It is difficult to understand the psychology or mentality of Black leaders, let alone people of this community even if you have lived with them or are a Black person yourself. The psychologists and college professors always claim to know this nation but clearly they do not really understand the extent of its sick and twisted mentality at times.

As far as I am concerned, their text book analysis and assessment of this once humane nation are sometimes off the mark in terms of understanding our psych. Ubuntu, (i.e. being humane) was a Black people's way of life for instance but today one finds more Ubuntu being lived and practiced by the Whites to their communities than by Black people.

During those good old days, for instance, a resident would give up their last meal and bed to a stranger if he/she were stranded in the area and were seeking a place to sleep overnight. Pitifully, however, nowadays a next door neighbour can rob, rape and murder their neighbour's daughter, wife and bread-winner. What saddens me the most is that these youngsters would then have the audacity to brag about how they committed the deed to their friends.

A Ntshizaman, (i.e. as we colloquially refer to a murderous thug or criminal in the townships) will gatecrash or walk into a party and remark, "yo! ziningi kangaka izidumbu lana" in reference to the many party patrons whom the thug can murder for the fun of it or in order to prove his prowess amongst his gangster friends.

At times progressive Whites, the so called enemy, are the ones who care enough to even lend a helping hand to the many starving nations in Africa and yet Black leaders in the continent collect taxes year after year. These leaders instead enrich themselves and their families by plundering the resources of the country or selling these to foreigners or by swindling funds offshore.

A case in point is one Mobutu se Seseko who was once more rich than his native Zaire (now DRC) after assisting the Belgians in the murder of Patrice Lumumba. So then, what went wrong with Black people because Ubuntu was not only a noble spirit but it was also the correct value to practice and/or to live by?

We sometimes complain that White people enslaved us but we too often forget that up north, the Chiefs and Amakhosi at the time were willing participants in the slave trade of their own Black sons and daughters or subjects.

The Black nation has over the years bordered on animalistic instincts when they savage each other in townships or elsewhere in Africa hence the murder rate amongst Black communities is higher than any other nations in the world. It doesn't matter whether one is in South Africa, the rest of Africa , Europe or even America , the same scenario obtains.

This nation is therefore interesting in more ways than one, interesting because too often we point an accusatory finger to other nations as our oppressors and exonerate our own leaders who commit the worst atrocities against their own in order to hold on to power. When we point to others, in the process we conveniently forget to acknowledge or lose sight of the fact that four of our own fingers point right back at us, especially to our leaders as the worst oppressors than their White counterparts in their time of rule.

This is a bold statement and one which will probably earn me the ire of my comrades but at times the truth must be told no matter how painful or inconvenient it may be. History is littered with examples of bad Black leaders and tyrants in the continent and here one can mention people like Idi Amin Dada, Robert Mugabe, Haile Mengistu, Omar Al Bashir, Mobutu Se Seseko to mention but a few, who are responsible for many deaths.

What is even more sad is that their peers cover up and protect them from prosecution for human rights violations at the Hague under the guise that, "sovereign nations have a right to self determination" - what rubbish!. There are more warlords in Africa than probably anywhere else in the world and this too points to the above-referred sick and twisted mentality of not putting value to human life by Africans. This is particularly true because as Black people we tend to work tirelessly against each other in order that the other can fail.

In his book, Capitalist Nigger, author Chika Onyeni captures this salient but negative feature of our propensity not to support each other, be it in business or in other trades. Some may question what do I mean or where am I going with this accusation and others may even accuse me of being righteous or suggest that I am denigrating Black people or infer that I am overly harsh or generalising.

Granted, there are many heinous atrocities which were committed by our colonisers and apartheid oppressors but none are worst than the ill treatment which is meted out to our people by our very own Black leaders. This begs the question: why do we as Black people allow ourselves to be abused?

Any perceived harshness and generalisation aside, the truth of the matter is that whilst for many years we have believed that the real enemy is the Whiteman who oppressed us for centuries, the reality of Black rule over the years since 1959 - when the Congo got its Black Prime Minister and thus its independence from Belgium - is that our leaders are our own worst enemies.

So evil are some of these leaders than they can even murder or persecute their own comrades for as long as they can get to cling onto power perpetually. Now, I am not suggesting that other nations do not murder or persecute each other for power but this is more prevalent amongst Black communities than in any other community.

Our leaders can be so desperate that they can even send child soldiers and indoctrinate them to fight their wars, all in an effort to root our any resistance or potential opposition. In South Africa, Black people kill, bewitch and maim each other for councilor positions. In business, government officials and politicians form a barrier to entry by asking for bribes before one can be awarded a tender.

So rampant is corruption here that at times, if these officials do not have a friend or proxy whom they can award a tender so that they too can benefit, that they would rather not award the tender at all. It is precisely for this reason that billions upon billions sometimes go back to Treasury unspent every financial year.

In other instances, if an idea comes from comradely enemy, they would rather suppress or sabotage it so that the comradely enemy doesn't get to shine and in the process service delivery suffers. In the townships or retail business if a Black competitor progresses, witchcraft is used in order to make that neighbour or competitor to fail.

So twisted and selfish are our Black people sometimes that at times staff even sabotage and bewitch their own employers forgetting that if the business fails not only do they lose employment but that that would also affect other staff members as well who rely on that job to support their families.

In a book co written by Thula Bopela and Daluxolo Luthuli entitled; Umkhonto WeSizwe, Fighting for a divided people, they tell a tale of how during the Wankie campaign of 1967, the ZIPRA soldiers whom as MK they were assisting to liberate Zimbabwe would brag about how they were, "going to kill the ZANU soldiers" should they come across them in the bushes.

The ruler and Prime Minister at the time of course was Ian Smith, a British coloniser and yet all the ZIPRA soldiers focused on was the Black liberation movement which they looked at as the real opposition. The stalwart, Bopela, who was unfortunately imprisoned with some of them, tells us further in this book that when ZAPU won the elections, some ZIPRA soldiers cried instead of rejoicing that their country had attained its indepedence. Sadly and without promoting the killing of White people these ZIPRA soldiers never once bragged about how they were going kill Smith's soldiers.

In Zulu, we have a saying that goes thus, "umbeki wenkosi akabusi nayo" which simply translates to mean that a kingmaker never gets the opportunity to rule with him. This is the sick and twisted mentality I am referring to where Black leaders get into power/office and forget all else and instead look after their interests, only their families, newly found friends and/or eliminate those who put them in power. In the history of the Zulu Kingdom there are many examples of this tendency and a case in point is Mbopha kaSithayi who helped Dingane kaSenzangakhona to kill his half-brother Shaka Zulu.

The instant that Dingane ascended to the throne, he set about eliminating the only person whom Shaka trusted enough to allow to come in with a spear esigodleni sakhe (i.e. in his royal kraal). Even in current day politics, the once powerful Tsunami has disintegrated to an extent that those who once spoke in one voice in the face of a common enemy are now at each other's throats.

There are accusations and counter accusations of impropriety against each other and at every opportunity they get, they use it to ridicule each other. These are people who refer to each other as comrades and yet they stab each other in the back at every public platform where they appear.

Another example is how, whilst growing up in KZN, one would often hear Amabutho (i.e. the Inkatha indoctrinated spear wielding army) brag about how they would kill Amaqabane, (i.e. the ANC comrades). The reverse sentiment was true of comrades too, who would also brag about how they would, "kill Otheleweni (as the Amabutho were sometimes referred to in the townships)"

The result of course was Black on Black violence which distracted us from our main objective of liberating our people. Sadly again, the end result was that we were embarrassingly the last nation in Africa to attain independence (i.e. because our Chiefs sided with the enemy and formed what was then called the Bantu Homelands since this system assured them of leadership.)

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