“Oxford University is institutionally racist… There is something deeply wrong with the way Oxford presents itself, with the way it has biases against people and we are raising that.” – Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, during the Rhodes Must Fall campaign in 2016. The campaign exposed institutional racism symbolised by statues of Cecil Rhodes (one of the architects of the apartheid system in South Africa) in universities in the UK and South Africa. Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh is an author, Oxford Ph.D. student, conscious lyricist and producer from Johannesburg, South Africa. In August, he’ll be releasing Democracy and Delusion – a book and album about South African politics. The book has ten chapters, and the album has ten songs which mirror the chapters in the book.
Affinity Mag had a conversation with Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh about the tense political climate in South Africa, youth activism, freedom, his book and more.
AF: Thank you for allowing Affinity Mag to pick your brain on pressing issues!
I think it’s fair to say that we’ve reached a point where the concept of “democracy” and the idea of a “rainbow nation” is unravelling, people are starting to realise that political freedom was/is only a surface achievement, how can South Africa, especially the youth, go about getting the rest of what our parent’s vote was worth in 1994?
SMW: South Africa is a country of great inequality, but also great freedom of expression. In many other similarly unequal societies, young people are directly prevented from speaking their minds by the government or law. My book outlines several specific solutions to our problems, but the realisation I had while writing it is that young people need to use our freedom to speak to overturn the status-quo. We need to use this one freedom to expand the others. We’ve begun to find our voices over questions like fees, and we need to keep this kind of pressure up on a range of issues.
AF: President Jacob Zuma resigns overnight. Then what? How does the country begin to pick up the pieces and what assurance, if any, do we have that a change in political powers will fix past injustices and get rid of lingering apartheid systems?
SMW: Zuma’s resignation is necessary but not sufficient. Nobody should think it will solve all our problems, but that doesn’t mean he should stay. If Zuma falls then what? Then we send a message to every future president that they can’t turn the country into their private purse; then we deepen political accountability; then the repressive state designed to defend Zuma suffers a blow; then Zuma stops using our money to delay his corruption trial; then we could have better people appointed to crucial institutions. After he falls, the struggle will be far from over, but having him around means the struggle is going backwards.
AF: The voices calling for the President’s resignation have become louder and harder to ignore. However, the president came in and fell neck-deep into a country that is crippled with historic imbalances. So, are we not deflecting from the bigger problem by focusing on President Jacob Zuma as a sole entity when he is, in fact, a product of an entire system of inequities and inequalities?
SMW: Zuma is definitely not the ‘sole thing’ wrong in South Africa. But we are making a mistake if we think state power and economic inequality are unrelated. A corrupt state will never deliver economic freedom, precisely because it follows the interests of financial elites. The fact that those elites are desegregated doesn’t change a thing. The state is the only vehicle powerful enough to redistribute wealth in South Africa. If we have a corrupt president at the head of that state, then any dream of real transformation is naïve. When Zuma’s government killed 34 workers at Marikana to defend a British company, was he fighting historical injustice? When he goes to Davos, or his finance Minister runs to New York for his first trip, is that ‘fighting historical injustice’? When Zuma made statements in the Khwezi rape trial which were unacceptable, was that ‘progressive’? Not at all – it fuelled the major problems in our society. All this ‘radical economic transformation’ rhetoric is just designed to try to divert us from the truth.
AF: Is it not decremental to the confidence in black leadership (in high positions) if we remove/fire yet another black president? Think about the impact it may have even at an institutional level or in businesses owned by people of other races who will now refrain from promoting black people or even use it as an excuse. How do we avoid associating this precedent with black people generally?
SMW: Not at all. Why should Zuma’s corruption represent all black people? The choice is not between black mediocrity and nothing. We can have a black president that’s also accountable. We can have a black president that also abandons neoliberal policies which have taken our economy backwards over the last decade. It’s a big mistake to confuse Zuma for all black people in South Africa.
AF: There’s always been a disturbing sense of silence from the ruling government about the Marikana massacre, where mine workers were quite frankly, brutally murdered by state sent police officers for protesting for fair wages, you would think this would be a deal breaker for supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) but they still have many supporters. Do you think South Africans are indifferent to violence inflicted on black bodies?
SMW: I think Marikana will be seen as a turning point. But it will take time. People’s psychological affinity with the ANC has been built over decades. Many still hope that somehow the movement will have a Damascus moment. Unfortunately, there’s simply no evidence of this. If anything, all the people who were involved in Marikana were rewarded with higher positions. More people are seeing the difference between what the ANC says and what it does. It was unthinkable a year ago that the ANC would get just 53% of the national vote. In 2019, it could lose the election, or come very close. If this happens, historians will look back on Marikana as the point when people first questioned the ANC’s allegiance to poor black South Africans.
AF: I (personally) disapprove of President Jacob Zuma but when white people attack him, I defend him because their criticism (of any person of colour) will inherently have racist undertones. How comfortable are you with the idea of white allies, considering our history with them?
SMW: Again, I don’t think we have to choose between racists and Zuma. We neither need to defend Zuma nor agree with racists. Some racists white people want Zuma to go for the wrong reasons. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t go for the right reasons. I don’t know about the idea of ‘ally-ship’. There are very few white South Africans who understand their privilege in South Africa. Fewer still are prepared to do anything about it. And there’s a big right-wing backlash coming built on post-Trump euphoria. But I also don’t think the few white South Africans who do get it should be excluded from the struggle. I would sooner stand beside Ronnie Kasrils than a Bantustan leader.
AF: You released a song in 2013 criticising President Jacob Zuma, titled Mr President. What’s fascinating is that you remixed a song by Tunisian rapper El Général, that was hailed the anthem of the Tunisian revolution. Did it symbolise your visions of our own revolution?
SMW: When I wrote Mr President, many people thought I was crazy. I was researching the Zuma era and realising how bad it was, but many people hadn’t realised it yet. Now people see what I was trying to say. I wanted to create the same feeling I felt when I heard the El-General song. Even though I couldn’t understand the lyrics, it just had such a hard, uncompromising feel. But I also knew that South Africa was at a very different place to Tunisia. The song was more an act of political education than an attempt to start a revolution. I knew that hip-hop was a key way to reach young people. Look out for Mr President Part II, which is the second song on the Democracy and Delusion album.
AF: Your book, titled Democracy and Delusion is highly anticipated. The title suggests you’ll be breaking down perceived freedom, what are you hoping people will take away from your book, especially South Africans?
SMW: You’ve got it – that’s the idea. We’ve all been taught to believe that South Africa is ‘free’ and that things are getting gradually better. My book argues that we are far from liberated and that actually things have got worse over the last decade. We need to break from the rainbow narrative and realise it’s a delusion. The only way we can change our society is if we confront the truth. However, we really are a democracy – people really do have power to change things, they just need to use it. I hope people will read the book – and listen to the album – and feel indignation, but also feel inspired to act.
AF: You can find Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh on Twitter @SizweMpofuWalsh and visit his website Sizwempofuwalsh.co.za. Thank you for your time Sizwe.
SMW: Thanks for the opportunity to spread the message!
