User:Alexmunger/Drafts/Andile Mngxitama

Andile Mngxitama
Born	Potchefstroom, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Education	University of the Witwatersrand (M.A.)
Occupation(s)	Political Activist Writer
Political party	Economic Freedom Fighters (2013-2015) Black First Land First (2015-present)
Member of the National Assembly of South Africa
In office 21 May 2014 – 13 April 2015

John Andile Mngxitama, known as Andile Mngxitama, is a South African activist, politician, and writer. He is a former member National Assembly of South Africa and is the founder and current president of Black First Land First, a South African political party.

Early life and education

Andile Mngxitama was born on and raised on a farm outside of Potchefstroom, North West province, South Africa, the son of a farming family. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand, where he received a Masters Degree in sociology.

A leading Black Consciousness thinker, organizer and activist, Mngxitama holds an MA in sociology from the University of Witwatersrand. He co-edited "Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko" , a collection of essays on the philosophy and writings of Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko. The collection looks at the ongoing significance of Black Consciousness, situating it in a global context, examining the legacy of Biko, the present state of post-apartheid South African politics, and the culture and history of the anti-apartheid movements.Biko Lives!, Martin Murray, a Professor of Sociology at SUNY Binghamton comments, “Taken as a whole, this collection of essays is an important addition to the scholarship on Steve Biko. It contributes not only to a deeper understanding of what philosophy is, but also how Biko's writing can be considered philosophical." In 2009, Mngxitama published the first four essays in the New Frank Talk series (named after Biko's penname), a journal of critical essays in which the writer uses his broad political knowledge and debate skills to examine the black condition. His popular essay "Blacks Can't be Racist", the third to be published in the series, has been prescribed by universities together with "Why Biko Wouldn’t Vote". Mngxitama is also a columnist for the Sowetan and City Press newspapers.

AM joins EFF

"We specifically welcome Fighter Andile Mxingtama as a member of the EFF Central Command Team. Fighter Mxingtama brings to the EFF his experience and network in the post 1994 social movements. He is one of the founders of the Landless People's Movement (LMP). He was also national president of the Black Consciousness student formation, the Azanian Students’ Organisation, and also leader of the Wits African Post Graduate Association and the Wits Save Mumia Abu-Jamal campaign. He has maintained international relations with peasant and black radical movements across the world. He is perhaps more known for his public intellectual thrust as columnist in The Sowetan. Fighter Mxingtama is also the co-editor of the influential edition Biko Lives! And editor of the popular political journal New Frank Talk. Above all, he is fearless agitator whose coming into the EFF will be celebrated by most in the left radical black tradition, both home and abroad."

Prison Writing Workshop: Andile Mngxitama - Westville Correctional Services

Writers visit Workers College: Ashwin Desai, Andile Mngxitama – Workers College, 127 Magwaza Maphalala Street. Tel: 031 304 0260

Book Launch and Reading – Fools of Melville: Andile Mngxitama - Ike’s Books & Collectables, 48a Florida Road. Tel: 031 303 9214

Focus on Social Movements and Knowledge Production: Ashwin Desai, Andile Mngxitama – Ike’s Books & Collectables, 48a Florida Road. Tel: 031 303 9214

[1] dailymav 2011 dailyvox 2017

Timeline

• 2001
  • LMP founded
• 2008
  • Biko Lives!
• 2009
  • NFT journal begins
• 2010
  • SNI founded (2010-2015) [2]
  • CCA writer
• 2013
  • July 16 - joins EFF
  • Kaganof correspondence
  • Fools of Melville
• 2014
  • 7 May: elected to NA (EFF)
• 2015
  • 13 April - dismissed from NA
  • 13 August - BLF Revolutionary Call

Political Career

September National Imbizo

founded 2010

Election to the National Assembly

Mngxitama was selected as the 10th candidate on the EFF's 2014 national election list. The general election, held in May of 2014, was the first that the EFF had contested. They won 25 seats, granting Mngxitama a parliamentary position in the National Assembly. He represented the EFF on the Rural Development and Land Reform Committee, as land reform ("expropriation without compensation") was the most pressing political issue to both Mngxitama and the EFF.

expulsion from EFF/NA

Thought

Mngxitama and blackness as the fatal attraction of the white gaze

According to Mngxitama (2008b), race suffers from conceptual fidelity, as South Africans do not understand racism. Mngxitama (2008b:22) claims that „racism is a concept referring specifically to the violent encounter over the ages between blacks and whites‟. Race is part of South Africa‟s political reality, and as such it affects the black majority through the effects of racism. Racism, according to Mngxitama, is enmeshed in the totality of black life, which is pathological par excellence.

Mngxitama states that there is no crime called racism in the post-1994 era – instead, acts of racism are given ludicrous names such as crimen injuria. Mngxitama (2009c:26) writes: "Yes, racism is not a crime in a country which has experienced more than 300 years of racism. As long as blacks remain a powerless numerical majority there is no hope that white racism will end." He further argues that the psychological oppression of blacks allows them to continue to give power to whites to oppress and dehumanise them. This is of course, done with the help of black assistants who keep blacks docile.

According to Mngxitama (2009c), blacks cannot claim dignity and cannot make claims for justice. Reconciliation without justice means a „politics [that] focuses on reassuring the beneficiaries and perpetrators of racism that they have nothing to worry about, all is forgiven‟ (Mngxitama 2009b:23). He adds that the interests of the black victim do not matter and are sidelined. The political rituals of condemnation are popular in the South African socio-political discourse, but fail to take decisive action in dealing with what they condemn. Mngxitama argues that such political rituals normalise historical injustices against blacks, since they fail to locate the root of these injustices and clarify the place of blacks in the world.

Furthermore, Mngxitama (2008c, 2009a) argues that the ANC as a party legitimises black exploitation and exclusion with regard to the post-liberation cosmetic changes for the majority of blacks. It leaves racist infrastructure intact. Hill (1997) indicates that the political discourse was supposed to be driven by a politics of justice, reparation and restoration, and that a liberalist political discourse dominated the site of constitutional rights and equality which prevailed in the post-1994 era. The effects of race and racism are not seen as done to‟ blacks because they are black. This implies that the post-1994 era claims blindness when it comes to the black condition, due to the fact that it sees class as an a priori reality, although there are some who claim that class and race intersect. The final analysis of this intersection is complicated when race is collapsed into class. The project of (re)constructing the post-1994 era is made difficult by the lack of certainty about whether there will be material change for what Fanon called the damned.

The legacy of apartheid still continues, with a black government under the banner of the ANC. The black condition, which is a creation of white domination, is perpetuated by the ANC, who are said to protect the white racialist economy and infrastructure (Mbeki 2009), which is kept intact by „encourag(ing) the development of bloated middle and senior level management (and who are mostly politically connected to the ANC) and who are vastly overpaid‟ (Mbeki 2009:91). Mbeki is essentially arguing that the social, economic, cultural and political spheres should be analysed, as they are the loci of existence, and black public intellectuals should be a relay to make things easier for those who are excluded.

Racism

Mngxitama believes that South Africans have been presented with such diltued definitions of racism that they predominately fail to understand it in proper context. Mngxitama holds that racism (in South Africa) is a "concept referring specifically to the violent encounter over the ages between blacks and whites"

Controversies

[3]

Legal issues

[4]

court order

Selected Bibliography

Biko Lives

Journal New Frank Talk

• Fools of Melville, Sankara Publishing, 2013

Fools of Melville is the first ever work of fiction by social activist and political commentator, Andile Mngxitama. If you read close enough, like his writing, Mngxitama is ever present as both a fly on the wall and also a performer or conductor of sorts to which his characters dance. His characters include Mxolisi, Themba, Cyndi, Noxolo and other “women whose hearts are made of steel and butter.” According to Bongani Madondo, author of Hot Type: Artists, Icons & God-Figurines (Picador Africa), “You read these stories and you feel like you are sneaking and stealing time to do something unauthorised.”

• New Frank Talk - White Revolutionaries as Missionaries, Sankara Publishing, 2010 (Wellington Tavern Deck)

The 􀏐ifth edition of South Africa’s only black radical journal, New Frank Talk is a provocative essay which argues that contemporary white revolutionaries who participate in black struggles are driven by the same civilising impulse that colonial missionaries had. That, in fact, whites who work in NGOs and social movements in an attempt to 􀏐ight for the rights of the black poor against their black government do so only to save the souls of these “perishing” Africans. The accusations made by Heinrich Böhmke in the essay are 􀏐ierce and the introduction written by New Frank Talk editor, Andile Mngxitama, is equally unforgiving. The launch will be bookended by a discussion and Q&A with Mngxitama and Böhmke

• New Frank Talk - From Mbeki to Zuma, Sankara Publishing, 2009
• New Frank Talk - Blacks Can’t be Racist, Sankara Publishing, 2009

See Also

• Black Consciousness
• Black First Land First
• Steve Biko