The Sunday News
Cetshwayo Mabhena
In one of his classic songs Winston Hubert Mackintosh exclaimed that “everyone wants to go to heaven but none of them wants to die!”
That dictum by Peter Tosh comes from his Equal Rights song that was dedicated to the Haitian revolution of 21 August 1791 to 1 January 1804.
The dictum has become a central proverb that is extracted from the philosophy of Rastafarianism and its aspirations of liberation. The meaning of the proverb is that in politics as in religion most people want the paradise of revolutionary change but are not willing to pay the price and suffer the pain of the revolution.
In our politics, worldwide, we want to leave the Egypt of domination and be liberated to the Canaan of peace, power and prosperity but we are not willing to cross the Red Sea of the journey to freedom, our leaders refuse or fail to be the Moses and we as followers cannot live to the faith of chosen ones that can arrive in the land of the free.
Mahatma Gandhi asked those who want revolutionary change to first become the change that they desired to see.
In our different kinds of political activism and practices we daily demand change from others and never really want to be the change ourselves.
I write this article to celebrate philosophers of liberation and also, importantly, to reflect on the veracity that in a strong way revolutionary change demands us to symbolically die so that we can all resurrect as changed people that can make what Melvin J Lasky called “Utopia and revolution” which is the true paradise of revolutionary change.
Many of us are willing to go to war, to kill and to die, for the revolutionary changes that we want to see. Liberation struggles and wars against colonialism in Africa and the entire Global South are living proof that we are willing to be martyrs for liberation but are mostly not prepared to kill the monsters inside ourselves in order to enable true political change and revolution to come to fruition.
As a result, the line has become very thin between the political Moses and the political Pharaohs of our times. The heroes that are supposed to deliver change frequently deliver thorns because they can defeat the enemy but cannot defeat themselves.
As followers of heroes and liberating messiahs we also become unworthy of the change we desire by falling short and sinking into small, narrow and sometimes selfish political desires that are not revolutionary at all. We must die, and something in us must die for us to be worthy of the revolution.
To be a great leader and also a great follower in revolutionary and liberatory politics is not a task for the uncircumcised or is it a job for the faint-hearted but a vocation for those that are prepared to die and resurrect as new men and new women, I argue.
The Moses Effect
Friedrich Nietzsche had a chilling warning for revolutionaries of any kind in any time. “Whoever fights monsters” said Nietzsche “should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster” because “if you gaze for too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you” and turn you into an abysmal person, and make you a part of itself.
In many ways history has taught us that those that fight domination frequently end up becoming dominators and oppressors in their own right.
The Global South has learnt it the hard way that many movements and individuals that fought colonialism turned into colonising people and oppressive organisations in their own actuality.
In that way, many places and peoples of the Global South failed to be delivered from colonialism because colonialism as a monstrous abyss had already infected the heroes and their organisations, and corrupted the populations.
In fighting King Pharaoh of Egypt for the liberation of the children of Israel Moses met fire with fire. When Pharaoh’s magicians brought up snakes Moses met them with bigger snakes.
When Pharaoh invoked magic, witchcraft and sorcery Moses met him on the way with much bigger and mightier forces of the universe.
I can argue here that in fighting Pharaoh Moses became a bigger and better Pharaoh and that was the beginning of the problems for liberation; as a result, Moses for the arrogance and power that he had gained became big-headed and stubborn, and was himself disqualified from entering the land of Canaan.
Moses did not fall alone as a leader, even the population that was being led fell short of the revolution.
The same people who saw many miracles conducted by Moses under the inspiration of God were not faithful.
The same population that saw the plagues of God devouring Egypt and witnessed the sea opening up to create a passage for them became non-believers that wanted to worship other gods and pursue other beliefs, and this was at the same time that their disloyal tummies were full of manna from heaven.
People can be ungrateful beyond redemption in religion and beyond repair in politics. That is how difficult revolutions can be.
Those who are expected to know better and to understand become naïve and sometimes truly silly about life and the revolution.
What happened is that as Moses was fighting Pharaoh the same Pharaoh infected and grew up into a monstrosity in him, possessed him like a dangerous demon.
At the same time that the children of Israel were suffering in Egypt the land and system of Egypt infected and took hold of their hearts and minds and made them into Egyptians, liberating them from Egypt became almost impossible.
In politics not only leaders are to blame just as it is like in religion, followers can also be terrible and dangerous to the same revolution and liberation that they so aspire for. Political supporters and followers are not innocent angels.
My friend, mentor and colleague Achille Mbembe wrote of the Postcolony as a place and a time in Africa where after colonialism colonial habits and practices continued.
The postcolony that Mbembe describes is a place where colonialism has refused to die and resisted to be buried as it keeps coming up through the same people that fought it and were supposed to defeat it.
The postcolony is a situation where Pharaoh and his Egypt have possessed the people of Israel and follow them like stubborn ghosts and unforgiving demons right up to where it is supposed to be the land of Canaan.
Moses and the Israelites he led failed to kill the Pharaoh and the Egypt inside them so that they could resurrect as the liberated citizens of Canaan. That is why they found that after all there was no Canaan in Canaan but lots of Egypt and Pharaoh still.
Most times history repeats itself and its bad habits among us because while we remember the bad colonial pasts, we fail in our memory to have the strong and creative imagination to craft new and different presents and futures. We fail to see and work for the new and different world that has no Pharaohs and Egypts and keep reproducing and reliving and fail to deliver Utopia and revolution.
We need the intellectual and imaginative stamina to construct revolutionary societies and utopic systems of power and politics. Colonialism and colonial systems keep emerging in the Global South because of the laziness, fear and sometimes inability by our leaders and us the followers to kill Pharaoh and eradicate Egypt in our sensibilities.
Utopia and Revolution
Philosophers of liberation have a slogan that the philosophy of liberation entails: “Critique, Commitment, Engagement and Liberation.” Critique entails that we study and think critically about our past, present and future, including criticising ourselves not only our real and imagined enemies.
In philosophy and politics, the highest and best form of criticism is self-criticism and it leads to us being true revolutionaries and Utopians that can change their ways and change the world. We cannot change others if we cannot change ourselves.
Engagement means that we keep connected to friends and enemies and not isolate ourselves and the struggle.
If possible we win the enemies and opponents to our side by the power and pressure of persuasion and example and not physical force and fraudulent machinations; revolution and Utopia like Canaan and paradise can be genuinely seductive and forcefully appealing.
It is for that reason that the most powerful revolutions under the sun have involved amnesties for opponents, reconciliation with former enemies and healing for victims.
It is only hell that wins converts by fire and brimstone, the devil cannot be a revolutionary.
Commitment combines critique and engagement in that we must keep the faith in the cause and be willing to sacrifice time, effort and energy in the work of the revolution and its Utopia.
Liberation itself is a resurrection of both victors and losers as new citizens of a new world that has left behind the violence, blood and pain of the previous world.
It is a Pentecostal political moment and experience where those that spoke different languages and worshipped different gods come together to understand each other and celebrate the festival of freedom for all. Great revolutions and revolutionaries do not carry to the future the burden of enemies and opponents of the old world.
The Christian revolution turned its Pauls and persecutors into its Apostles and missionaries that changed the world as it was known, it turned the swords against it into ploughs in the fields of paradise and gardens of Eden recouped.
Revolutions kill their friends and their enemies alike and resurrects both of them as new Utopians.
Bitterness and revenge are not the properties of paradise just as grudges and Ego-Olympics cannot keep the peace of heaven but can only turn paradise into hell.
But then, we all want to go to Heaven but are we prepared to die the death for revolution and Utopia, I ask?
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena is a founding member of Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN). He writes from Sunnyside, Pretoria in South Africa: [email protected].
