Norris McDonald | Winnie Mandela, Julius Malema, and Soweto’s black orchids

“In reverence we’ll tell dis story

Of ah new day in Blackstory

Of BLACK ORCHIDS! O!

Blood-nourish’d earth!

Di mid-wife to Africa’s rebirth!”

The 1976 Soweto uprising was a turning point in the South African struggle against the white supremacist, apartheid regime. Over 700 young people were brutally murdered – by the American- and Western European-supported, cruel apartheid regime.

Another 1,000 were reportedly wounded, as the regime’s police killed and maimed black children. They were the treasured flower, flowing life blood of the new nation igniting the kindling revolutionary sparks to create a treasured freedom from political oppression.

“’Twas a mighty phalanx of sturdy men!

And even barefoot women an’ children!

Mighty heads high, some valiantly died!

Defeating, abolishing, brutal apartheid!”

The political system of apartheid was a racist, colonial, and imperialist practice that plundered the South African regions’ wealth, while using military might to make the black labour force provide cheap labour.

Anti-colonial political changes that have been sweeping Africa have brought a Black political ruling and economic class to power, but we still have intense suffering of poor people.

This appears to be a key driver of a new political, revolutionary current sweeping Africa.

South Africa, too, is caught up in the revolutionary political tsunami.

This, I believe, is one of the key factors that have made the ruling African National Congress (ANC) being put under pressure by a newly emerged radical political left-wing force, the Hon Julius Malema-led Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

The EFF argues that the ANC has betrayed its Founding Charter that included the mandate, and political aspirations, to make life better for Black South Africans.

SOWETO BLACK ORCHIDS

This was what Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Steve Biko, Chris Hani, Oliver Tambo, and many of the other political leaders challenged themselves to achieve.

The political fight against racism, colonialism, imperialism and apartheid became a global struggle inspired by the noble sacrifice of the young people of Soweto.

Soweto’s young people were undaunted.

“Facing gunshots, chest open wide!

BLACK ORCHIDS sprung, where dey died!

When freedom came, ‘twas ah glorious day!

Political freedom! We hail it today!”

My dear friends, there is no doubt that the mass awakening of political consciousness that we saw in the Soweto uprising, and the apartheid regime’s brutal response, helped to galvanise the further intense political struggle.

Of course, this was an important stage in South Africa’s national struggle for political freedom, but is the struggle over?

Clearly not!

JULIUS MALEMA’S EFF

Given the political negotiations between the ANC and the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela was released from Robin Island Prison and, in 1994, he became South Africa’s President.

With the change of political power from President Mandela to other ANC leaders, there is now a shocking political reality that South Africa’s wealth is not being used to make life better for her Black poor people.

In fact, the cruel brutality that existed under apartheid still exists in South Africa.

We saw this with the 2012 Marikana Massacre, under an ANC-led Black South African government, in which 34 members of a striking miners’ union were brutally gunned down in cold blood.

Critics of the ANC, including Julius Malema and the EFF, accuse them of gross betrayal.

Malema comes from the new generation of South African youth and students whose political visions are inspired by Winnie Mandela and events such as the 1976 Soweto uprising. He was a political leader of the ANC youth wing, but in 2012 he was expelled from the ANC for consistently demanding that they make life better for the Black South Africans.

This overzealousness may have backfired on the ANC.

In 2012, following his expulsion, Malema formed the Economic Freedom Fighters as a new political movement to defend and fight for the poorer classes of people. Now, in just 13 years, the EFF received 1.8 million votes in the 2019 general election.

This rising tide earned the EFF 10.79 per cent popular support from the electorate, giving them 44 of the 358 seats in the South African parliament.

ECONOMIC FREEDOM STRUGGLE

Julius Malema has clearly articulated a positive, progressive vision of the future for South Africa in a 2016 speech and discussion to the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom. This speech has been hailed as “the best ever made by a South African political leader”.

The EFF has accused South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, among others, of unfairly benefitting from the Economic Empowerment Act. Under this scheme, members of the ANC leadership were reportedly given shares in gold and diamond mines and other business ventures.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, for example, moved from being an ordinary ANC General Secretary to becoming a multimillionaire, whose 2023 estimated net worth is US$500 million, according to Forbes Magazine.

Malema argues that instead of empowering individual black leaders, companies ought to give shares to their workers. This would expand the wealth and purchasing power of the working class and create a more loyal and productive workforce.

It certainly makes more political and economic sense to expand the wealth and purchasing power of the working class. And this is a key political plank in the EFF’s fight for economic justice for the South African Black working class.

Another political and economic goal of the EFF is for “the South African land to be taken over, without compensation, and returned to the people”.

Finally, Malema also argues that the 1985 Truth and Reconciliation Commission forgave the crimes of apartheid, and yet, in 1991, under a so-called Black ANC government, Winnie Mandela was put on trial on criminal charges. Some people think this was an attempt by her political enemies to stop her from becoming president after Nelson Mandela.

The apparent betrayal of Winnie Mandela by the ANC has left bitterness in the progressive faction of the South African political movement.

Given all this, it appears that EFF under Julius Malema may well continue the meteoric rise as a vibrant political party, fighting for economic liberation of the South African people.

That’s just the bitta truth.

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.