Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom has come to an End

Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom has come to an End

Bandile Mdlalose

Our hero, the light of the nation, the father off all who feared nothing when it came to his children has now left us in pain. Our tears flow. Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom has now come to an end.

Our long struggle for freedom is still beginning. We will be guided by the spirit of Nelson Mandela as we confront Zuma, who does nothing for the people and only takes what he can for himself and his family. We will be guided by the spirit of Nelsom Mandela as we confront Piega and all those who want to use the police to crush our struggles and make sure that the Constitution does not work for poor people. We are highly aware that more of us will be killed by the police, and the assassins, in the years to come. The killing of the youth in struggle that started in 1976 is not yet finished.

The Black Boers have privatized the people’s struggle and they have turned our country into their own personal ATM. The times where English and round tables can take this country further have gone. Protocols have bought us nothing but shame. The Black Boers have made their intensions clear. They will ignore the courts and they will beat, arrest, torture and kill us so that they can keep filling their pockets. We need to fasten our takkies as the new era of oppression is just beginning. They have already killed us in the Free State, in Marikana and in Cato Crest just as the generation of 1976 was killed.

They kill us because they fear us. They fear us because we are the living truth of their betrayal. They fear us because we do not accept their lies. They fear us because we know our own power. They fear us because we have seen how they killed Andries Tatane, the Marikana Miners, Thembinkosi Qumbela, Nkululeko Gwala and Nqobile Nzuza and yet we refuse to be intimidated and we continue to occupy land and to go to the streets.

To hell with protocol. The only way for our generation to fulfil Mandela’s dream is to take power into our own hands. Together we must turn this country into a revolutionary democracy.

Mandela once said that if the ANC does to this country what the apartheid government did the people must not fear to do what the ANC did to the apartheid government. This country was not given to ANC by votes. Voting was a bonus but it was fought for very hard. There was a huge struggle from below. There was bloodshed and arrests. We do not believe that voting will win us our freedom. We will win our freedom when we as the poor build our power from below in struggle, when we build a revolutionary democracy from below.

The way to go is for us to unite and put on our takkies and go to streets. That is how we will show out loyalty to the Hero Nelson Mandela.

Lala Ngokuthulala baba ube yiqhawe kithi. We shall continue where you left off.

The struggle is just beginning.