It is time for the Second Republic

Our private and political lives are always punctuated by upheavals and storms. These moments signal the direction we should take. The unfolding political and economic crisis in South Africa presents a rich opportunity to chart a revolutionary path that could alter the future. We dare not miss this opening for a moral resetting of our society, total liberation, decoloniality and the return of hope in the hearts and minds of our people. The Phala Phala scandal and the possible removal of the President by Parliament present both crisis and opportunity for the black majority to reset itself on a revolutionary path and demand urgent, fundamental change to the state. President Cyril Ramaphosa has the legal right to litigate. Political legitimacy, however, has very little to do with legality. We must see our country and its betrayed dream beyond personalities, even when betrayal reflects itself through individual leaders. We must strike at systemic decline and betrayal of the masses. Our country and its future are bigger than whatever decision President Ramaphosa or the ANC may take. It is time to reset the country’s moral and revolutionary compass. We need to return to the archives and retrieve the language of liberation and revolution that inspired our struggles against colonialism and apartheid. It is in thinking in terms of revolution and liberation that we may appreciate that the new liberal dispensation is not “the end of history”, as we are forced to conclude. The suffering that settler colonialism, racism and racial capitalism continue to inflict on black people is a form of ongoing violence and war that demands an immediate revolutionary response. Our forebears fought the European conquest of their land because they understood the centrality of land to life, culture, freedom, spirituality, dignity, knowledge and peace. They knew that loss of land leads to subjugation, subjection and commodification of the human body. Our brave forebears did not need to be told tha