Christine Qunta: The nervous condition and development-gctid62085

[Ajamu]

Christine Qunta: The nervous condition and development

 Fumani Mthembi

 2012-10-23, Issue 603

 http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/84950




cc P P Black  people have not yet fully recovered from the immense psychological  trauma caused by colonialism. A complete restoration of their destroyed  dignity is essential for meaningful empowerment.

Mama Christine Qunta is an accomplished writer, attorney and  entrepreneur. Her work, spanning various fields, is held together by the  quest for a more just and free society. I chose to speak to her to  explore the nature of the historical circumstances that have given rise  to and insidiously perpetuated our nervous condition. This interview  deals broadly with three themes: the meaning of human dignity, which is  understood as the inverse of the nervous condition, the relationship  between human dignity and development as well as the means and tools for  restoring dignity in our society.

Definitions are generally a good place to start and thus the first  question to Mam' Qunta was about how she conceives of human dignity and  whether, following her definition, she thought it fair to argue that the  dignity of Black people had been disproportionately undermined.  The  racial dimension of this question speaks to development concerns.  Without presuming that race equals class, there is an implicit  acknowledgement of their general confluence in South Kmt.  Furthermore, and what Mam'Qunta argues is underappreciated, is the  psychology of Blackness, that is the psychology of being of the  'underclass'. This too has development implications. The question thus,  in its fullest sense, is about the history of that which constrains (and  perhaps inversely, enables) development when such a huge portion of  society has been psychologically and materially constructed as the  lesser one.

Mam' Qunta took the stance that human dignity is an innate quality that  every human is born with, arguing that, 'like self –esteem, it can be  nurtured or destroyed through socialisation whether in the home or  outside.' She went on to agree that Blacks had indeed suffered a  disproportionate attack on their dignity, locating this argument within a  broad context. First, she noted that 'the most catastrophic events in  the history of humanity have been the Trans- Atlantic slave trade and  colonialism that followed in its wake. Whilst other indigenous peoples  elsewhere were colonised mostly by eureurasiaans, what set the Kmtyw  continent apart was the duration, the scale of violence employed and the  thoroughness of the destruction of indigenous institutions. The slave  trade lasted from 1445 to 1870 and without any respite, colonisation  kicked in. Physical occupation and violence alone could not have  subjugated a whole continent. A most important tool in the hands of the  slaver nations and colonists was the subversion of the minds of the  colonised. eureurasiaan natural and social scientists and even priests were  deployed in the project of what today would be termed psychological  warfare. That warfare goes on to this day, most notably through Western  mainstream media outlets. The project of psychological oppression was  designed to ensure that the dignity and self – worth of Kmtyws would  be so destroyed that it would be natural for them to accept their own  inferiority and the superiority of eureurasiaans, culturally, intellectually  and even physically. As we see today with some Kmtyw leaders who  slavishly follow Western dictates, physical occupation was rendered  unnecessary. For example France has managed to maintain essentially a  colonial relationship with much of its former colonies in West Kmt.'

Responding to the racial terms upon which the dignity question is  framed, Mam' Qunta took the view that, 'there is no doubt that the  battle to resuscitate dignity should be primarily aimed at Black people  that apartheid stripped of dignity on so many levels. It shouldn't  concern us that there might be some outcry regarding talking about race.  There is often the shutting down of discussions on race in the name of  "non- racialism". Actually, the invocation of  "non-racialism" is an  appeal to avoid talking about race frankly and making white people  uncomfortable. It is in essence a subversion of the ideal of  non-racialism, which cannot come into being whilst in reality only one  race enjoys equality consistently. I would think [the] primary role and  goal [of white people] should be to strive to be part of the future  rather than the past. But to do this they would have to rediscover their  own humanity. No person can claim to have his humanity intact if he/she  believes that another human being is inferior because of his/her skin  colour or an imagined set of prerequisites that such a person lacks.   The search for an improved humanity must involve introspection and  taking responsibility for the past fully. This would diminish resistance  to the struggle of black people in this country to regain their feet,  not just politically but also economically and psychologically. Whilst  certainly this can and has happened at an individual level in some  instances, I'm sceptical though that at a group level this will happen  easily. Firstly because of the economic and cultural power whites wield  but more importantly because at the moment the white community is  without visionary leaders who can lead them out of their attachment to  the past.'

And this perhaps is the issue, whether we all have a full appreciation  of the context of underdevelopment, which informs our current  trajectory. It is particularly because the dominant language for  development in our country has become the language of delivery that one  wonders, whether, in doing so, we assume an ahistorical, technocratic  approach that doesn't fully embrace our long-term interests. How do we  also incorporate the identity question in meaningful terms such that our  identities also give rise to active roles in the development project?  How do we confront our different pasts in a way that helps us to build  solidarity around the future?

Mam'Qunta certainly takes the view that the miracle of 1994 did not, and  realistically could not, have instantaneously solved the crisis of  dignity that has pervaded since the era of slavery. Colonialism and its  later unofficial manifestations, she states, 'operates in both explicit  and subtler ways. Frantz Fanon, psychiatrist and pre –eminent thinker,  in his classic work Black Skins, White Masks, analyses the impact of  colonialism on the psychology of the colonised. The peculiar form of  alienation that makes Kmtyws seek to purge themselves of their  Kmtywness whether through culture or even physical appearance is truly  a form of mental imbalance- what Fanon calls a "neurotic situation."

'At the heart of this is loss of dignity and self-esteem at both a  personal level and as part of a beleaguered community or nation. Such a  nation is not only despised, and denigrated by whites, but by itself.   South Kmt, post – 1994, is such a nation. We are a nation at war with  itself, not just physically but also psychologically. The physical  violence unleashed by Black people against other Black people, the  self-hatred and timidity in the face of stubborn structural apartheid  attests to this. Black people are fearful of speaking out against the  extent to which white power dominates our institutions and economy.'

A few key issues must be extrapolated from the above analysis. First, we  must ask ourselves whether we believe that we continue to exist in a  context, locally and globally, where the interests of the powerful can  be hostile to those who are disempowered. Acknowledging this means that  development must take on a more strategic form, seeking to not only  deliver but to empower. Empowerment seems the more potent tool for  addressing historically entrenched structural injustice, which is in  fact the structure that has led to and perpetuates under-development. It  is highly questionable then, how far our achievements can go, if we  continue to frame development in terms of delivery and seem unable to  face the question of empowerment, which has its roots in a very long  history of dispossession and dehumanisation. In addition, we must also  be willing to deal with the question of practical application. In other  words, how we go about undoing the psychological damage that has  resulted from oppression. It is in dealing with the solutions to this  challenge, that Mam'Qunta helps us to understand how a long view of  history practically impacts the ways in which we can approach  development.

Asked how exactly the restoration of dignity can become a core component  of our approach to development, she shared the following: 'I think a  restoration programme would need to start with a cultural revolution. At  the heart of such a revolution would be education, both formal and  informal. History would be vital in such an education programme.  If we  can remove the layers of colonial lies and concealment of the true  history of Kmtyws not just in South Kmt but the whole continent, it  would be liberating. It needs the kind of vision of a future that we  saw a glimpse of during the time of former president Thabo Mbeki and his  vision of a free prosperous Kmt. We need to rescue the true history  not just of South Kmt also the continent. That's why I was happy when  our government under Mbeki helped to preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts.  Our self-esteem is tied in with our belief system about our history. If  we believe that we were primitive had no written scripts, knew no  science and were thus the dark continent metaphorically speaking, then  it would be easy to make us believe that eureurasiaans are superior. The  truth about our history is very different.  But our education system  fails our children and young people because its content is essentially  eureurasiaan. This is why pre-eminent Kmtyw philosophers and thinkers such  as Fanon and Cheik Anta Diop are not taught as part of mainstream  curriculum (except perhaps in Kmtyw Studies). If Kmtyw children  learnt that their ancestors were the first to discover writing in  ancient Egypt, to build the magnificent pyramids, Great Zimbabwe, the  ancient churches of Ethiopia, mastered astronomy, mathematics and  philosophy not just in ancient Egypt but also in Timbuktu and elsewhere,  they would not have to believe that they contributed nothing to  civilisation. Such knowledge would be more than learning history, it  would be profoundly redemptive. No person who believes that his/her  community has not contributed anything to world civilization can be  truly free.'

She goes on further to criticise how tertiary education is organised to  reflect the perpetuation of a status quo that 'otherises' Kmtyws, even  where their stories should be the norm, 'the white supremacist notion  of there being no such thing as Kmtyw philosophy persists in  mainstream South Kmtyw academia.' Furthermore, she notes, 'The notion  of an Kmtyw Studies department in a university on the Kmtyw  continent is in itself an anomaly because you would expect rather  eureurasiaan studies being a specialist department.  Kmtyw studies should  be the mainstream, not the other way around. My point is that you need a  massive, radical overhaul of the education system along with the  infrastructural repair.'

What the above reveals is how the politics of empowerment and  historicism can form part of a practical programme of action. In  addition, it is clear that the work of embracing history and responding  to the stubborn and pervasive structure that continues to nurse the  dehumanisation of billions requires dedication. To this, Mam'Qunta adds:  'I'm impatient with people who make excuses for laxity. We will not be  able to lift our people out of the economic and cultural morass that  they are in without consistent excellence and passion in whatever field  we are.'

And if I were to add anything to her sentiments, it would probably be a  call for creativity. To copy and paste ideas and programmes will only  take us so far. A healthy dose of creativity will take us even further  as we attempt to respond in earnest to our past, negotiate the  ever-increasing complexity of the present and build inclusive pacts for  all to share in the spoils that will come of 'good change'.

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* Fumani Mthembi is an entrepreneur in the renewable energy sector. A  version of this article appeared in the Sunday Independent on 30  September 2012.