‘South Africa has a violence problem, where the black male is the victim’

Khotso K.D Moleko writes that fundamental to the psyche of South Africans is the fact that there is not a good foundation in the political and social ethos to deal with the effects of loss through colonialism and apartheid. Photographer: Ayanda Ndamane/ African News Agency(ANA)

Khotso K.D Moleko writes that fundamental to the psyche of South Africans is the fact that there is not a good foundation in the political and social ethos to deal with the effects of loss through colonialism and apartheid. Photographer: Ayanda Ndamane/ African News Agency(ANA)

Published Feb 25, 2023

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I said a long time ago South Africa does not have a gender-based violence problem, more than she has a violence problem, where the black male is the victim.

Fundamental to the psyche of South Africans is the fact that there is not a good foundation in the political and social ethos to deal with the effects of loss through colonialism and apartheid.

This is one of the contributors to brutal violence in contexts where black people and coloureds are concentrated and wherever they express their version of freedom. By this I mean there is a need for proper political leadership to establish healing themes and dignity in a black race which faced defeat and is searching for its glory.

Rather, the search for glory has no room for practical expression and realisation for the black majority because the confines of separate development, both physically and spiritually, remain intact.

In fact, they are expanded and entrenched for use in the hands of ruling black elites for political sustainability and security. As a result, the only way for black people to heal from the past and deal with the political betrayal of empty promises of so-called freedom is through violence and self-hate.

The violence takes place at the most basic unit of black society, firstly emotionally and spiritually between a black man and woman and in a greater and more brutal way between black men.

The situation is easily visible even in highly advanced societies like the US and Britain where black people simply dominate situations where violence and a death expression of it are done, and by people who look alike.

This also explains why some black politicians and their followers would see black foreigners as both a curse and threat to their limited spaces bestowed on them by racial oppression and colonialism.

The gangsterism that dominates our coloured people in Cape Town, the tribalism and witchcraft that seem to define our black people as well as the political witchcraft that reinforces apartheid will never be broken and defeated until there is room for a disadvantaged society to seek and find its glory.

Unfortunately, such glory is not possible where blind fools are in power and where violence (as a legacy of past defeat) is still the best way for them to divide and rule their people and remain in power, which equates to keeping their hands on the cookie jar.

This is similar to the excitement of a house negro who thinks that because he or she is not as black as the ones in the fields, they are better and can participate in the humiliation and continued oppression of the other.

* Khotso K.D Moleko, Mangaung, Bloemfontein.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

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