The perils of a thinking political woman in the world of men

16 Jan, 2022 - 00:01 0 Views
The perils of a thinking political woman in the world of men

The Sunday News

That ours is a world of men is a stubborn truth. So stubborn that it does not need to be proven further than to say something must be done about it instead of repeating it for whatever emphasis.

This week I wish to draw your attention to the charged debate around a recent letter penned by South African Minister of Tourism, and daughter of struggle icons, Walter Sisulu and Albertina Sisulu.

Besides being born of struggle icons, Nonceba, as she was named is a political quantity in her own right. She was an anti-apartheid activist of the Black Consciousness activist category, exiled in Swaziland in the 1970s.

She served as an intelligence detail in assistance of Jacob Zuma in the years of her exile. For her political activities she was detained by the apartheid regime. She has served as a Member of the National Assembly since the political independence of South Africa in 1994 and has been minister for more than three portfolios that include the critical Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans.

She really does not need to drop the names of her parents for political recognition, no. In her political deportment and character, she has always been a firebrand and a maverick of sorts that does not mince words or pull any punches. She is the type that is not afraid to swim against the political tides.

Being herself and performing her politics in our world of men has and is always going to bring tonnes of bricks of controversy on her head, as it has spectacularly happened with her publication of a public letter that is critical of the celebrated South African Constitution.

Coloniality at large

Sisulu publicly called out the South African Constitution for being part of colonial rule of law for sustaining rather than undoing the economic equalities that have punished black people in the Republic. Much expertly she has pointed out how like Nazism that was legal, apartheid that was legal, colonialism that was legalised through colonial constitutions, the South African constitution has legalised and preserved the crime against humanity of inequalities and racism. The rule of law in South Africa conceals and preserves injustice and that must come to a stop or else the future is not bright for South Africans, but it is gloomy and even bloody.

The vaunted Truth and Reconciliation, Sisulu says, delivered political reconciliation between black people and white people but did nothing to deliver economic equality and reconciliation. She added the punchy observation that most of her comrades in the African National Congress, in government, the judiciary and civil society do not only not see that apartheid is still alive. Hell broke loose.

She has been called a traitor, politically ambitious, disrespectful and a factionalist. In the social media some have lampooned her looks and fashion sense. Her very character and morals have been called to question and probity.

Some have even accused her of plagiarising the letter from some British lawyer, a writer that she clearly cited in her letter. They have found her ideas too striking to be her own. When a woman shoots straight in thought and word it is easy in the world of men to seek to identify a man from whom she has stolen her insights.

Women are not even given the human right to be wrong on their own, in politics, there should always be a man behind her words and deeds.

Without specifically deploying the diction and vocabulary of decoloniality, Sisulu has pointed out the problem of coloniality in South Africa. That apartheid continues by economic means is her telling point. And that is her crime in the world of men. So many male scholars and political activists have critiqued the South African constitution and political experiment as she has done but they have not been met with the same anger, contempt and hate.

The question that should be asked is not why Sisulu has said what she has said but why she is only speaking now after she has been in government for a full 27 years. That she is speaking because she has presidential ambitions should also not be an issue, men perform their political ambitions daily and that is normalised and not scandalised.

Coloniality against womanity

When decolonial philosophers and historians tale the tells of conquest they never fail to narrate the fall of Granada in Andalusia, Southern Spain. It was the fall of the last Islamic state in the West. The conquered men were forcibly converted to Christianity or expelled from the land.

The then biggest library in the world was burnt down to erase Islamic history and knowledge. The women that were practicing some arts and sciences of healing were condemned as witches and burnt at the stakes. Since they were not Christians but displayed some thought and knowledge it was assumed that they were servants of the Dark Prince, the Devil.

The way Granada and Andalusia were conquered, colonised and dominated in 1492 is the same way countries of the Global South were later conquered and colonised by Empire. Conquered men were enslaved, and some killed, especially those who fought back.

The women were reduced to witches, if not physically burnt at the stakes they were expelled from public affairs and consigned to servitude in the kitchens and the fields. Thinking women, politically active women, are not treated well by coloniality.

They are treated as witchy and all sorts of irritants that must not be listened to but punished. There is a social tax for being a woman, being black, being political, and being caught thinking and speaking publicly. Women political actors in order to succeed, must navigate politics itself and the entire world of men.

Decolonising politics

That politics should always be a dirty game is a colonial lie. It is a lie that it should be dirty and that it should be a game. In the liberation sense, politics should be a vocation, and not even a profession, where men and women are called by duty to work for social justice and human happiness.

It is mainly some male politicians in the world system that are playing dirty in politics excluding others on the grounds of gender, race, nationality, ethnicity and religion.

It should come to an end that for women to succeed in the vocation of politics, which is a vocation of strong convictions, they should do so with the approval of males and the masculine ego.

It should also come to an end that male politicians do not need to pass the test of character and morals in politics, but women must have their character and morality checked before they contribute to public affairs. It is sexism, patriarchy and misogyny, combined under coloniality, that make politics a dirty and dangerous game for women.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Mabusabesala Village, Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga Province, in South Africa. Contacts: [email protected]

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