A Response

Analysis of the letter to BCC


The role of the current BC streams highlighted is perhaps crude and minimal, but Andile's oversimplified, harsh and purely polemical account contributes very minimally to the subject matter, Black Consciousness (BC). All these strands can be appropriated and given explicit roles in BC as I will endeavour to demonstrate below.

First stream

If the account of this stream is to be taken seriously, then we will have to assume that it is not so mindless and sterile after all. I can see that this fact is within Andile’s reach but out of his conscious grasp. Insofar as he states that the stream is a BC strand, I infer that, even for him, the stream is not so mindless and sterile. The problem is that it is rather overshadowed by what he refers to as "capitalism madness." This is a fact I am willing to consent to. Though the capitalist agenda has tainted the strand, I still refuse to totally discard it. The black consciousness elements in the strand; also acknowledged by Andile, are of essence to modern African culture and thus it can be afforded a role in the bigger BC agenda. Rather, an appropriate response to this is, if you cannot evade planting your seeds with weed you might as well let the weed grow with the plants when the time for harvest comes you burn away the weed and keep your crops. But still let me concede the validity of the author’s prudence against the weed but discourage going overboard by uprooting everything.

Second stream

It is an indubitable fact that it was Biko’s and BC’ will that blacks one day should define themselves as they deem fit, thus the poets’ role within BC. However blackness is something to struggle for and anyone who dares assert the word "black" or speak in the name of "the black experience" need to account to the black community at large. Thus the need for engaging poetry. I do not see how does dismissing the poetic in expression contributes in the attainment of the desired self definition.

Third stream

Again this version can be exploited as the historical heritage of BC, instead of throwing stones while living in a glass house we should be the voice of this mute and be the lively motion to these monuments. By the way, such intellectual outputs as I Write What I like, Bounds of Possibilities, and On Your Own, just to name but a few, are products of Biko’s contemporaries who occupy these institutions today.

Fourth stream

We need not to bring capital to justice, since we have no case against it but against the capitalists. Our predecessors worked hard for these capitalists but were unfairly treated. What we need now is the re-administration of value.

Fifth stream

Yes, we are still confronted by issues of poverty, lack of efficient service delivery, unemployment, exclusion in the socio-economical and political spheres at large. I am not, however, certain that this reality necessarily make those at the receiving end conscious. I deem this comprehension of BC disturbingly problematic; unlike Biko’s BC, a complex philosophy which perceives and explicates the underpinnings of the above mentioned experiences. Alternatively, being aware through just experience of poverty is simply being aware first and foremost of your own position within a broader socio-economical system, but still this does not constitute black consciousness. this view is very crude. BC is a meticulous theoretical undertaking on issues not just brute experiences which are not defined. Infact you will be surprised how many of the marginalized think that the problem is exclusion from participation in capitalist indulgence.

The current protests you highlight as the source of true BC are far from being informed by the theoretical underpinnings of BC; they lack rigorous diagnosis pertaining to socio-economical and political issues. How on earth are such actions without a philosophical base understood as BC? The author here fails to take into cognizance that external equivalence does not necessary presuppose “internal equivalence”. That is, the fact that the 1976 youth and the Khutsong youth “courageously” confronted the regimes of their times does not add up to the same intent. The 1976 upheaval led by SASM was unequivocally about defending the dignity of blackness; I am not so sure that the same can be boldly said about Khutsong.

My analysis on these streams is immensely influenced by the surrealists who are later mentioned in this paper. This movement of art and literature which is said to express itself in disfigured, disjoined, and exotic imagery as though in dreams. The insight I extracted from this movement’s depictions is exactly their expressionism which I relate to as I fail to paint a complete body with all it members in right positions, conjoined, allure, well shaped and a colourful picture of my black identity. Regardless of my artistic skills (reasoning), the colourful paints of my logic which then seem dull, the clean brushes of my analysis which now look filthy, and the beautiful background of my history which is the crux of civilizations, albeit I know better about my barbaric history from 1652; I still emerge with a grotesque painting. My point being, the above distorted streams of bc resembles the art of surrealists; “with their devoid poetry”, “sterile cultural expressionism”, the influence from a “despicable pamphlet of death masquerading as serious work of the black question”, the noisy status bound hip-hop and urban spoken words projects with their “African” regalia to boot”, “Their dead poetry which repeats itself into a deadening crescendo utterly devoid of the beauty of authentic black rage”, “mute and deaf monuments and icons which find refuge in past glories and burden the dead with the projects of now” “and black collective experience of sorrow”. Against the backdrop of white supremacy how else do we express our identity, I ask?

Andile’s approach of anticipating the strands within BC to be completely ideal (perfect) is unrealistic and thus not in touch with theory, since it is an unattainable aspiration for theory to be ideal, apart from handful exceptional cases. Reality is only captured in theory, and anything that occurs outside the ambit of it cannot be understood as something that has really transpired, regardless of its coercive appearances. If it cannot stand the trial of theory and cogently affirm itself, it is spurious. If this assertion holds, how off tangent it is to expect theory (reality) to encapsulate the ideal, bearing in mind that by nature theory is not ideal.

“Blacks are out to completely transform the system and to make of it what they wish. Such a major undertaking can only be realized in an atmosphere where people are conscious of the truth inherent in their stand. Liberation therefore is of paramount importance in the concept of Black Consciousness, for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage. We want to attain the envisioned self, which is a free self”. Yes consciousness precedes liberation not the other way around, and you cannot have the consequent without the antecedent. Courageous acts without proper guidance by theory are as futile as “theory” followed by cowardice acts.

On Thought and Action

Let me begin by remedial work here, it is not just any action which is implicated in any thought, but it is rather, right thinking which implicates right action.

This Karl Max’s citation is the most misused phrase of all time. What people forget when they utilize it is to reflect on the fact that Karl Marx himself did not change the world largely by action, but he gave further interpretations (theory) of the world which changed it. This also goes for Jesus (in response to that scripture by James). It is rather ironic that Jesus’ significance is theoretical to a larger extent rather than practical.


Let me be controversial here; "actions cannot reflect, it is only theory that reflects." But if the two sentences which preceded this scrutiny were true, this would mean there was an inappropriate connection between the two, that is, thought and action. That is, right theoretical thinking precedes right action. Proper action only comes after revision of action. I argue that revision is not solely a result of action. Recall that actions are preceded by thought; therefore if an action seems to be in need of improvement, in actual fact it is the antecedent (the thought) that needs improvement not the action.

On Western Philosophy

Now venturing into the valley of the most appalling views of Andile’s paper, these are irredeemable contradictions of the paper which seek to subvert the rationality of the paper in totality.

Above the paper went on about the futility of philosophy, but the white men’s philosophy currently is said to have “alienated” us; but yet the author fails to see the necessity of a black strong philosophy to counter the West! Rather perplexing that the Western philosophy explicitly elicit action (alienation, though subtle but still an action), but the same credit is barely granted to “black philosophy”.

But in this insurmountable contradictory extract he further acknowledges the impact of philosophy, consider: “My view in fact is that it is of little use to philosophize outside action aimed at dislodging the white supremacist edifice deeply ingrained in the structures of politics, economics and even the whole cultural plain (here I understand culture in its broadest sociological sense)”. How on earth can we dissipate these white supremacy structures without theory? if they have entrenched themselves philosophically in “our” politics, economics, society and cultural sight. Now without right philosophical theory, how can the Khutsong multitudes which he fails to see that they share the same bed with what he called black colonialist and Indunas bring about revolution?

On Critiques of Black Western Educated Middle Class

All these critiques cannot have been articulated immaculately, since they also employed particular intellectual tools. This segment of the paper demonstrates lack of rigorous treatment of phenomena, which is, specificity on references and averting overgeneralization. Consider the following Reduction ad absurdum.

* Western intellectual tools are flawed; thus they should all be discarded
* Educated black middle class employ Western intellectual tools
* Therefore educated black middle class should commit class suicide

The above assertion employed Western intellectual tools to conduct the analysis. Hence it follows that the intellectual tools employed to conduct the above assertion are also flawed, thus they should also he discarded (this is the insanity of this argument; it employs the same flawed tools it condemns).

On the Drunken Exchange

Yes, the argument can be universalized.
All states are corruptible
South Africa is a state
Therefore South Africa is corruptible

Having listened to the drunken exchange which I was a part of, I feel compelled to set the record straight that the Bolivian and Venezuelan arguments were dismissed on rather reasonable grounds. They were accused of designating the deterioration of abstract argument into concrete disputation. But also the charge above of concrete “arguments” leading to endless quarrels holds, especially if they are not treated well, that is, employed by abstract arguments as their concrete instantiations.

Nkosinathi Mahlangu.