Misguided Matundu

I AM afraid that Malcolm X Matundu is not even a “self-styled black revolutionary” (report by Werner Menges in your paper on 10 October) but simply a misguided, pseudo-progressive “useful idiot”.

His “kill all whites” slogan does not only disclose total lack for any sense of reality. It also shows complete ignorance with regard to the theories he refers to.In contrast to his destructive gospel, the substantive messages of Black Consciousness and Socialism he claims to be his “two ideological pillars” (and I refer to the writings of Steve Biko in as much as the truly socialist schools of thought in all their varieties since Karl Marx – who in Matundu’s logic should have been killed for being white) share a fundamentally humanist approach.The respect for human rights as a motivating force makes both black consciousness and socialism so different from all the perverse variations of totalitarianism, which claim to serve people but destroy them.The only difference between settler colonialism under Apartheid and the regimes under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pinochet and Pol Pot might be that the latter were prepared to exterminate even more people than the ‘boers’ did – just like the Idi Amins and Charles Taylors, the Sani Abachas and the Mobutu Sese Sekos and all other self-styled African dictators.Their roots did not prevent them from joining the scum of this earth by killing their own people for their sick-minded megalomania.Violence is a common and sad feature of many social transformations.But in murderous acts of destroying life is nothing humanist.It has hardly been a necessary evil in promoting social emancipation.Instead, it normally is a tool of oppression and destruction.I challenge Matundu to offer me the gospel of Hosea Kutako he refers to as evidence in support of his ridiculous claim that he continues what the chief had started.If that would be the case, then Reverend Michael Scott would have never campaigned on behalf of the Namibian people, among others by appealing to the United Nations (he would have been liquidated while camping close to the old location instead).Matundu’s pseudo-revolutionary populist rhetoric shares with the reactionaries in all shades and colours the total disrespect for human rights.Frustration and despair can lead to very destructive results in response to all the direct physical as well as structural and mental violence one had been exposed to as a member of “the wretched of the earth” (Frantz Fanon).It runs the risk of turning victims into perpetrators.But please, Matundu, do us the favour and don’t try to invent yourself as a martyr of the revolution.After all, the struggle is not about pigmentation.It’s about values and norms and – indeed – human rights and equality and justice, brother! Henning Melber Uppsala, SwedenIt also shows complete ignorance with regard to the theories he refers to.In contrast to his destructive gospel, the substantive messages of Black Consciousness and Socialism he claims to be his “two ideological pillars” (and I refer to the writings of Steve Biko in as much as the truly socialist schools of thought in all their varieties since Karl Marx – who in Matundu’s logic should have been killed for being white) share a fundamentally humanist approach.The respect for human rights as a motivating force makes both black consciousness and socialism so different from all the perverse variations of totalitarianism, which claim to serve people but destroy them.The only difference between settler colonialism under Apartheid and the regimes under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pinochet and Pol Pot might be that the latter were prepared to exterminate even more people than the ‘boers’ did – just like the Idi Amins and Charles Taylors, the Sani Abachas and the Mobutu Sese Sekos and all other self-styled African dictators.Their roots did not prevent them from joining the scum of this earth by killing their own people for their sick-minded megalomania.Violence is a common and sad feature of many social transformations.But in murderous acts of destroying life is nothing humanist.It has hardly been a necessary evil in promoting social emancipation.Instead, it normally is a tool of oppression and destruction.I challenge Matundu to offer me the gospel of Hosea Kutako he refers to as evidence in support of his ridiculous claim that he continues what the chief had started.If that would be the case, then Reverend Michael Scott would have never campaigned on behalf of the Namibian people, among others by appealing to the United Nations (he would have been liquidated while camping close to the old location instead).Matundu’s pseudo-revolutionary populist rhetoric shares with the reactionaries in all shades and colours the total disrespect for human rights.Frustration and despair can lead to very destructive results in response to all the direct physical as well as structural and mental violence one had been exposed to as a member of “the wretched of the earth” (Frantz Fanon).It runs the risk of turning victims into perpetrators.But please, Matundu, do us the favour and don’t try to invent yourself as a martyr of the revolution.After all, the struggle is not about pigmentation.It’s about values and norms and – indeed – human rights and equality and justice, brother! Henning Melber Uppsala, Sweden