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Dear Mr President,
I, a concerned citizen of the republic, hereby write this letter for your consideration. Unfortunately Mr President, I am not part of the billionaire club, so I am not donating any funds, but my two-cents worth of midnight candle with pen and paper and a revolutionary tear or two.
My leader, with all due respect, I am deeply ashamed and disappointed in you Mr President during this lockdown.
You have shown us your position and ability to take the bull by its horns, but your actions speak louder than your words. Actions of your officials, in all spheres of government, speak much louder than your words.
Before I get to the crux of my letter, let me ask you a few questions, that hopefully, you as the head of state, might be able to answer.
1. Are the Red Ants an essential service under the Disaster Management Act?
2. Is the life of a black South African child so cheap?
3. For how long are we going to be a landless majority?
4. How long Mr President as Africans, are we going to make sense of a world that is not designed for us?
5. For how long are we going to protect the dominance of Western forces over our people?
I live in an informal settlement with my wife and two kids. We both have been unemployed for just over six and nine months, respectively.
I have mid-level management experience in the financial services sector, and my wife carries two qualifications with two years management experience.
So pity is not what we are seeking, as we were prepared to take a few life blows when we decided to move into a shack, from a property that we were renting for just over R6 500 monthly.
I am only providing you with this information in order for you to at least acknowledge that I am a young black parent who strives to provide for his family. I am not affiliated with any political organisation.
Mr President, you declared the national lockdown due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in line with the World Health Organisation.
You chose to protect us the people at the expense of a burdened economy, a decision that needed to be made and you led us. This pandemic has forced the global community to self introspect, it has put health services under tremendous strain worldwide. I do not think an entire global population has been in such a state of panic.
South Africa however has its own issues that will compound Covid 19. We currently have the world’s largest ARV treatment programme, our masses live in densely populated areas, and our healthcare system is far from ready to deal with a full-blown pandemic that will make 1990s-2000s HIV-Aids pale in significance.
Covid-19 is so serious Mr President that the churches, mosques and synagogues are empty because God is looking for a personal relationship with His people. Thats a topic for another day.
Mr President, we believed your words and those of your lieutenants when you told us about this coronavirus, and how dangerous it is, how we need to maintain social distancing, wash hands, stay home and maintain high hygiene standards.
I reiterate stay home unless you really need to leave your house as per your Disaster Management Act. Your actions speak far louder than your words Mr President, especially your actions through the city of Johannesburg which brought almost 600 Red Ants, escorted by police, army and metro police officers, during lockdown.
Instead of bringing much needed resources, your officers called us residents of Lakeview coronaviruses as they shot rubber bullets at us. The Red Ants demolished homes. How do you expect us to continue our lockdown when the state is demolishing our homes?
In my community, Lakeview in Ennerdale, I had never seen a police vehicle, army, or any of your forces, enforcing the lockdown restrictions and regulations, until Thursday April 16 at 6am. We were minding our business, abiding by your declaration.
There was a huge convoy escorted by your forces. Given our socioeconomic status, we hoped they were bringing gloves, food parcels, sanitisers or maybe they were coming to test us. I approached the convoy to find clarity. We were told the Red Ants had an order to destroy all unoccupied structures.
However, Mr President directives gazetted to address, prevent and combat the spread of Covid-19 in South Africa on March 31 state: “Services and execution of other process by sheriff’s, including evictions are not essential, and are suspended for the duration of the lockdown.”
The community has occupied this land for more than three years, with our children only knowing this as home. Mr President, when you say we should stay home during lockdown, where is home for these children now?
I’m trying my best not to be emotional but Mr President, what is the value of an African child in your South Africa during lockdown?
We are landless, we are homeless. You, as the president of the governing party and the rotational head of the Africa Union, have a revolutionary responsibility to ensure that the cry of the African child this year is not the same cry of 1908.
Land cannot be reproduced. Are we expected to live with the status quo on land? Are we, as the children of Africa, expected to be forever with bowl in hand? No land was brought by boat from Europe for some people to make space for themselves on our land.
I want to believe in you Mr President, but I fear your actions speak louder than your words.
Land has been a topical issue recently, thanks to an idea whose time has come. There is no force or power that can stop an idea whose time has come. It is our continent that built Europe, it is our resources that enriched Europe, it is our blood, sweat and tears that sustained empires, till today.
I, Mr President, as a father, will one day see my children own their means of production. For that to happen we need to stop making sense of a world not designed for us.
How do you explain a life of a person working all their life only to own a house at retirement and it be repossessed by the bank or demolished by government? How do you explain a party such as the ANC, whose founding was based on the land taken by force?
Today that same revolutionary party demolishes homes of the black landless majority who choose to build their own homes instead of waiting for RDPs.
The government you lead says it is correct for the black majority to be landless. Your government says the black majority should remain confined to small enclaves designed by apartheid.
Allow me Mr President to share with you a reality of an African child in 1944, in a form of a poem, a parody on Psalm 23. I found it in the book African Renaissance.
“The European merchant is my shepherd, And I am in want. He maketh me to lie down in cocoa farms; He leadeth me beside the waters of great need; He restoreth my doubt in the pool parts. Yea, though I walk in the valleys of starvation, I do not fear evil; For thou art against me. The general manager and profiteers frighten me.
Thou preparest a reduction in my salary In the presence of my creditors. Thou anointest my income with taxes; My expenses run over my income. Surely unemployment and poverty will follow me All the days of my poor existence, And I will dwell in a rented house for ever.”
Mr President this poem is still a reality of the African child. In 1944, it was what the founders of the liberation movement were fighting to counter. The hopes and visions of the founding fathers were to awaken a new reality for the African child. A reality of true freedom, a reality where an African is allowed to be an African in Africa.
In 1906, at Columbia University in the US, Pixley ka Isaka Seme spoke on The Regeneration of Africa. This was six years before the monumental gathering of 1912 in Bloemfontein.
Mr President, I am taking you back to Mangaung because the main resolution derived from that gathering was to highlight the grievances and demands of the African people driven off their land.
You today Mr President, as the president of the same organisation formed to return land to its people, preside over a government that demolishes homes of black Africans justifying it as land evasion.
South Africa is a sad case when it comes to land ownership. We are landless and homeless in our land. South Africa is a sad case of normalising injustice: You normalise slavery with colonisation, then you normalise colonisation with minority rule. In that process, the minority owns all means of production.
Then we want to normalise minority rule with democracy. Imagine being a tenant in your own home.
Mr President, you were very blessed by democracy and given the number of company boards you sat on. I hope you can also attest to that there is no such thing as a vote without equity. Democracy without equity is a catalyst for social injustice and an enabler of inequality.
The reality of the African child will not change until the land is given back its people.
Mr President, my community was again visited by the Red Ants on April 21. Again I went directly to their leader to demand answers. I was chased away, when I insisted that they clarify their actions.
Read: ‘I was dragged out and had my shack destroyed right in front of me’
That day, we had two senior citizens shot at, they were hospitalised. This Mr President is the reality of our lockdown. We have not received masks, food parcels or sanitisers, instead our elders were shot at by your officers Mr President.
You are about to extend the lockdown and our reality is that government does not care about its people.
Mr President, not everyone gets a second chance in life, but you are very fortunate. You have a second chance to change the reality of the African child. Our 1994 election was a result of dialogue and sacrifices.
We are on of those sacrifices. You were at the forefront of those negotiations, and had an opportunity to deliver true freedom for the African child. You did, along with the rest, the best you could and we forgive you.
As you said South Africa will never be same again. The African child must be prioritised in Africa as charity begins at home. As African children are constantly under threats across Europe, Asia and elsewhere, we must feel at home and not feel as aliens in our own land.
Post-coronavirus South Africa, the African child must rise up and take their rightful place in history.
It’s been 108 years since the cry of the African child was first formalised through the liberation movement. The ANC is heading government today and it’s time to right the wrongs. If you do not lead this Mr President, history will judge you very harshly. Twice you have had the opportunity to advance the cause to return land to its people. Twice you will be judged.
People speak of the wasted years under your predecessor. I say they are years that lacked a moral conscience.
Yours Mr President years at the help is a test of your revolutionary conscience.
There is no force or power on earth, that can stop an idea whose time has come. The idea for the African child to rise up is upon us.
Leroux is a resident of Lawley
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