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Mandela Posters
Mandela Posters
the mother of a guy killed by the ANCs cops at a demonstration, whilst Mandela was president The great appear great because we are on our knees. Jim Larkin A 9 year old multimillionaire dies peacefully and the ruling world treats him as an endearing demi!god because he spent "#$ of his life in prison under a %ile fascistic form of go%ernment and on his release became an international political star& 'id the worlds most well!known shitheads turn up for the (( killed at Marikana, who ne%er e%en had the option of the misery of prison) 'o people e%en know their names) *a%e they heard of +eboho Mkhon,a, Michael Makhabane, Marcel -ing and all the others killed by the ANC filth in peaceful demonstrations before Marikana) No . because these unknowns ne%er had any mystical aura fabricated for them that could possibly wash off on the powerful scum hoping to bathe in Mandelas reflected glory& /n the melting pot that is 0outh Africa, when things came to the boil and then the people stopped stirring, the scum rose to the top& +he story of Mandelas rise to 0ainthood is the story of the re%olution that stopped& +he function of the circus put on now for the funeral of Mandela in 0outh Africa by the worlds dominant powers is to try to implant in the spectators heads the idea that capitalism can reform itself, can make progress, through 1reconciliation2 of formerly antagonistic forces& And this, during an epoch when, once again, proletarians are e3pressing their anger e%erywhere& /t is designed, once again, to reconcile the poor to those who keep them poor, smothering them in some transcendent fog where the only thing %isible is Mandelas smile whose charm is meant to induce amnesia about any significant contradiction& Judgement of people on the basis purely of their personality is generally a flight from looking beneath the surface . at their relation to class society& 4hilst the intensified commodification of e%erything and the constant reinforcement of state power and the market economy e%erywhere creates e%er! worsening disasters both on the ecological le%el and in the e%eryday li%es of the %ast ma5ority behind the scenes, on stage the show must go on& 4e are e%erywhere encouraged to forget history in order to ga,e admiringly on 1the giant of history2, the man who, apparently, ended apartheid and impro%ed the lot of millions of blacks& 1*istory2 is for the 16reat2, not for nothings like you and me& +he truth of the past and present of 0outh Africa and elsewhere is photoshopped out of the picture& 7ut in the real world, as a recent 83fam report said, 0outh Africa is 1the most une9ual country on earth and significantly more une9ual than at the end of apartheid2& 10itting around a table and talking about these things with the whites brings no good future to us. Its just like talking to a stone. Now by violence they will understand a little of what we say a little. Now by war they will understand everything by war.2 black 0outh African youth 9uoted in the film 1Call It Sleep2 After sitting round a table with de -lerk :a man who had been an integral part of the brutal apartheid regime since ;9<#= Mandelas first gift to the rulers was to call for discipline, an end to looting and an end to the theft and burning of cars and an end to classroom boycotts& +hat is, an end to the sub%ersion of e3change %alue and an end to the sub%ersion of 1education2 . i&e& ideological conditioning aimed at acceptance of relations of domination and submission& 7ack to work, back to school& 7ack to wage sla%ery and back to brainwashing& 4hilst the war cry of the uprising in ;9<> had been 1+he school for the oppressed is a re%olution2, the peace cry of the new rulers was 1+he school for the oppressed must be subordination2& +he call for 1discipline2 here clearly meant a call to accept the discipline of the commodity economy with a bit of a change of those who run it, 1peace and reconciliation2 to your miserable lot& After ; years of the ad%ances and retreats of a genuine re%olution already ha%ing a global influence, the %ast ma5ority accepted the 1no good future2 brought to them courtesy of 0t& Nelson, gi%ing up practical struggle for the carrot of a better tomorrow through a change in the personnel of the state& A road that led straight to Marikana& 0o nowadays in any potential future uprising it would be better to say, 10itting around a table and talking about these things with the ruling world, black or white, in the electoral charade or on the telly, brings no good future to us& /ts 5ust like talking to a stone& Now by %iolence they will understand a little of what we say . a little& Now by war they will understand e%erything . by war&2 As e%eryone with a bit of knowledge about the situation knows, the idea that apartheid no longer e3ists is yet another myth? eritage !ark is enclosed by a co"puter#"onitored fence that $aps intruders with %&'((( volts and alerts a corps of security guards). eritage !ark' at *(( hectares +,-, acres. slightly bigger than /onaco' is resolutely "iddle class. 0f 1'&(( residents' 1',-& are white. 2eyond the fence are three townships' ho"e to tens of thousands of poor black people and coloureds' the ter" given to those of "i3ed race. It is a brutal ju3taposition4 inside the fence' pastel#coloured two#storey ho"es in Cape 5utch' 6nglish 7udor or 7uscan styles' neatly divided into seven suburbs with na"es like 2eaulieu' Cape eritage and 7uscana Close. 8alk outside the wire and within "etres you are in a sea of tin shacks and low#cost govern"ent#built houses.9 . 7he :uardian online, > @ebruary "AA>
And if you think this was had nothing to do with the Mandela when he was locked up in prison, that he changed when power got to his head, then this 9uote from the mid!#As should disabuse you of such illusions? 14e want Johannesburg to remain the beautiful and thri%ing city that it is now& +herefore, we are willing to maintain separate li%ing until there are enough new employment opportunities and new homes to allow blacks to mo%e into Johannesburg with dignity&2 New homes for the ANC and their lackeys, new employing opportunities for the small number of rich black middle class, but for the rest . %ery few nicely worded 1employment opportunities2 :ie an opportunity to get a bit more money being shafted than being 1redundant2= and no social security . certainly not like during apartheid, when the whites desperately tried to buy off the re%olutionary mo%ement with increases in benefits and massi%e wage rises& 4hile po%erty, of course, lacks 1dignity2 and the sensiti%e souls of the rich want their beautiful thri%ing en%ironment to remain untainted by such unsightly sights& +he fact that this Christian funeral of the Modern Christ . the biggest funeral e%er . is attended by both the rich mass murderers of this world :7arack 8bama, +ony 7lair, 6eorge 4& 7ush, *ilary Clinton, John Ma5or, @rancois *ollande, etc&= as well as those at the sharp end is indicati%e of how Christianity means different things to different people depending on their position in the hierarchy& 16i%e unto Caesar that which is Caesars2 is what the rich Christians promote, but the poor Christians, relegated to the back row, forget 1/t is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of hea%en2 when mourning the death of this multimillionaire& 7ut of course, probably many adoring Jesus Mandela will e3press, though not too publicly, their contempt for the li%ing fat cats at this funeral& +his is the essence of the Christian mentality . it pro%ides the %ast ma5ority with an internal moral sense of self!5ustification on the basis that they, at least, are not fat cats, that they are not patent scumbags, whilst remaining passi%e towards those who are and the society they maintain& 7ecause the spectators remain abo%e all e3ternal to history, they feel the need, particularly when the conflicts of present society ha%e hit them directly, for their gestures of 1opposition2 to be embodied in mythological heroes, like 0t& Nelson, who represent history for them& Christ is essential to the Christian mentality because he is the sub5ecti%e embodiment of the connection between hea%en and earthB he is the hea%enly body . the earthly di%inity . that makes the Christian mentality possible because it is the earth :and the human corollary, the body? hence its se3ually!repressi%e morality= that constitutes for Christianity the actual inaccessible hea%en&@or the ordinary submissi%e mentality 1re%olutionary2 heroes like Mandela literally perform the function of Christ, and you dont need to be a Christian to ha%e a Christian mentality, to be hypnotised by the forces relentlessly promoting such an icon& +he romantic %ision of a 16iant of *istory2 carries out, through the sacred person of the hero, the union of terrestrial tri%iality with the hea%en of uni%ersal history& Cuma said, 18ur nation has lost its greatest son& 8ur people ha%e lost a father&2 8nly the *oly 6host remains, haunting the li%ing& Mandela the 6od& 1*anging on the walls of the house / had pictures of Doose%elt, Churchill, 0talin, 6andhi E / e3plained to the boys who each of the men was, and what he stood for&2 : ;ong 8alk to <reedo", p"(A=& /n this autobiography Mandela declared that he 1Ehad always been a Christian2 :p>"A=& /ts not in any way contradictory that this Christian used to ha%e a picture of 0talin on his wall& +he 7olshe%iks were great pioneers in this type of cultifying? Lenin declared that to really be a Mar3ist one should always ask oneself, 14hat would Mar3 ha%e thought and done in this situation)2 +oday one can find people protesting against this and that ignorantly using the image of Mandela to substitute for their own words and ideas& /ts no coincidence that the current global spectacle, with its tendency to pick up ideas and practices from, and unify, all pre%ious forms of hierarchical power, particularly those de%eloping capital accumulation, should today find itself united in its eulogy to a former 0talinist!turned!neoliberal& Christ, Doose%elt, Churchill, 0talin, 6andhi, Mandela . the need for 1radical2 heroes tears us away from our own rebellious initiati%es, and ends up crushing and co!opting e%ery independent initiati%e& +he need for rebel role models, for e3ternal authorities in pretensions to changing the world, imbued in some glow of perfection :though the content %aries between the different forms necessary for each geographical place and epoch= is based on the maintenance of the utter nothingness of the li%es of the admirers& 0uch an emptiness e3presses the brutal powerlessness imposed by the self!same system they fail to set their minds and bodies against, the system that erects and resurrects the need for heroes and saints, particularly ones that are integral to the system, as Christ, Doose%elt, Churchill, 0talin, 6andhi and Mandela, all in their different ways, most clearly were& +he mythical history of Mandela is a grandiose %ersion of one that e%eryone is meant to somehow identify with? a long struggle, hea%y repression, endurance in the face of persecution, release, realisation, and a happy old age surrounded by admirers, dying satisfied with the feeling that one has made a significant mark on the world& *ow we all would like to feel thatF Gushed to the margins of e3istence, most of us enter old age with a feeling that our li%es ha%e been meaningless& 8f course, loads of people ha%e fought and been killed, or fought and locked up, remaining unknown& 0o the political hero is created by the capitalist show to pro%ide a %icarious subsitute meaning& A clear e3ample of this is in the struggle of shack!dwellers, were members of AbahlalibaseM5ondolo often resort to the words of u+ata Madiba as a 5ustification for their own rebellion, and by so doing sabotage the power of their actions& +hos who turn their demonstrations into a spectacle Hin honour of MandelaH hi5ack the power of their own anger and defuse it fa%our of the forces of law and order& =e#fusal is the mother of re%olt. /n the Abahlali documentary, called, appropriately enough, 5ear /andela' one of the most striking moments is when one of the young leaders of the organisation addresses a gathering shouting !han$i +down with. 5>? ! with a loud echo from the crowd& !han$i Inkhata? Another loud echo& !han$i >NC?. 0ilence& !han$i >NC? 0ilence& I%en after the most brutal oppression at the hands of +he Garty people are afraid to say it& +he truth is that, far from using his history to help lead people :sicF= toward self!organisation, the failure of 0outh African re%olutionists across the spectrum to sub5ect MandelaHs mythology to ruthless criticism amounts to self!defeating complicity in the deification not only of u7ata /adiba but also of +he Garty to whom his iconography is inseparably anchored& @or all the supposed iconoclasm of their Hre%olutionary traditionsH :sicF=B anti!authoritarian socialists of all stripes ha%e been horrendously tame when it comes to confronting the spectacle of struggle#celebrities with as trenchant a form of attack as the task demands& +hose who wish to ad%ance radical perspecti%es can only keep crying in the wilderness until they find, in the radical rebellion of others, an answering echo& Jnless they ha%e the courage to do this, both they and their celebrated ideal of liberty will always remain eclipsed by the shadows of giants& 0amotnaf 'ecember "A;K I suggest those wishing to struggle against this world of lies read at least the first part of the introduction to 10outh Africa, Now L +hen2' which was written al"ost - years ago. >nd for those who want so"e insights into the current situation@ the irrepressibly intractable' irrefrangibly indecent new novella 1Comrades, Let Js Not Mourn @amous Men2 by 7he ;ife Anrest Celebration Co""ittee' is highly recco"ended. 2oth available online at dialecticaldelinBuents.co"