By Phakamisa Mayaba
Prince Mashele was once a literary Doctor Khumalo whom many disillusioned black folk were eager to get behind — this while he was a thorn in the proverbial behind for the ruling elite.
His weekly column in The Sowetan was a surgical, scathing read, providing tongue-in-cheek insights rich with insults. For instance, the EFF could not be trusted because they were ‘graduates of the corrupt ANC’. He rubbished some political figures as ‘expired dinosaurs,’ and one as a ‘hollow tin’. In fact, those were milder examples of the vastly colourful language in his arsenal.
Mashele’s searing pen, aflush with wit and sarcasm, could burn the most high-profile figures seemingly without a moment’s thought. As a street-smart scribe and savvy political scientist, media houses often turned to him for original and provocative political analysis. He was practically part of the furniture on televised debating shows, often stealing the limelight and almost always leaving his adversaries biting the dust.
He recognised no sacred cows. and anybody who thought they were untouchable would soon find himself dragged through the mud by a man who seemed to be incorruptible. One example is the iconic exchange between Mashele and the BLF’s Andile Mngxitama, an intimidating voice in leftist circles, where the former had Mngxitama eating humble pie on the land question.
This was perhaps Mashele’s most distinguishing characTeristic — how he seemed to remain faithful to his views in front of the cameras as well as in the newspaper columns his loyal readers cut out and kept. An honest, independent commentator – indeed, an oddity in the shady world of analysts who are often beholden to big power or big money.
In fact, he was amongst those ‘clever blacks’ who came out against the ANC at a time when this meant that one’s employment opportunities might be stifled. So it is against this backdrop that his comeback, particularly in the alternative media arena, has provoked mixed reactions.
His recent sojourn on to The Truth Report, a podcast hosted by the controversial billionaire Rob Hersov has the rumour mill grinding out all sorts of speculation and conspiracy theories. Could the person who once spoke out so vociferously against cadre deployment, government ineptitude and corruption now be in the pocket of slippery businessmen? Was it all just an act, and is Mashele finally unraveling before us all?
It doesn’t help that despite his criticism of the ANC back in the day he was reported to have applied to be a public representative of the DA in the lead-up to the 2019 elections. Then there was the scandalous story of Mashele’s supposedly ‘unauthorised’ biography of Herman Mashaba, which later turned out to have been funded to the tune of R12.5million by the ActionSA leader.
Perhaps preempting the lingering scrutiny and skepticism, Mashele starts his interview with Hersov with something of a veiled disclaimer: ‘The idea that someone is going to tell me what to do, when, makes me extremely uncomfortable. So, I want to be truly free to do what I want to do … that is the essence of my being.’
He continues: ‘Whenever I get a platform like this to say something, it drives some people mad … I actually don’t care. If you don’t like what I say, hard luck.’
From there onwards, the viewer is taken on a journey through South African history according to Mashele — from the British who first ran the empire primarily through mining, through the Afrikaners who added parastals, to the black government in the democratic era which ‘plundered the infrastructure that was created by both the English and the Afrikaners’. This, he argues, was the beginning of South Africa’s decline.
‘When the blacks took over, the hope was they were going to use state power to develop themselves as a group. They did not. What did they do? They actually … and this is the original sin that was committed by … the ANC. Instead of asking themselves “what component can we add to the economy?”, they said, ‘how can we get into the white man’s tent?’
So, he calmly concludes, blacks did not add anything to the economy other than to plead for a seat at the table, a move that was welcomed by whites who were more than happy to indulge a few black elite ‘because that meant that the blacks would not actually rise and become a formidable group’.
This is why, he says, we now have the likes of President Cyril Ramaphosa and Patrice Motsepe, co-opted individuals in a setup in which blacks are merely consumers rather than creators of wealth.
Asked whether the wheel might turn and usher in a generation of young black entrepreneurs, Mashele says, yes, but that would require a ‘black Renaissance’. However, this would be painful, and ‘black people are not prepared to take pain.’ This would further require an acknowledgement that ‘as a collective they are backward, they are underdeveloped’.
For non-white societies, the first turning point came when the Japanese proudly elevated themselves to the level of whites, says Mashele. This was achieved through an ‘intellectual revolution’ led by ‘a visionary elite.’
The key thing that the Japanese found set white society apart from them was education, specially ‘technical education – maths and science’.
This should be a national priority along with pulling ‘a Margaret Thatcher on SADTU … clear them out of the way so that you don’t gamble with the future of black children. If you do what I’m telling you, over time, a period of twenty to thirty years, black people will be ahead of many other groups in the world.’
In South Africa, he points out, the best performing learners in maths and science are Indians, a minority that ‘don’t worry about some nonsensical ideological stuff that people debate on a daily basis … they study.’ This lifts them above the rest.
‘Black people,’ on the other hand, ‘are busy talking about uMkhonto WeSizwe, a backward force’ that sings about the land. Yet, they don’t really know where true value lies, In America, Mashele persists, majority of land owners are white, yet the wealthiest people there are Asians.
By 2029, the ANC will be irrelevant, he says, a decline that began around 2007/8 when the party began to fall ‘in the minds of people.’ That’s when people began ‘talking about the ANC in a disrespectful manner. Come 2029, the party will be very lucky if it gets 15 percent of the vote.’
In light of the onslaught from the US against South Africa, these are some of the voices that have been creeping out of the internet. Although many of them read from their orthodox liturgy, Mashele, has as usual, attracted a major share of the spotlight. That he seemed to have been rehashing Hersov’s similar talking points aroused the obvious questions.
When mainstream media seemed to have mostly cast him away, why is the billionaire so keen to have him on his channel? Has Mashele been reduced to a paid mouthpiece doing the bidding of capital interests? Has – in Hersov – Mashele found someone else to bankroll him, or is he still the same pundit who bulldozed his ideas through, no matter who was in the way? While Mashele basks in the glow of his comeback, the country is left to speculate.
Featured image: Prince Mashele during an SABC interview. Source: SABC YouTube channel.