Hugh Masekela tells it like it is
In a interview with The Times, veteran South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela attacks the South African government, saying he no longer feels welcome as a musician in his own country:
“Amnesia always sets in after freedom. People fight for freedom and then they forget and oppress their own people.”
Well said, that man.
Masekela, who wrote the score for Truth in Translation, currently being performed at the Edinburgh Festival, was an outspoken critic of the apartheid regime.
Masekela accused the ANC and opposition parties of bringing an end to all-white rule only by conniving in a “business deal” that had entrenched the power of the elite, but left the bulk of the population in poverty. “We ended up with less than 2 per cent of the economy, less than 5 per cent of the land. We are a free but poor people,” he said.
He’s completely right. The government sold us out on a massive scale, and we can’t let them off the hook. They used the new South Africa to make themselves and their friends very rich very quickly, and they used the race card to fend of criticism.
“The problem isn’t us”, they said. “It’s untransformed whites”.
Untransformed whites exist, but they’re not really a problem, as they have no political power, decreasing financial power, and everyone thinks they’re idiots.
The problem is a regime of corrupt kleptocrats who think South Africa is their personal trough to feed at. It’s like Fanon predicted: the post-colonial elite discovers it rather likes the lifestyle the colonialists used to lead. Racial apartheid has been replaced by class apartheid – with strong racial correspondences – and exploitation is as rife as ever.
The Left has been to reticent about criticising the government, because it’s seen as vulnerable to attack from the Right. This needs to stop. The government has become the enemy of transformation, and needs to be attacked ruthlessy from the Left until it starts to deliver on its mandate.
No more excuses.
