Freedom Ain't Come Yet!

By Aduku Addae

Barbara Gloudon's article appearing in the Jamaica Observer online edition of July 4, 2003 evoked this Marley lament. Purporting to speak for the South Africans, Ms. Gloudon remarked that: "They still thank us for showing solidarity for the early ban which NW Manley placed on South African imports and the intellectual support in forums like the United Nations where we joined in keeping up the pressure till freedom come." I cannot conceal my amazement at this imbecility! What freedom is she making reference to?

In 1977 I was in the process of purchasing a woolen beret, the then popular headwear for conscious/rebel youth, when an alert brethren tipped me to check the label.  The label betrayed the origin. It was made in South Africa. Manley's embargo, like the Jamaican motto, was an empty declaration.

The real, and often deadly, struggle against the Apartheid regime in South Africa was waged by people all over the world who put their lives on the line.  People like Peter "Bush Doctor" Tosh who was beaten by members of the beastly Jamaican Constabulary Force and left for dead on the floor of the Halfway Tree Police Station in Kingston.

How they brutalize the very souls! Today they say we are free, only to be chained in poverty.

South Africans find solace and inspiration in the songs of the Rastafari messenger but this refrain in their daily reflection has transformed them into living Wailers. The consequence of their "freedom" from the oppression of the white minority is that they are chained in poverty by an ANC regime that has made no attempt to change the underlying social and economic relations which characterized Apartheid.  White minority rule is now more pervasive under the ANC regime than it had been under the rogue regimes of the Boers.

Gloudon speaks disparagingly of the conduct of the House of Rastafari applying such demeaning references to the brethren as "The Next Lot", "Rasta-brigade", and "zealots" in response to their public calling-to-account of Thabo Mbeki on the matter of Winnie Madikizela's unjust treatment in the Apartheid-run courts of South Africa. She charges the brethren with being out of order but it is Ms. Gloudon who, truly, is manifestly out of order in this matter.  The freedom fighters of the Rasta family merit the greatest respect for their longstanding courage and dedication in service of the African cause.

In the search for justice there can be no undue respect for persons, or, institutions. We Africans who have suffered from the most horrendous torture in consequence of deference for our elders, which is at the foundation of the persistent rape of Africa by the Europeans, have grown wise in our suffering and have become very discriminating in according respect and deference to elders. We are not frightened anymore into obeisance by age. We honor wisdom and integrity not years.  And, we do not defer to those who do injury to our cause.

Mbeki's office does not make him sacrosanct. And, luckily for Ms. Gloudon, her age does not shield her from criticism, for, she is in sore need of re-education. 

To tell the truth, not even ole bwoy Mandela is untouchable.

The Rastaman is the standard bearer for justice worldwide and especially in Jamaica.  Consider this scenario which Ms. Gloudon recounts: "At the university on Monday night [June 30, 2003] where Mr. Mbeki gave a public lecture, one of the zealots forgot himself, and while he [Mbeki] was speaking, began shouting and waving a picture of Mrs. Mandela.  The rest of the room reacted with disapproval. [My emphasis].  A large police officer quickly took charge and the man was hustled from the room. The lecture continued but the odour of the disrespect hung in the air."  Who was 'di onliest' freedom fighter in the lecture hall at UWI? The Rasta man, of course!

There was an "odour" all right.  It is an odor of rank ignorance and cowardice on the part of the gathering and the "large police officer" that symbolizes the Jamaican mindset and practical disposition to matters appertaining to Africa.  Rasta people have consistently thrown themselves, bodies and souls, against this twin affliction of ignorance and cowardice.  Long live the Rasta man and woman!

Winnie Madikizela's (I shall make no reference henceforth to the name Mandela in connection with her) travails in the Apartheid courts of the ANC-Boer confederacy, and her subjection to house arrest, symbolize the qualitative state of the struggle against Apartheid. The forces of reaction are struggling to contain and 'domesticate' [read localize] it. Winnie is the symbol of a nascent worldwide African resistance against global capitalist domination. It is a signal honor that the first voice to raise this standard, to call out "Free Winnie!" wells up from a lone Rastaman whose consuming passion for justice and Africa's liberation drives him to "forget himself."  And, this as "the rest of the room reacted with disapproval." Whither Jamaica?

It is not incidental that we speak of Africa as mother.  Women are at the very center of the struggle for African survival. They are the major casualties in the multi-faceted war being waged against Africa. For the most part they are the farmers, which the mining interests seek to displace at any cost in blood. These bearers of the seeds of nations, literally and figuratively, are bearing the brunt of mortality from AIDS, the genocidal proxy wars initiated at the behest of the global capitalists, famine, curable diseases, social and economic dislocation deriving from the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and the World Bank. The war against Africa resonates with domesticity - it is a war against women and children. Winnie's domestic incarceration (house arrest) captures its essence.  Winnie is "Mama Africa" in a profoundly significant sense.

To free ourselves from the insidious, avaricious and destructive grip of monopoly capital, a.k.a. globalization, we must echo the call to free mama Africa. We must shout everywhere and at all times Free Winnie!

African people let us Free Winnie!

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updated 20 October 2007