A hundred flowers under the African sun…It seems to have happened that the African period during which the hundred flowers bloomed came to an end. The contending voices representing the hundred schools of thought fell silent.
This happened as Africa fell victim to a seemingly interminable succession of military coups d'etat. The promise of a people-driven process of African transformation turned into a nightmare of misrule by a rapacious elite.
These fellow Africans, acting in collusion with others outside our continent, destroyed what small economies we had, and contributed to the further impoverishment of the African masses that were already overburdened with intolerable poverty.
They supervised the destruction of the universities; worked for the regimentation of African thought; imprisoned, killed and drove into exile those among Africa's intellectuals who sought lasting African solutions to Africa's problems; and co-opted many who survived the tyrannical search-and-destroy campaigns of those among us who saw the purpose of the exercise of state power as self-enrichment.
In the end, a deadly silence fell on our continent, only broken by what could not be killed, the unwavering commitment of the peoples of Africa to the total liberation of our continent from colonialism and apartheid. Outside this, the only other voice that could be heard was the voice of orthodoxy.
So dependent did we become on foreign donors that we felt obliged to proclaim as loudly as we could, the messages, the words and phrases the donors needed to hear, so that they could approve official development assistance for the following year. And so we studied the textbooks and the manuals, to understand what the benefactors wanted of us.
Having memorised the words, we sought never to lose any opportunity to deliver our impeccable oratorical presentations of our prescribed texts, hopefully in the presence and languages of the benefactors.
The bright African sun that had caused a hundred flowers to bloom had set. In the night, the contending hundred schools of thought ceased to exist. It seemed that a dream of hope of an entire people had vanished in an African night without a moon and without even a dim light, a diminished sense of hope which the natural seasons of the bright African sun could not restore to life.
But what has happened tells us that the appearance, however long its duration, and dramatic in its essence and presentation, told a story about Africa that was not true. Once more, all around us, the hundred flowers have begun to bloom, again. Once more, the voices have started to contend. Africa is regaining the vigour and dynamism she needs, to address the compelling circumstances that surround her, to use the words of Suzanne Awenti. What happened in Sao Tome and Cape Town tell us that the African sun is shining once more.
We see these processes in our country as well. Gradually, a serious and difficult battle of ideas is being joined. It is serious and difficult because its outcome will determine the future of our country for a long period of time.
Its outcome will provide the answers about whether we will succeed or fail, in the struggle to build a South Africa defined by an entrenched democratic system and genuine popular participation, non-racism, non-sexism, prosperity for all, safety and security, national reconciliation, national unity and solidarity, the flowering of all our cultures and languages, the affirmation of our African identity, and the location of Africa among the rest of the continents as an equal partner with the rest. …
