On Nguni Chauvinism and The Current Wave of Afrophobic Violence in South Africa by Lindokuhle Mponco

We're watching something incredibly disturbing begin to rear its head in South Africa. A kind of politics that I and many others believed had been buried with apartheid. This is a politics of collective punishment, group suspicion and mob justice. What started out as anti-immigrant concerns around the country has transformed into a terrifying phenomenon, a vehicle for the expression of ethnic chauvinism, particularly Nguni chauvinism, politically.

The tragic and violent death of Nhlamulo Sambo and everything that transpired surrounding it should, frankly, tell us some uncomfortable things about where a part of our society is heading. What occurred in Mossel Bay was not simply an act of isolated violence; it was a product of a broader context of anti-foreigner violence and dispossession. Over fifty shacks were destroyed in the uprising, more than fifty homes reduced to rubble. Mozambican nationals had to be forcibly evacuated and repatriated; displaced and dispossessed Tsonga-speaking South Africans as well as migrant families alike remain in temporary shelters today, having lost everything they had.

These were not the actions of peaceful community protestors. These were the actions of a pogrom. A pogrom is not simply a mob outburst of anger, rather, it is the "attack on a group in an organized or semi-organized way for religious or ethnic reasons." When homes are burned down and families are forced to flee as a result of their identity and place of origin, we have no choice but to describe it precisely for what it is.

The circumstances surrounding Nhlamulo Sambo's death illuminate what has gone unspoken until now: while first claiming not to be related to the migrant crisis, subsequent accounts given by suspects in interviews have muddled the issue significantly and are at variance with each other. One version claims that Nhlamulo had been pursued by a mob through a shanty, the houses belonging to both Mozambicans and Tsonga-speaking persons being simultaneously destroyed and torched, before the deceased eventually succumbed to injuries. According to the suspect who was released due to a lack of evidence, he provided the dying Nhlamulo with a stick and that is how the scene transpired before death ensued.

Whether the courts of public opinion believe this story is secondary to the reality: Nhlamulo died amidst anti-foreigner violence and dispossession and this cannot be divorced from that larger reality. The central question then is not who administered the lethal blow. It is more critically about the nature of the society which allows a Tsonga-speaking man to be chased and beaten amidst an anti-foreign and ethnic cleansing violence.

And herein lies the importance of the Nguni chauvinism critique: When I speak of Nguni chauvinism it is not to implicate every single Nguni speaker, nor to denigrate the vibrant cultures of Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Swati and other Nguni speakers; it is instead to highlight a particular mode of political expression, one that positions Nguni identity as the natural yardstick of who belongs in South Africa, one that sees the experiences of Nguni speakers as South African, while simultaneously viewing African identities outside of that group as subordinate, suspicious, foreign and even threatening.

It is this mode of thinking that places migrant workers at the center of our fear, today Mozambicans, tomorrow Tsonga-speakers, and the day after, possibly Venda-speakers, Basotho, or any other ethnic group that falls outside the definition of the present ethnic nationalist rhetoric. History tells us chauvinism cannot exist on a single object of hate, it always craves another to fuel itself. All the talk of and incitement to June 30 further exacerbated these concerns. The stated objective of stopping undocumented migration has morph into ethnic entitlement. Communities are pushed to 'identify enemies,' not by their criminal acts, but by their language, their accent, their features, and where they hail from, blurring the lines between illegality and identity such that entire groups of people become inherently suspect. It is in this manner that xenophobia gives birth to Afrophobia and thereafter Afrophobia gives birth to ethnic persecution.

Compounding these concerns is the unnerving silence or equivocating statements from institutions that hold significant moral authority, the traditional leaders, politicians, and cultural custodians of South Africa. While abstaining from strongly condemning the politicisation of identity and ethnic mobilization has often been taken to signal tacit consent, non-condemnation often serves to legitimize the actions taken, especially at times of socio-political flux.

Our struggle for liberation in South Africa was predicated on the need to unite, as oppressed people, regardless of ethnic background, language and nationality. The Johannesburg workers did not bother to ask each other if they were Zulu, Tsonga, Sotho or Shangaan before uniting in the workplace; the exiles that fled from across Africa were afforded sanctuary without being questioned about their nationality. Pan-Africanism itself is predicated on a political principle: the arbitrary borders imposed by colonialists must not dictate how humans express solidarity. Yet here we stand, being made to witness these same divides resurface.

These dozens of burnt houses, these thousands of displaced people, these terrorized immigrants pushed back to countries of origin, and the murder of Nhlamulo Sambo should all serve as a wake-up call: These are not merely individual incidents. These are manifestations of a much deeper malaise. This is a political malaise that says that some Africans, belong more than other Africans. This is chauvinism. And without confrontation, this politics of exclusion will continue to victimize untold numbers of people long after it leaves the front pages.

People don't eat ideology? Then why are you eating xenophobia?

"People don't eat ideology." You hear it all the time from certain corners, don't you? It's the kind of phrase that gets tossed around by politicians who've run out of ideas, by social media commentators looking for a quick hit, or by opportunists who haven't really thought through society's problems, let alone found solutions.

It sounds like common sense, and that's exactly what makes it so dangerous. After all, who can actually eat a political theory? Can a philosophy book feed your family? Will an ideological pamphlet pay the rent? It sounds smart, right? But only because no one ever really stops to think about it. Because while people might not physically eat ideology, they certainly starve because of it.

Think about it: the way our economy is structured, who owns what, how the labour market works, how land is distributed, these aren't just random facts. They're all deeply ideological. The very organization of global capitalism is ideological. The reasons millions remain unemployed? Ideological. The conditions under which a tiny elite hoards obscene wealth? Also, ideological. So, to claim that ideology doesn't matter isn't actually rejecting ideology. It's an attempt to keep people from understanding the ideological roots of their own suffering.

We're facing a crisis in South Africa, one that many are reluctant to name. It's not just an economic crisis, and it's not just about governance. It's a deeper crisis of consciousness. The liberation movement that once gave us intellectual giants now seems to produce mostly political consumers. A nation that used to fiercely debate colonialism, capitalism, race, class, and liberation now spends its days sifting through social media rumours and WhatsApp conspiracy theories.

Political education has been pushed aside for outrage. Careful analysis has given way to raw emotional reaction. Theory has been swapped for 'vibes.' The result? A political culture where the loudest voice often gets mistaken for the most informed one. This anti-intellectual shift isn't accidental. It serves a very specific purpose. When people truly understand systems, they start questioning those systems. But when they stop questioning systems, they start blaming victims. There's a clear reason why Afrophobia thrives wherever political education collapses. Someone with a scientific mindset, for instance, would ask: Why do we have such massive unemployment in South Africa? Why does poverty persist despite democratic rule? Why is wealth still so concentrated? Why is economic power still so detached from political power? These kinds of questions naturally lead us into discussions about colonialism, apartheid, capitalism, how classes formed, and global economic structures.

But the Afrophobe asks something completely different: "How many foreigners need to leave before my life gets better?" One question digs into systems. The other just looks for scapegoats. One leads to political understanding. The other fuels mob politics. The casual dismissal of ideology, this anti-intellectual stance, creates perfect conditions for Afrophobia. It discourages any real structural analysis. When people stop asking why poverty exists, they very quickly start asking who they can blame for it. The easiest target is always someone who seems poorer, weaker, or more vulnerable than themselves.

So, suddenly, the unemployed South African is pointing fingers at the unemployed Zimbabwean. The struggling worker turns on the struggling migrant. The township entrepreneur blames the street trader. All the while, the actual structures generating poverty remain completely untouched. Capitalists celebrate. The poor end up fighting amongst themselves. This is exactly where Haniism-Bikoism comes into the conversation. What you could call Scientific Socialism with Afrocentric Characteristics starts from a simple, clear observation: You can't fully grasp contemporary South Africa with just class analysis or just Black Consciousness on their own.

Steve Biko was spot on when he said the oppressor's most powerful weapon is the mind of the oppressed. Chris Hani understood that political liberation without real economic transformation would just recreate inequality under a new flag. So, a Haniist-Bikoist approach says we need both. Black Consciousness alone, without actual economic change, can easily become just symbolism, without any real power. And economic transformation without consciousness? That just means new managers, but the same old domination. The struggle, then, is simultaneously psychological, political, cultural, and economic. Freeing the African mind and freeing the African worker are two sides of the same coin.

This Scientific Socialism, with its Afrocentric lens, rejects three dominant trends we see in South African politics today. First, it says no to neoliberalism. The market simply can not solve the very problems that market domination created. Second, it rejects narrow racial chauvinism. An African revolutionary can't talk about African unity on Monday and then hunt fellow Africans on Tuesday. Third, it rejects anti-intellectual populism. The people deserve genuine political education, not manipulation.

This framework is built on six key ideas:

1. Political education isn't just a good idea; it's a revolutionary necessity.

2. Pan-African solidarity is the only real cure for Afrophobia.

3. You can't have true political democracy without economic democracy.

4. Black consciousness is still vital in a society where colonial ways of thinking persist.

5. The class struggle remains necessary in a society still built on economic exploitation.

6. Revolutionary action needs to come from clear, scientific analysis, not just emotion, prejudice, or populist noise.

That slogan, "people don't eat ideology," actually tells us something important. Its popularity reflects a society that's become increasingly suspicious of thinking itself. The anti-intellectual wants quick fixes but refuses to investigate the causes. They demand outcomes but skip the analysis. They want answers without asking questions and transformation without any underlying theory. But that's simply impossible. No engineer builds without a blueprint. No doctor treats without a diagnosis. No revolutionary can transform society without first understanding it. Refusing to think isn't pragmatism; it's surrender.

South Africa is truly at a crossroads. One path leads toward deeper political education, Pan-African solidarity, and revolutionary consciousness. The other takes us down a road of anti-intellectualism, scapegoating, and permanent social fragmentation. One path asks difficult questions. The other just offers easy enemies. One creates citizens. The other creates mobs.

The task for our generation isn't just about winning elections. It's about rebuilding consciousness. Because people who stop thinking critically about their own conditions become incredibly vulnerable to every charlatan, every demagogue, and every merchant of hate. No, people don't eat ideology. But without it, they might just end up consuming something far more dangerous: their own future.

Afrophobia in South Africa: Capitalism, Class Fear and the Politics of Division By Lindokuhle Mponco

Afrophobia in South Africa is a problem. When poor black people fight poor black people somebody with a lot of power benefits from it. This is a truth that South Africa does not want to face. Afrophobia in South Africa did not start in 2008. The violence that happened in the townships that year was not created overnight. It was built up over centuries of colonialism, people being forced off their land, and a system of capitalism that is based on racism. To understand why people blame migrants for things like unemployment, drugs and crime we need to understand how South Africas economy works.

South Africa was built on labour from migrants. From the 1800s South African companies needed cheap labour to work in the mines. The European colonisers (British) found out that South Africa possessed diamonds in Kimberley in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, which changed the region into a place where people went to work. Mining companies brought in workers from all over Southern Africa including places like Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi and Zimbabwe. This was facilitated by what later became known as the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA). According to the African History Archive and other studies on labour, the system of migrant labour was designed to keep workers away from their families and communities, and to pay them very low wages.

The Native Land Act of 1913 cemented and made it more rigid and institutionalised so that black South Africans could only live on 7% of the country's land. This forced millions of people to have to work for wages. This system did not bring workers together. Instead it divided them. Different groups of people were housed in segregated areas and employers used this to their advantage to weaken the workers and prevent them from coming together to fight for their rights. In other words, the system of capitalism in South Africa was designed to make black workers compete against each other.

The violence that happened in 2008 was not the beginning of the problem. It was the point when things exploded. In May 2008 there was a lot of violence against foreigners in South Africa and 60 people were killed. Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. The world was shocked by the violence. The problems that led to it had been around for decades. There were people without jobs, not enough houses, and services that were not working well or being delivered. South Africa is still one of the most unequal societies in the world. According to the World Bank, the difference between rich and poor in South Africa is one of the biggest in the world. In 2008, unemployment was starting to become stubborn, and when things are this bad people get angry, and look for someone to blame. Instead of blaming the people in power, the corporations, and the corrupt system, many communities turned against migrants who were also poor and vulnerable. This is how the people in power stay in control, and continue to accumulate wealth.

The idea that foreigners are taking jobs is not true. Research by the African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits University has shown that migrants make up a negligible percentage of the population in South Africa (3.9%), and they mostly work in informal or unstable jobs. Many studies have also shown that when migrants start their businesses they create jobs and help the local economy. The main reasons for unemployment are things like companies leaving the country due to corruption or loss of market or any other excuse that the capitalist investor will come up with, machines replacing workers, corruption and a system that is unfair. It is not the migrants who are selling vegetables or running shops.

The claim that foreigners bring drugs is also not true. Organized crime in South Africa is deeply connected to the country’s politics and economy. Recent investigations have shown that local people, corrupt officials, businesspeople and law enforcement are all involved in the drug trade. Poor migrants are often the face of the street-level economy but they are not usually the ones in control of the criminal activity. The people who really benefit from crime are often hidden and are the ones with the most power. The system of capitalism creates economies that are driven by profit, and the underworld also operates on the same principles but in a vile, raw, and unfiltered manner.

The Marikana massacre in 2012 changed South African politics forever. When 34 mineworkers were killed by the police during a strike many black working-class South Africans realised that the government and the corporations were still in control. Marikana showed that the alliance between the government, the corporations and the police was still strong. It also showed that the government was still willing to use violence to protect the interests of the corporations. Out of this moment, the Economic Freedom Fighters was formed in 2013. The party positioned itself as a response to the economic inequality, the colonial theft of land, unemployment, and the power of the corporations. Whether or not you agree with their methods, the party was successful in making social justice a major part of the national conversation. It is no wonder that the capitalist machinery has invested major resources to decampaign the EFF, and render them the face of illegal immigration. This is done by deliberately misinterpreting the EFF’s posture on Immigration.

This misinterpretation is peddled with the intention of making it seem like the EFF espouses a free for all bonanza arrangement as far as immigration. Which is why they invest time in demonising the internationalist and humanist posture of paragraph 107  - 109. This distortion exposes their inherent anti-working class and anti-poor posture, because the question of immigration in its broad sense and the flow of immigration follows the logic of capitalist patterns of production, and the relations thereof. People migrate to South Africa because the industries which are labour intensive are found in South Africa. They come here whether they have documentation or not because of the design of the system which I touched on when I delved into the foundations of our economy. Therefore, we can conclude that the Afrophobic movements are all funded by the evil hand of White Monopoly Capital, and the Zionist elite, which has invested time, money, and resources in ensuring South Africa is balkanised into small pro-Western ethno states due to among other things, our government’s solidarity to Palestine. Which is why they also don't hesitate to take swipes at the EFF, and its Commander-In-Chief, Julius Malema because of the vehement and stubborn insistence that Afrophobia is a by-product of self-hate and aids the coloniser rather than free the oppressed.

In the final analysis, we see that the attack on the EFF is a continuation of the politics that gripped the 70s, 80s, and 90s when the masses of our people were rendering Apartheid South Africa ungovernable, and capitalism unworkable. These are the politics of divide and conquer. They do this by using a familiar face who happens to demonise and distort the crisis on ground by reducing it to African migrants, who, by the way, are sucked in by the design of the SADC economy, and the broader African economy. They build movements and use some sections of the media to provide a megaphone of hate to propel this message of division and diversion. Social media bots are amplified to make the message seem widespread, and resources are pumped in to ensure the wheels of hate are greased. At the end of the day, the capitalist continues to profit, while the working class continue being exploited.

Afrophobia ultimately helps the people in power. When the working class is divided it cannot fight against the corporations, corruption and the system that is unfair. When South Africans and African migrants fight each other in the townships the billionaires are not affected. That is why real liberation politics must reject both the system of capitalism and the idea of nationalism that is based on hatred. African workers have enemies: poverty, exploitation, unemployment and inequality. The future of South Africa depends on rebuilding solidarity among the working class across nationality, language and ethnicity. Because history has shown us what happens when desperation is turned into hatred: the poor fight each other. The powerful get richer.

May Day Blues: My Letter to the Workers, Youth, & Peasants of Occupied Azania by Lindokuhle Mponco

 Dear Toiling Masses of Occupied Azania,

I write to you this May Day to address three major issue that I feel should be openly addressed, and dealt with in the most clear, concise, and sober manner. I write to you not because I want to posture as a knower of all things or a paragon of virtue and endless knowledge, but rather as a means to publicly share my observations, perspectives, and possible solutions to the many problems that are birthed by this exploitative capitalist system that rules Occupied Azania under the pretext of democracy. This is not an academic exercise. It is a political intervention grounded in lived reality, sharpened by theory, and guided by the historical necessity of transformation. As Marx and Engels remind us:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (The Communist Manifesto)

May Day itself is not a celebration—it is a reminder of unfinished struggle.

On the unemployment crisis, precarity, & immigration crisis

The first contradiction confronting our society is the mass unemployment of the working class and youth, alongside rising precarious labour conditions and the scapegoating of African migrants. We are told that unemployment is a “skills issue” or a “market imbalance.” This is ideological cover. In reality, unemployment is structural. It is a permanent feature of capitalist accumulation, where labour is intentionally kept surplus to discipline wages and intensify exploitation. Karl Marx is clear:

“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour.” (Capital)

In Occupied Azania, this vampiric logic manifests in outsourced labour, labour broking, informalisation, and permanent job insecurity. Steve Biko’s warning becomes relevant here:

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” (I Write What I Like)

The unemployed are not only excluded economically—they are ideologically fragmented, turned against each other, and redirected toward migrant workers rather than the structures of capital that produce scarcity. Frantz Fanon sharpens this critique:

“The colonised subject discovers reality and transforms it through his praxis.” (The Wretched of the Earth)

But in our present condition, praxis is deliberately obstructed through division—South African versus migrant, formal worker versus informal worker, employed versus unemployed—while capital remains untouched. The solution is not xenophobic containment, but class unification. The unemployed, the precarious, and migrant workers share a common material condition: exploitation without stability. Leon Trotsky’s Transitional Programme reminds us:

“The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership.”

The task is therefore not moral condemnation of xenophobia alone, but the construction of organised working-class unity capable of redirecting anger upward toward capital.

On the economic crisis, poverty, & inequality

The second contradiction is the deepening poverty and inequality produced by a semi-peripheral capitalist economy integrated into global imperialism. Despite political liberation, the structure of ownership remains largely intact. Wealth accumulation continues to be racially inflected but class-driven in its logic. The post-1994 order resolved political apartheid without dismantling economic apartheid. Lenin provides clarity:

“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.” (State and Revolution)

The democratic state in Occupied Azania does not transcend these antagonisms—it manages them. Social grants soften starvation but do not transform production. Black economic empowerment creates a narrow elite layer without altering the capitalist base. The result is what Marx describes in his analysis of the Paris Commune:

“The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (The Civil War in France)

This insight is critical. The existing state is not a neutral instrument. It is structurally designed to reproduce capitalist relations. Poverty is not a failure of governance—it is a requirement of accumulation. Trotsky’s Lessons of October reinforces this urgency:

“The most favourable revolutionary situations may be lost if they are not utilised.”

We are living in a prolonged favourable situation of crisis—rising inequality, declining legitimacy, and mass disillusionment. Yet without organised direction, crisis becomes stagnation rather than transformation. The economic question, therefore, is not redistribution alone. It is ownership. Who owns land, finance, mining, energy, and logistics? Until this question is resolved, inequality will remain structurally guaranteed, not incidental.

On the landlessness crisis, economic ownership, & reparations

The third contradiction is landlessness and unresolved colonial dispossession. Land remains the material foundation of historical injustice in Occupied Azania, yet its transformation has been partial, slow, and often reabsorbed into market logic. Fanon warns against this halfway transformation:

“For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must make a new start.” (The Wretched of the Earth)

A “new start” is precisely what has been deferred. Land reform without structural transformation of property relations becomes symbolic restitution rather than material reorganisation. The Paris Commune offers a practical historical lesson. Marx observed:

“The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time.” (The Civil War in France)

This is not nostalgia—it is organisational theory. It demonstrates that emancipation requires new forms of power, not mere reform of inherited institutions. Steve Biko further deepens this understanding when he insists:

“Liberation is of fundamental importance for the future of South Africa.” (I Write What I Like)

But liberation is not simply political inclusion; it is material restoration of land, dignity, and economic control. The question of reparations is therefore not moral sentimentality. It is historical necessity. Landlessness is not accidental—it is the foundation upon which capitalist accumulation in Occupied Azania was constructed. Trotsky’s Transitional Programme provides the method:

“It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist programme of the revolution.”

Land redistribution, expropriation without compensation, and community-controlled production are not final demands—they are transitional demands linking present struggle to systemic transformation.

Conslusion

The three crises outlined above—unemployment and xenophobic fragmentation, deepening inequality, and unresolved landlessness—are not separate issues. They are expressions of a single historical contradiction: the incompatibility of capitalist social relations with the aspirations of a liberated but still economically colonised people. The bourgeois democratic system has reached the limits of its historical function. It can no longer stabilise contradictions without intensifying them. What remains is not permanence, but transition. As Marx reminds us:

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.”

The task before us is not to romanticise collapse, but to organise clarity within it. This requires rebuilding political consciousness, restoring organisational discipline, and reconnecting struggle to material conditions rather than electoral cycles alone. The alternative is not neutrality. It is decay. Or as Lenin sharply puts it:

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

We are entering such a period. The question is no longer whether change is coming. The question is whether the toiling masses of Occupied Azania will be prepared to shape it.

4th of November LGEs: Towards an Azanian Bolshevik Revolution by Lindokuhle Mponco

The Local Government Elections coming up on November 4th – we shouldn't just see them as a regular democratic ritual, standing all by themselves. Think of them more like a political thermometer, really, giving us a reading on class consciousness here in Occupied Azania, especially among our working class and young people. Elections, when we're talking about bourgeois democracy, aren't the whole point of our struggle. They're just one part of the battlefield. The ruling class uses them every so often to try and look legitimate, while the oppressed masses, now and then, show us whether they approve, are frustrated, or just checked out entirely. As Marx and Engels warned us, way back in The Communist Manifesto: 

“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.”

So, getting involved in elections isn't, and can't be, the whole picture of political engagement. It's just one tactical moment, at best, within a much bigger, strategic struggle for power. That's the perspective we need to bring to November 4th.

Voting as a Measure of Consciousness, Not an End in Itself

The big mistake in liberal political thinking is raising voting up so high, making it seem like a replacement for class struggle itself. But really, our participation in elections, even if it's a bit distorted, just shows us how well organized, how clear in their ideas, and how confident in their material situation the working class truly is. Lenin made this incredibly clear in State and Revolution, saying: 

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.”

That statement really cuts through any illusions, doesn't it? Voting doesn't make class power disappear; it just records it. So for us, as revolutionaries, the ballot isn't some sacred thing. It's more like a diagnostic tool. It helps us figure out if the working class is moving towards expressing itself politically on its own terms, or if it's still stuck inside those bourgeois ideas. Trotsky, in the Transitional Programme, built on this method, writing that  “The task consists in helping the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist programme of the revolution.” These elections are just one piece of that “daily struggle,” not the grand finale.

The Temporal Politics of November and Global Capitalist Synchronisation

The fact that these LGEs are happening in November should make us think, politically speaking, rather than jump to conspiracy theories. November is a pretty big month in bourgeois election cycles globally, especially with the US midterm elections. Now, it's too simple, and frankly, analytically weak, to just say this timing is some deliberate coordination. But it's still crucial to see that bourgeois democracies everywhere move to interconnected global rhythms, rhythms shaped by finance capital, by donor networks, and by imperial political calendars. Frantz Fanon, in The Wretched of the Earth, gave us this warning:

 “Colonialism is not a machine capable of thinking, a body endowed with reason. It is naked violence.”

Today, that violence often comes to us through financial flows, the influence of donors, credit rating agencies, and these vast transnational capital networks, instead of the old direct colonial administration. So, the real question isn't about whether some single person “chooses” election timing to line up with outside powers. It's more about how deeply post-colonial states are structurally dependent  on these global capitalist cycles. Chris Hani reminded us quite clearly: “A people without land, without control of their economy, are not truly free.” Political sovereignty, without economic sovereignty, always feels incomplete.

On Bourgeois Democracy, Funding Networks, and Structural Influence

In these liberal democracies, political competition is hardly ever neutral. It's always filtered through capital, through who funds campaigns, who owns all the media, and who decides what's even considered acceptable policy to talk about. Marx's look at the Paris Commune still teaches us a lot. He said the Commune “was to serve as a lever for uprooting the economic foundations upon which the existence of classes rests.” This was from The Civil War in France. That fear of such a fundamental change, of things being uprooted, is exactly why bourgeois democratic systems build such complex ways to keep things contained: through funding networks, by gatekeeping policy, and with ideological production. It's in this light that we really need to grasp the role of these big domestic and international capital networks. Don't see them as all-powerful conspirators, but rather as structural forces, actively shaping the very ground where electoral politics plays out. The aim here isn't to point fingers or blame individuals. It's about class analysis, plain and simple.

Why Revolutionary Youth Must Engage the Electoral Terrain

For the working class, the most dangerous place to be isn't choosing to participate or choosing to abstain. It's simply being politically passive. Steve Biko, in I Write What I Like, famously warned us:

 “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

If we abstain from political processes, we're not actually weakening bourgeois democracy. What we are doing is weakening the working class's own ability to gauge, challenge, and then reshape political consciousness from inside that system. This is precisely why revolutionaries shouldn't just abandon electoral spaces. Instead, we need to go into them strategically. Our engagement has to involve a few things: getting our youth and the working class registered on the voters' roll; consciously participating as a way to really check our class awareness; organizing communities around political education and getting people mobilized; and fundamentally, turning these electoral spaces into platforms for agitation, not just places for illusions. Just remember, though, participation should never be confused with resolution. As Lenin wisely cautioned in What Is to Be Done?: 

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”

Beyond Elections: Towards Dual Power and Working-Class Organisation

The biggest question we face isn't about winning elections. It's about building counter-power. Trotsky, thinking about revolutionary breakthroughs in Lessons of October, wrote that: 

“The most difficult task is not the seizure of power, but the preparation for it.”

Elections might show us the mood of the masses, yes, but they don't take away the need to build real working-class power. I mean structures that are deeply rooted in our communities, in workplaces, on campuses, and even in our informal economies. The Paris Commune, historically, is still our clearest example here. Marx noted that “The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” That insight is crucial, absolutely. It tells us that even if revolutionary forces somehow gain real traction in elections, the state itself has to be transformed. We can't just inherit it as is.

Conclusion: The November Threshold

Look, the November 4th LGEs? We should see them as a threshold, a moment where things might shift, not as the final destination itself. They will tell us something pretty important: about the current level of political consciousness among ordinary people, about how strong our working-class organizations really are, and just how deeply disillusioned everyone is with bourgeois democracy. But one thing they won't do is resolve the core contradiction we face in Occupied Azania: how we can have political liberation while still living with economic dispossession. As Marx reminded us, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.” So, the job for revolutionaries is really two-fold: we need to participate in the political landscape right now, but without any illusions, and at the same time, we need to get organized beyond it, without delay. The ballot might show us where consciousness stands. But it's only through organized struggle that we truly transform it.

32 Years of Bourgeois Democracy: A system in rapid decline by Lindokuhle Mponco

I have spent the past two weeks trying to pen this article as systematically as I can, however, I have struggled. This is primarily caused by the fact that a lot is going on in the country of Occupied Azania, and the underlying cause of all of this keeps being avoided.  On the 27th of April, the GNU held a Freedom Day Celebration in the neglected and mismanaged metropolitan municipality of Mangaung. The stands were empty during the parade, a clear indication that the masses of our people are dissatisfied and disillusioned with the democratic bourgeois system which has managed contradictions for the past 32 years. In the same month, our people had to stomach a petrol and diesel price increase due to the imperialist war waged by the USA and its handler, the Zionist state called Israel against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a product of the Iranian revolution and was democratically determined by the people of Iran in a referendum. Most importantly, Islamic Iran was an ally of the liberation movement, and this war against Iran must viewed within that lens given the disinformation campaign against Occupied Azania.

Lastly, this month has seen a wave of anti-African migrants protests which have petered out into violent attacks of defenseless migrants, and even in some cases South Africans from the Limpopo province. This wave of protests have been led by a camarilla of tribalists and Afrophobes, who are in the main from KZN. Lastly, this month also went through a near stormy wave after the CIC of the EFF was unjustly sentenced to a 5-year sentence, while the son of Robert Mugabe was only sentenced to a fine for much more gross charges. The logic is that pled guilty from the onset.

It is important for me layout this context as disorderly and without chronology as I have done to depict the confusion, and mayhem that was the month of April. It is this context that has led me to aptly title this article as I have done because in all of this, I have realised that we are living in a system that is in rapid decline. However, nature doesn't leave spaces for permanent vacuums and something has to fill in that space no matter how degenerate it is. This realisation has sparked a sense of urgency within me as an activist and revolutionary theorist who is steeped in Scientific Socialism with Afrocentric Characteristics, and committed to the Theory of Permanent Revolution, and the Bolshevik method to polemically agitate against the following:

1. Slow and morbid pace of forming a united popular front of leftist movements.

2. Lack of political efforts in building alternative bases of power.

3. A weak socialist press and media in a vast ocean of bourgeois propaganda.

4.  Insufficient political education platforms for the masses.

5. Sectarianism and opportunism.

6. Weak left-wing civic movement.


However, before I advance deeper into my polemic against these six challenges to our broad revolutionary movement which goes beyond party lines, labour affiliations, and civic ties, I want us to understand this Bourgeois Democracy, economic structure, and political impact in the lives of our people through the science of dialectical and historical materialism, which remain intrinsic components of Scientific Socialism with Afrocentric Characteristics (SSAC).

To understand the present moment in Occupied Azania, one must first abandon the illusion that fragmentation is accidental, or that crisis is episodic. What we are witnessing is not disorder in the abstract, but the logical unfolding of a bourgeois democratic order whose historical mission has been exhausted. As Karl Marx reminds us in The Communist Manifesto:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

This is not a poetic abstraction. It is a methodological key. What appears today as political confusion, institutional decay, and social fragmentation is in fact the sharpening of class antagonisms that bourgeois democracy was never designed to resolve, but only to manage. In 1994, the promise was not the abolition of contradiction, but its administrative containment. Thirty-two years later, that containment is cracking under the weight of its own contradictions.

The Crisis of Managed Contradictions

The Freedom Day spectacle in Mangaung, with its empty stands, is not merely symbolic embarrassment for the ruling bloc. It is a material index of disillusionment. The masses are no longer politically animated by ceremonial democracy divorced from their lived conditions. The parade continues, but the people have stepped outside of its logic. At the same time, rising fuel prices—shaped by global imperialist tensions and the geopolitical reconfiguration of energy markets—translate abstract international relations into immediate domestic suffering. Here, Lenin’s insight becomes unavoidable:

“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.”

What appears as “external shocks” is, in truth, the integration of domestic economies into imperialist circuits of accumulation. The bourgeois state does not shield the working class from global crisis; it transmits and redistributes it downward. In this sense, the state in Occupied Azania functions not as a neutral arbiter, but as a relay mechanism of global capital.

Xenophobia as Ideological Displacement

The recent wave of anti-African migrant violence further exposes the ideological fractures of bourgeois democracy. When material deprivation deepens, the ruling class does not allow consciousness to turn upward toward structural critique. Instead, it is redirected sideways—toward the most vulnerable. Steve Biko warned against precisely this distortion:

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

Afrophobia is not simply prejudice; it is a political technology of displacement. It converts economic frustration into cultural antagonism, thereby preserving the underlying relations of production intact. The tragedy is not only the violence itself, but the fact that it obscures the real question: who owns, who controls, and who benefits from the economic structure that produces scarcity in abundance?

Unequal Justice and the Crisis of Legitimacy

The uneven application of law—where different political actors face radically different judicial outcomes—signals a deeper erosion of institutional legitimacy. The bourgeois legal order claims universality, yet operates through selective enforcement shaped by class and political positioning. Here, Trotsky’s theory of uneven and combined development is instructive:

“The law of combined development reveals that backwardness and modernity coexist, collide, and produce explosive contradictions.”

What we are seeing is not simply judicial inconsistency. It is the expression of a state attempting to maintain coherence in a society where historical time itself is uneven—where liberation memory, neoliberal governance, and imperial dependency coexist in unstable tension.

The Necessity of Revolutionary Clarity

Chris Hani, reflecting on the unfinished character of liberation, once insisted:

“We want a society where the wealth of the country is shared among those who produce it.”

This remains the unresolved question of our epoch. Who produces wealth, and who appropriates it? Until this contradiction is addressed materially—not rhetorically—bourgeois democracy will continue to deteriorate into procedural legitimacy without social substance. Trotsky deepens this further in the theory of permanent revolution:

“The democratic tasks cannot be separated from socialist tasks; they pass over into one another in the course of struggle.”

This is crucial. The crises outlined above—economic dispossession, xenophobic violence, institutional decay, and geopolitical dependency—are not separate issues. They are expressions of a single underlying contradiction: the limits of a post-liberation capitalist order attempting to stabilise itself without transforming its economic foundation.

Towards a Materialist Conclusion

To conclude is not to close the question, but to clarify its urgency. The current phase of bourgeois democracy in Occupied Azania is entering a stage of accelerated decline not because it is suddenly failing, but because its historical function—post-conflict stabilization under global capitalism—has reached its ceiling. The contradictions are no longer latent; they are visible, lived, and increasingly unmanageable within the existing framework. The task, therefore, is not merely critique, but reorientation:

1. The construction of a unified popular front beyond organisational fragmentation.

2. The building of alternative organs of power rooted in working-class and community life.

3. The development of a socialist press capable of countering bourgeois ideological saturation.

4. The deepening of mass political education grounded in lived material conditions.

5. The principled struggle against sectarianism and opportunism.

6. The strengthening of left civic formations as instruments of popular organisation.

But above all, what is required is clarity. As Marx insisted:

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.”

History is not waiting for permission. It is unfolding through crisis, struggle, and contradiction. The question is not whether the bourgeois democratic order will continue in its current form—it will not—but what force will replace it, and in whose interests that replacement will be constructed. This is the defining question of our time. And it can no longer be postponed.

Freedom Without Power Is A Lie by Lindokuhle Mponco

We were told we are free. Yet most of us wake up every day negotiating survival. Degrees sit at home. CVs circulate endlessly. Hustles barely sustain life. Many young people still live in their childhood homes, not out of comfort but necessity. Anxiety has become normal. Exhaustion is worn like a badge of honor. And quietly, a dangerous thought creeps in: maybe I’m the problem.

But what if that feeling—this frustration, this constant sense of falling short—is not a personal failure? What if it is the logical outcome of a system that promised freedom without giving power?

The Promise of 1994

There is no denying the significance of 1994. Political apartheid was defeated. Black people regained the right to vote, to organize openly, to exist with dignity under the law. That victory matters. It should never be dismissed. But it was also incomplete.

What changed was political control of the state. What did not change was ownership of the economy. Land remained concentrated. Capital stayed in the same hands. Corporations continued to dominate production, employment, and wealth. South Africa became politically free while remaining economically unequal.

Freedom was negotiated—but power was not transferred.

The result is a society where the majority can vote but cannot decide. Where young people are free to dream but lack the material means to realize those dreams. Where dignity exists in theory, but insecurity defines daily life.

What Power Actually Means

Power is not a feeling. It is not representation. It is not symbolism. Power is control:

1. Control over land. 

2. Control over jobs and production.

3. Control over education and knowledge.

4. Control over the economy that determines who eats and who struggles.

Without this control, freedom becomes abstract. You may speak freely, but you still depend on someone else to survive. You may vote, but you have no say over investment decisions, factory closures, or job creation. You may be told to “work hard,” but the system decides whether work exists at all.

Voting without economic power turns freedom into a performance. It gives the appearance of choice while leaving the structure intact. This is the contradiction young people are living with every day.

Frustration Is Not Failure

Capitalism is very good at doing one thing: making structural problems feel personal.

When millions of young people are unemployed, the system tells each one of them to “try harder.” When graduates struggle, the blame shifts to their attitude, their skills, their mindset. Hustle culture steps in to moralize survival and shame those who fall behind.

But mass unemployment is not an accident. It is structural. Poverty is not a mindset. It is produced. Inequality is not a misunderstanding. It is organized. If millions are failing in the same way, then failure is not individual—it is systemic.

This is why the key idea must be stated clearly, without apology: you are not failing—the system is succeeding. It is succeeding at producing cheap labor, desperation, competition among the poor, and silence disguised as self-blame.

The Mental Trap

Steve Biko warned that the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Today, that weapon works through internalization.

When young people believe their struggle is a personal defect, they stop asking political questions. When they blame themselves, they stop blaming the system. When frustration turns inward, it never turns outward.

Mental colonization does not need police or laws. It thrives on isolation, comparison, and the belief that survival is an individual project. As long as youth see themselves as the problem, capitalism remains safe.

Mental liberation begins when we refuse this lie.

What This Means for the Youth

The task of this generation is not to be more motivated. It is to be more conscious.

We must stop believing that individual escape equals collective freedom. We must stop measuring success only by proximity to wealth. We must stop treating unemployment as shame instead of evidence.

And we must start asking harder questions:

Who owns the economy? Who benefits from our frustration? Why does freedom stop at the ballot box? What would real power look like? These questions are not abstract. They are the beginning of political maturity. 

 

A Beginning, Not a Conclusion

Freedom without power produces frustration. Confusion. Anger without direction. A generation blamed for conditions it did not create. Understanding this is not the end of the struggle—it is the start.

La Lutsha exists to name the lie clearly, to break the mental chains before confronting the material ones. Throughout this month, we will return to this question again and again: what does liberation mean when power remains untouched?

●The youth are not lazy.

●The youth are not lost.

The youth are standing at the edge of a truth that the system hopes they never fully graspThis is where consciousness begins.