There have been sporadic incidents of censoring that have been happening in South Africa in different industries young vocal and opinionated black youth/ people have been subjected to a new thread to towards individual opinion and freedom of speech.
More and more of us have found us sidelined and or black listed by industry captains and their friends, to ensure that the status quo remains the same. I was recently subjected to a lengthy labor case and because of this I have come across a lot of young people who unfortunately haven’t had the media glare that I have had and their cases remain largely unreported. While the media has advocated for a broader control of its own industry it has largely been very biased to those with greater control, finance and superior race and religious belief.
Take for instance my case, when the news broke that I had posted an “anti-Semitic’ statement and had subsequently been fired, the media went on a rampage to put the news in their radio bulletins, the papers went to town, the bloggers went to blog and even black journalists were allowed to speak to white people to find out who I was, what I meant, rather than speak to Blacks and find out whether or not I was an anti Semitic or was on point with what I was raising.
The fact about what I was saying what I am still saying is that our theatre industry which is mainly in cape town and Joburg is operated from a Jewish perspective because intentionally or unintentionally the captains of the performing arts industry particularly theatre are of Jewish faith and origin and that’s a fact not a thumb suck or bullshit. The fact is they are scared to transform and the ANC allows it and they even fund it, finish and klaar. I also find it odd that one cant speak about the holocaust, Hitler or anything that relates to that history if they are not Jewish (at least in the south Africa of today) the fact that Jewish people speak freely of apartheid doesn’t raise any sensitivity or racism alignments from the media. I mean 4 radio stations, 5 daily papers and 3 websites carried my story and non-except 2 other newspapers (not listed with the others) called to find out what my story was? Like go figure! Better still what media freedom? The fact that all these media houses didn’t see it fit to ask me or black elders and or professional of whether I was allowed to use the word holocaust in any reference or say the word ‘fucking’ in the same sentence as Jew and holocaust equated to treason in my own land and I couldn’t even be afforded space that white, Jewish people were afforded in the media to voice their disproving what I had said about the state of an industry I work in.
The fact is I am a black man with no trust fund or a board of deputies that can speak on my behalf means I am consistently at a mercy of a superior race, the laws of the land as enshrined in our fucked up constitution, signed of by a corrupt government, led by a ruling party that continuously protects the oppressors of black people in our country. I mean the fact that its former president have even gone as high as the UN human rights commission to justify why multi-national companies exploited blacks in this country demonstrates their unwillingness to understand our suffering.
We have all been clubbed together with Julius Malema and have been declared persona non-grata in our land, the African National Congress on the other hand is so clueless about how to change our suffering, the party is in such a messy state that they find themselves in, I mean for the last 17 years they have done nothing except steal from Blacks and cover each other’s asses than focus on the real problems that have faced black for the last 450 years.
So to the Nceba, who worked for a major fishing company in the Eastern Cape, Matjamela who worked at a theatre company in Johannesburg, Ernest who still works for the DSRAC in one of the provinces and is under constant investigation for his outspokenness, and a million other frustrated young black people in financial institutions, education, health, mining and any other industry please note, NO ONE WANTS TO LISTEN TO YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE BLACK AND KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.
We are now in a space where we have to realize that we cant continue promising politicians everything and expecting nothing in return, we cant agree to live in RDP houses when ministers live in Villas, we can go to Chris Hani Baragwanath when the President go to 1 Military Hospital, we cant take our kids to “continuously black schools” when government officials send theirs to private white owned schools that get subsidized by our tax, we cant continue to travel by shosholoza meyl or coffin like Taxis when government officials travel on the yellow lane with 5 luxury blue light German sedan convoys.
We can’t allow Julius Malema to lead a call for economic freedom in our lifetime because he is taking our land, minerals, and wealth back to the ANC. The last 17 years has given us nothing but suffering, kind of shows that they never really participated in the struggle for our freedom they just became a political “Usain Bolt” for our votes in 1994.
The less we say about opposition parties and their concerns for Black suffering the better, the DA is exploiting the ineptness of the ANC while the rest of us stand more chance of the speaker of parliament calling us into order than the black opposition parties. We have to say NO to the willingness of being exploited by the current government, the ANC and DA alike, as for the rest they should just fold if you ask me.
We have to say, shut up WE are BLACK and we are suffering so deal with US, here and now otherwise let’s declare the state ungovernable until it is for our benefit. We must seek a radical and brave black alternative movement.
While we seek an alternative, we should be vigilant of being infiltrated and ending up with revolutions like the Egyptian revolution where the people who used to eat with Mubarak are now eating without Mubarak, the Libyan revolution in where we are going to be called insurgents or rebels in our land, it has to consistently be about our desire for a better today, a repaired past and a monitored future, not something that’s going to leave us worse than a third world, like what Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt have all become.
We are the ones we have been waiting for, our emancipation to freedom has to be the responsibility of each Black person suffering from the current political dispensation, let us treat the current government and political system with total contempt, because I don’t care what the noise is about but all I see is an opportunity to voice as a BLACK MAN what I deserve and not be labeled anything, because I am BLACK AND I AM PROUD.
"Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being."- Biko
VUKA DARKIE
