“A soldier without any political or ideological training is a potential criminal”.- Thomas Sankara
When members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), instructed by their leaders, invaded the “End of Times Disciples Ministries” in Soshanguve, Pretoria on 9 August 2015 their intention was clear: to get their hands on the pastor of the church and to teach him a lesson by making him eat snakes and rats because he does the same to the people of his congregation. The EFF, like a gang of vigilantes, stormed the church, beat people up and destroyed church property all under the guise of serving the interests of the community. It was a shame to see on national television how women were being beaten up by EFF hooligans. None of these horrible senseless actions of EFF can be justified. Only sick and very disturbed people can justify the beating of women as a service to the community. We all know that the EFF was serving none other than itself in pursuit of a media spectacle! Furthermore, the EFF was motivated by nothing else but opportunism and vulgar populism at the expense of the most vulnerable people of this country being the black people.
The EFF has proven itself to be no different from the ANC that brutalizes our people to get things done. The logic that led to 34 miners being killed in Marikana by the ANC on 16 August 2012 is the same logic that motivated EFF hooligans to use violence on black people so as to have their way. This emanates from the anti black logic that blacks are stupid and understand no other language but that of violence and consequently they must be treated with violence so as to get them to understand what is needed to be done. One cannot help but come to the realization that if the EFF were to assume state power in this country it would not hesitate to use the full might of the police force and the military to brutalize blacks into submission and then claim that such brutality was meted out in the interests of society.
These acts of brutality against blacks by the EFF is not surprising. Being devoid of any genuine leadership and having abandoned revolutionary theory EFF is incapable of of dispensing any revolutionary guide to action to its members so as to assist them in engaging communities or individuals on how to overcome practicing or perpetrating backward ideas. Blacks in this country continue to experience violence through landlessness and economic exclusion by the state. The act of the colonial dispossession of blacks of their land has rendered them available to all those who claim to have a solution to their perpetual suffering. To this end all black people are desperate for a solution to their unbearable suffering The EFF, had it been a revolutionary party, would not have promoted black on black violence as a solution to the problem our people are experiencing. It would instead, have made it it’s revolutionary duty to educate our people on what must be done under the circumstances where they are engaging in backward ritualistic practices that go against their own interests.
It must be stated that when the EFF burned down the tent of the “snake” pastor, such action was an exercise in futility because it did not discourage the congregation from engaging in backward practices. In this regard the congregation was undeterred by the violent deeds of the EFF and simply continued to eat grass in the absence of their pastor.
The EFF’s supposed solution to the problem at hand only serves to further entrench the culture of anti black violence in our communities that is in turn set in motion by the structural logic of white-supremacy. This will also encourage the growth of the pastor’s follower-ship. In fact they will now quote John 15 verse 18: “if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” The faithful shall now believe that this is yet another test that they must overcome. And so the belief in their pastor’s miracles shall only grow in strength. They will see for themselves, as the chosen few, that they have to be persecuted just like Christ himself was persecuted.
It is not only the pastor in Soshanguve that feeds rats and snakes to our people. The political class does the same to our people when it sells snakes and grass as ideology them. Now it is pitting itself against those who sell physical snakes. The practice of deception is the same on both levels. A revolutionary movement does not impose its hegemony on the people through violence and intimidation. It does not assert itself by creating a fearful community under its violent command. Soon we will degenerate into the warlordism we have already seen in most parts of the African continent. A revolutionary movement wins hegemony in society by persuasion, organisation and education. We all know the fearful are not free!
The EFF fails dismally to understand that contradictions amongst the people must be settled peacefully because they are not antagonistic, and contradictions with the enemy are antagonistic and must be dealt with violently if necessary. The lack of revolutionary theory from the EFF renders black people the enemy and consequently everybody suffers. This means its war of all against all in a quest for the dominance of naked violence amongst and over the people.
Not only is the EFF suffering from a lack of revolutionary theory, but it is also led by misleaders who are hypocrites and who will teach people that they must ‘do as they say but not as they do’. How is it possible that the EFF who attacks the pastor is the same EFF that has invited Paseka Mbhoro Motsoeneng who is a controversial, charismatic pastor to its rallies. Maybe the EFF is attacking the “snake” pastor in defence of their own miracle worker‘Mbhoro’ who they see as competition. We have not forgotten how EFF President Julius Malema`once visited another controversial pastor T.B Joshua in Nigeria in search of his own miracles. We see here Malema exercising his own right in believing in miracles and when other black people do the same they are met with violence instructed by him. To this end who can forget how, even when the Synagogue Church of TB Joshua collapsed and a number of South Africans were killed, Julius Malema rose in defence of the pastor.
We Are The One’s We Have Been Waiting For!
Issued by The September National Imbizo
10 August 2015