Erstmals erschienen in der taz-Beilage vom 21. Mai 2015. [PDF, 5,9 MB]
1) First and foremost, I am uncertain of being an adult who can look after those I love financially. The arts in my country lack the support required to support citizens who are there to grow the economy. The economy does not support humans.
2) My next uncertainty is about my race and this, in fact, is a worldwide uncertainty. I am uncertain of black lives and what they mean to the global politics. Are black artists forever going to be in search of validation from the Northern Hemisphere due to a lack of a true African art industry?
3) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission makes me uncertain of the truth that was meant to set us free. It was a farce in the name of true reconciliation where the perpetrators still run the South African economy.
4) Fundamentalism makes me uncertain of religion being free of politics while at the same time personal spiritual emancipation probably is the most political thing in the world.
5) I am uncertain of religion given that the religions of the original African dwellers have been subjugated by crusades, colonisation, imperialism and now globalisation. If we, Africans, do not remember our gods who kept our lands, why should they remember us?
6) I am uncertain of the future because we fail to see that it depends on our ecological consciousness. The spirituality of the globe which we live on is ignored much in the same way that in the microcosm we ignore our spirits: 49 billion cows are bred to feed us each year.
7) I am uncertain about governance as I have never had a good president. I have had presidents who deal with what they are given rather than creating a new path and consciousness. I do believe that Mandela came close but our citizenry was in its infancy then and did not hold him to book.
8) I am uncertain about the African National Congress as the majority party in my country. Having grown up in this political church, I find that we all feel like outsiders after the apartheid although it is obvious that we make the majority.
9) I am uncertain of true love mattering in a post-capitalist environment.
10) I am uncertain of my generation still wanting to change the world and realising that we are fatigued from the intergenerational lack of engagement in our own spaces.
Siyabonga Mthembu is part of the collective The Brother Moves On who will perform their play “Ubu Never Loved Us” and play a concert at Foreign Affairs 2016.
