Good Old Ideas

As I am continuously trying to understand the world around me I stumble across interesting ideas that I ran across in my long life of observing what was going on in the world. I have mentioned the name of Karl Marx in my blog as he could explain to us the source of our present economic crisis. Looking at the tragedy that is South Africa the name Frantz Fanon came to mind.

(I wasn’t at all sure about Fanon and it was my friend Bill Kornblum who assured me I was on the right track.)

Fanon was a black man born in the Caribbean who was an active participant in the Algerian war for independence. He had a unique perspective as he was also a Psychiatrist. He wrote about the black body white mind phenomena. He was very much concerned with with what he referred to as the “colonial mind.” People who live under an oppressive colonial regime develop a way of thinking that tells them “this is the way to rule.” If and when they get rid of their oppressors the leaders tend to behave the same as the former oppressors. Why? Fanon explains it, as their only experience of what leaders do. They simply have no other frame of reference. Or an alternative way to think about it. Which brings me to South Africa.

Fifteen years after the end of Apartheid there has been progress for a number of Blacks who have made it into the middle class. Yet the conditions in the Townships has hardly changed at all. The unemployment rate hovers around 25 percent. Millions of people continue to live in the same miserable conditions that they experienced under the Apartheid regime. No running water, no electricity, no sanitary facilities, in essence no change. How can this be? You ask. This is were Fanon comes in.

Watching the farce of Jacob Zuma’s ascendance to the Presidency of South Africa is a culmination of the decline of the Afican National Congress the ANC since the departure of Nelson Mandela. His successor was Mbeki who had a masters degree in economics from the University of Sussex in Great Britain. He spent a good part of his time as the President convincing the banking investment world that South Africa was a place that the Wall Streets of the world could feel very secure about their investments. That might have been an important strategy to encourage western bankers to trust the Mbeki administration. They managed a 5 billion dollar loan for military equipment. It was in the course of negotiating that loan that the payoffs on a broad scale involved many of the ANC leaders including Mbeki and the new President Zuma. Think for a moment what 5 billion dollars might have done for the needs of the Townships? What exactly is the great need for military equipment? Who exactly is threatening South Africa? Good questions no answers. Unless, maybe it’s a concern for social unrest in the Townships that is sure to come if there is no change.

What does Fanon hve to teach us about the South Africa problem? First Mbeki and now Zuma have gone out and bought themselves a fleet of fancy cars, a series of large mansions spread around the country and I am sure Rolex watches and other appurtenances that make “no mistake as to who I am.” All to make them appear as powerful as their predecessors. It was Fanons observation that with the end of colonial rule the oppressed having experienced no other kind of relationship assume the role as ruler in the same way as their oppressor. This is the tragedy that is unfolding today in South Africa.

Fanon believed that a violent overthrow of the colonial rulers was necessary to clear out the old social relationship. The revolution would have an opportunity to create a new way for people to relate to one another. Yet it seems to me that violent revolutions do not necessarily end up with some new form of governing. The Russian Revolution ended up with a structure that very much resembled the old Czarist regime. Stalin as Ivin The Terrible.

In essence I believe that Fanon was trying to address our age old problem of heirachy. All of western civilization is based on the old military model of hierarchy. Power starts at the top. As it descends it gets distributed to the various people making up the power structure until it reaches the bottom, the local policeman on the beat. My own many years in the Labor Movement bares out the hierarchical way that power is vested in the work place and how difficult it was to try to change that.

I think I’ll stop here for now and continue this discussion in another blog.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.