The Pervesity of 1994 Freedom
By Mocholoko Dr. Zulumathabo Zulu © 2022

Listen To SABC Channel Africa Radio Podcast at End of Article on Freedom

The Preamble

On Wednesday April 27, 2022 is the 28th Anniversary of South African Freedom. We give massive thanks to all who have gone before us like the perpetual legends former President Nelson Mandela; Professor Robert Sobukwe; Black Consciousness Leader Bantu Biko; King Moshoeshoe I; Military General Mogorosi; King Cetshwayo ka Mpande; Military General Ntshingwayo ka Mahole; Military General Mbilini Dlamini ka Mswati; Military General Mavumengwane ka Ndlela; Queen and Military General Manthatisi; King Sekhukhune; King Dalindyebo; King Hintsha; King Wetsi and many countless others who watered the tree of freedom with their blood. We are inspired by your physico-intellectual achievements. You are forever venerated by us!

Since we were colonised by three colonial powers namely (1) the Luso-colonialism with the advent of Vasco da Gama in 1497; (2) the Dutch colonialism with the advent of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652 and (3) the British colonialism with the advent of Governors in 1806, it stands to reason that total freedom must emancipate us from all the shackles of the Luso-Anglo-Dutch settler colonialism. So far, our freedom is only dealing with the Dutch part. This means 1/3 freedom is politically attained and the other 2/3 freedom remains outstanding.

True freedom must unquestionably mean total emancipation from all the shackles {physical; mental; spiritual; economic; cultural} of the Luso-Anglo-Dutch Settler Colonialism! This is the hardest form of colonialism but must be defeated!

This raises a pertinent question. What is freedom? What is the original meaning of freedom? What are the principles of freedom? Can you meaningfully celebrate freedom when you don’t fully know the meaning of freedom? Definitely not!

Any freedom that does not exist in its totality is not full freedom. It is a partial freedom as a stepping stone to a full freedom. Moreover, the parameters of freedom are not determined by the colonial descendants. It is the African descendants who must determine the full extent of their freedom. Anything less than this is a perversity of freedom!

Without further ado, The Pervesity of 1994 Freedom.

The Pervesity of 1994 Freedom
By Mocholoko Dr. Zulumathabo Zulu © 2022

a rogue White phallus gets hard,
at sightful resources lard.
Land restitution silenced
Land dispossession like enforced
To rape the beautiful Motherland
they unleash the pestilence,
to escalate the silence.

like a discrete sexual affair,
to be concluded by warfare.
Escapades cloaked in secret
Information sealed in concrete
Mbeki defended the 1994 seal
leadership conference now ended,
overzealous mumblings stranded.

Contextual Commentary

The Meaning and Principles of Freedom

A linguistic analysis of the word freedom shows two things namely (1) free and (2) dom. Free is about being exempt from arbitrary; random and vestigial controls and limitations of any kind. Dom is about an official decree from the system of governance like (1) Government; (2) Court of Law; (3) Lekgotla; (4) Parliament and (5) Assembly that guarantees that you are free; unencumbered and released from bondage; arbitrary or vestigial controls and limitations of any kind.

There are three principles that govern freedom namely (1) indemnity; (2) release and (3) redress.

Indemnity is about being exempt from arbitrary; random or vestigial control or limitation of any kind within the norms and values of society. This means you enjoy the full benefits of freedom and the unimpeded access to the equity provided for and guaranteed by society.

The principle of release is about being unshackled from the cuffs; being emancipated from bondage and being free to associate without undue limitations or exclusion.

Redress is about a restitution for land dispossession; reparation for past injustices including genocide; enslavement; confinement; torture or inhumane treatment and reddress for material loss or physico-psycho-emotional injury.

The Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA, 2021) of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Conference held in Azania (South Africa) in 2001 urges the member States to do as follows:

“…to take all necessary measures to address, as a matter of urgency, the pressing requirement for justice for the victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and to ensure that victims have full access to information, support, effective protection and national, administrative and judicial remedies, including the right to seek just and adequate reparation or satisfaction for damage, as well as legal assistance, where required.”

The Evidence of History

In the book Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion, the indefatigable protagonist of African sovereign independence and co-founder of the ANC, Sol. T. Plaatje narrates a story (Plaatjie, 2016) of how the African Natives were brutally dispossessed of their ancestral land as shown below:

“”The object of this law,” said the Burgher, “is to goad the Natives into rebellion, so that the Government
may legally confiscate what little ground was left to them, and hand over the dispossessed Kafirs and their families to work for the farmers, just for their food.” The policy of goading the Natives into rebellion is not wholly foreign to Colonial policy; but the horrible cruelty to which live stock is exposed under the new Act is altogether a new departure”. (see reference section).

The agents and missionaries of the ECC (Euro-Christian Colonialism) had a tendency to lie through their teeth using the Holy Bible as a reference tool of concordance to dispossess the African ancestors of the Motherland. The ECC Church in the land of Azania presently owns almost 10% of the land acquired via colonial conquest. As an example, the Roman Catholic Church alone in KwaZulu Natal owns more than 16,000 hectares of land which is equivalent to 160 million square meters of land. To get this into perspective, an average Black township house occupies about 200 square meters of land give and take. The Roman Catholic Church in KZN alone occupies 800 thousand times that! We are talking here about one Church alone in one province.

The Swedish Mission Church at Rorke’s Drift near Dundee at the present day KwaZulu Natal province was violently defended on January 22, 1879 by the British colonial army and mercenaries and the Zulus were mowed down by gunfire when they appeared to reclaim the 12 million square meter land of their ancestors. The actual Church building was used to store the weapons of the colonial invaders. The implication herein is that some of the deadly bullets that killed Zulu men were fired from inside the Church.

As a corollary, the Church is mum on the land question because they occupy a land that is almost the size of the Free State province. We are talking here about 130 thousand square kilometers of land which is 30 thousand square kilometers more than than the KwaZulu Natal land mass. KZN land mass is about 90 thousand square kilometers while Free State is about 130 thousand square kilometers.

Lots of farming land under White farmers is leased to them by the Church hence the duplicity of the Church on the land question. When I attended the the SACC (South African Council of Churches) gathering a few years ago and raised a question about the ownership of land by the Church, I was met with a deafening silence from the clergy.

We remain dispossessed on this Freedom Day of April 27, 2022 in spite of the Gregorian calendar month of April being the month of Freedom in the land of Azania. How do you celebrate freedom when you are dispossessed? How do you celebrate freedom when you are still subject to an assortment of vestigial controls and limitations? This is an antagonistic contradiction that has become legendary in the beautiful land of Azania.

In the land of Azania, the African Natives remain callously dispossessed by the colonial descendands and the ECC Church. The African Natives are economically disenfranchised by a blanket vestigial power of the Euro-Christian colonial dispossession. The official decree (The Constitution of the Constitutional Court) that is supposed to release the African Native from the daily aggressions of land dispossession and to guarantee the full benefits of freedom is missing in action in ordinary people’s lives. This uncontested fact is confirmed by the clause 25 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa that militates against the restitution of the land by requiring an astronomical compensation package (inflated by the market forces) to be paid to the colonial descendands to release the land from under their ironclad clutches as attested (Mandela, 1996) in the quotation from the Constitution shown below:

“25. Property.-(1) No one [no colonial descendant] may be deprived of property [dispossessed land] except in terms of law of general application [law of verbosity and tautology], and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation [rightful restitution] of property [dispossessed land]”. The square brackets are mine.

Notice that Clause 25 uses the word “deprive” with respect to the colonial descendants. “Deprive” is the same word as dispossess. In other words, the constitution is eloquently pulling some incredible intellectual gymnistics with finesse in front of our eyes to suggest that returning land to the victims of land dispossesion is the same as the victim dispossessing the colonial descendant and the victim must compensate the colonial descendant for this reverse dispossession. This is making us to believe the unbelievable and to accept the unacceptable like a carjacker who has violently taken your car from you and you have to compensate the carjacker before getting your car back. This is a flagrant affront on the intelligence of the African Native and it forms part of the daily agressions directed at Yena.

What freedom are they talking about?

La Lucha En Espanol

Sin embargo, la lucha debe continuar! No rendirse! Nunca jamas porque el destino es nuestro! Nosotros debemos derrotar las cadenas vestigiales de la esclavitud y CEC (colonialismo eurocristiano)! La melanina debe sobrevivir en la jungla, para ser el arquitecto del destino no comprado y no vendido como estaba destinado a ser por los antepasados africanos.

The Struggle in English

Notwithstanding, the struggle must continue! No surrender! Never never because the destiny is ours! We must defeat the vestigial chains of slavery and ECC (Euro-Christian Colonialism)! The Melanin must survive in the jungle, as the unbought and unsold architect of destiny as it was meant to be by the African ancestors who have gone before us.

Haba bokwe Baholo! Thokoza Makhosi! High Veneration to the Ancestors!

SABC Channel Africa Radio Podcast at End of Article on Freedom

References

Ashe, A. (1994). ​April 27, 1994: Change comes to South Africa. University of California Los Angeles. https://arthurashe.ucla.edu/2016/04/27/april-27-1994-change-comes-to-south-africa/ (accessed April 26, 2077).

DDPA (2021). Durban Declaration and Program of Action 20th Anniversary. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Mandela, N. (1996). Constitution of the Republic of South Africa No. 108 OF 1996. The Presidency, The Republic of South Africa.

Plaatjie, S. (2016). Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion. P S King & Son: London.