that is the long and short of a successful black man but can you even afford the mark that you wear as your symbol of success. Will this, your legacy, carry over generations or will it be the butt of the joke at the braai while they discuss how nothing can be easier than oppressing a black man because it only takes another black man to set and keep the wheels in motion?
They said “the black man is wooden headed, child-like and incapable of civilisation.” We said “what are we black men who are called French?” but where have we gone since? What is the end game? What are you black man and what do you call yourself? More importantly… why?
By Tiro Makhudu
Tiro Makhudu is an aspiring writer who has written for several local television productions and a voice screaming the narrative that needs to be heard with no one willing it to tell it. With an unapologetic, no nonsense approach, Tiro holds no punches and purports to wake the spirit of his fellow man with the belief that that woke spirit will translate into a sharp and pro-African weapon of a mind that will deliver the African from his mind, body and soul penitentiary. An Africanist through and through and all round social commentator, Tiro seeks to plant his tiny seedlings in the landscape of the discourse that will one day give rise to the brightest Africa that the winds of change and hands of time will allow.
