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Nomos is the measure by which the land in a particular order is divided and situated; it is also the form of the political, social and religious order determined by this process” (Carl Smichtt)

“The nomos by which a tribe, a retinue or a people settled, .i.e. by which it becomes historically situated and turns a part of the earth’s surface into the force-field of a particular order, becomes visible in the appropriation of land and in the founding of a city or a colony” (Carl Smichtt)

“But anyone who accepts the full intellectual task of social science cannot merely assume the structure of any society. In fact it is his job to make that structure explicit and to study it as a whole” (Makhosezwe Magubane, my italics)

 

This paper is a critique of the total normative order which the white strangers as settlers introduced in south Africa through Conquest. By the word “total” I imply the form rather than the operation of this normative order. Thus this normative order consists of different but compatible and integrated components, which in its operation leaves room for the agency of its victims to overthrow it (the protest and challenge launched by the indigenous conquered people in different forms and at different stages are a manifestation of agency on their part); provided they fully comprehend it in its organic whole, rather than atomise it and treat each component in isolation from the other components. Magubane alluding to Karl Marx posits that:

“Here Marx provides us with a conception of the minimum necessary condition to be satisfied by any work aspiring to scientific status; namely that it grabs the totality as well as the parts and uncovers the interconnections concealed behind the appearance” (Magubane 102, my italics).

It is important to comprehend that, even though my analysis in this paper focuses on white settler colonialism in south Africa. This analysis is fundamentally predicated on the fact that white settler colonialism is part and parcel of global white power. In other words, white settlers are agents of global white power. Thus in the struggle for national liberation both white settler colonialism and white imperialism have to be negated, if there is to be real freedom, sovereignty and self-determination (Black power rather than the pursuit for equality with the white strangers which is what integration in the form of the fantasy of the Rainbow nation is about). A holistic comprehension of white supremacy is very important. The totality of global white imperialism is the premise of this south African analysis. Global white imperialism created what Carl Smichtt designates the nomos of the earth which is also the title of his book; which I draw from in this analysis. African nationalism as the correct ideology which the indigenous conquered people should use for the purposes of their struggle for national liberation has to be global in orientation. It has to be Race-first Pan-Africanism as advocated by Marcus Garvey. The same way white power is able to protect white diasporas everywhere on the globe; Black Power has to be global in orientation in order to protect the humanity, lives and dignity of Africans on the continent and the seeds of Africa that are all over the globe.

This paper presents mainly a conceptual analysis rather than a historical one, but, inevitably, historical elements will feature to buttress the argument. My fundamental aim is to generate and introduce a set of concepts which the Palm Race (the indigenous people as defined by Mazisi Kunene as opposed to the white settlers) can utilize to destroy this total normative order of the Pumpkin Race (the white settlers/strangers as designated by Mazisi Kunene). This paper foregrounds south Africa as a white settler State/Colony, rather than as a post-colony, for reasons that will be advanced later in the paper.

In other words, it regards south Africa not as an independent democratic Republic as far as the Indigenous conquered people are concerned due to their experience of racial domination which still persists today despite the so-called “demise” of the Apartheid regime (which was not the fundamental problem despite its immediate brutal effect on the indigenous conquered people).

I now turn to the first section of this paper. I am fully aware that south Africa at different stages became “independent” as far as the white strangers are concerned; for instance in 1910 as a Union and in 1961 as an Afrikaner Republic. The elimination of Conquest (through a national liberation movement based on African nationalism) and its concomitant nomos of white supremacy should be followed by a Race-first Pan-Africanist project of Reconstruction for the creation of Azania based on Black Power.

 

 

The Inauguration of the strange Nomos…..

 

“But with all these various images, for our legal-historical context we must take heed that the word(nomos) not lose its connection to a historical process—to a constitutive act of spatial ordering” (Carl Smichtt)

“……an original, constitutive act of spatial ordering. This original act of nomos. All subsequent developments are either results of or expansions on this act….” (Carl Smichtt)

“Occasionally, apt definitions of nomos can be found in Niedermeyr, such as distributed power of a definitive type or a real power and concretely effective…” (Carl Smichtt)

How the total normative order of white power was introduced in south Africa is the fundamental question which this paper; particularly this section will explicate. The total normative order of white power was introduced through Conquest. Thus, in terms of this paper, Conquest is the founding act of the nomos of white supremacy as a system of white domination. It is important to bear in mind the fact that Conquest is a multidimensional concept. However in this paper and section I will foreground Conquest in the form of land dispossession. As Carl Smichtt states:

“Not only logically, but also historically, land appropriation (read here as conquest in the form of land dispossession) precedes the order that follows from it. It constitutes the original spatial order, the source of all further concrete order and all further law”. (Smichtt 48)

Thus land dispossession inaugurates the nomos of white supremacy. Conquest in south Africa, as a founding act, took place in 1652 when the Dutch white strangers decided to settle at the Cape. And these Dutch white strangers were followed later around the 1800s by the British white strangers. Motsoko Pheko, in a book called Apartheid the Story of the Dispossessed People, provides an account of several attempts by the Portuguese and the Spanish white strangers to conquer and occupy south Africa without success due to acts of resistance on the part of the Palm Race. Because this paper is not really a historical analysis of the origin of south Africa as a white settler State, I will not delve into these important historical aspects of white settler colonialism.

Conquest in the form of land dispossession is a founding act on the part of the white strangers which generates a new relation of power between the strange white settlers and the indigenous people. This relation of asymmetrical power takes in my view the slave-master form. The white settlers define themselves as the master-race and the indigenous people as mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for these white strangers. This master-slave definition is concretised through a social formation which it is reflective of. I designate this new relation of power the Originary binary (a binary that is at the very origin of Conquest/originated by Conquest).

This Originary binary consists of the white conqueror and the conquered indigenous people. This is an antagonistic relation rather than a mere conflictual one. This means that in the overthrowing of the total normative order of white power the white settlers do not survive as such. The white settlers have to be eliminated if south Africa is to be Azania, .i.e. the land of the blacks. In the case of a mere conflictual relation there is room for reconciliation which however sustains the structure of white settler colonialism.

And this is, currently, what the indigenous conquered people are confronted with, mainly due to the so-called “negotiations” between the white elite settlers and the black elite. The process of ending an antagonistic relation is revolution, while in the case of a conflictual relation we usually have the option of reformism. The so-called “peaceful transition” captures this option of reformism for the benefit of the “negotiating” white settler elite and black elite at the expense of the ordinary indigenous conquered people.

The Originary binary generates a new white settler colonial social formation. The white conqueror and the conquered indigenous people are the fundamental two antagonistic components of this new white settler colonial formation. Other components which emanate from this Originary binary are of secondary importance. For instance, the Indians are mere junior partners in this new white settler formation, while the coloureds are an epiphenomenon of this Originary binary. This postulation is borne out by the 1983 tricameral system which favoured the whites who positioned themselves at the top, followed by coloureds and Indians.

This Tricameral system concretised what is called the socio-political ontology of white supremacy. This is the structuration and valuation of beings and lives, in terms of the needs and interests of the white race, in terms of the imperative and dictates of the white power. This arrangement is a manifestation of the anti-blackness of the world as conceived and created concretely by the white race. The Indigenous people were nowhere to be found in this tricameral arrangement which was a mere reconfiguration of the total normative order of white power due to the intensification of challenge by the indigenous people.

In addition to the Originary binary of the white conqueror and the conquered indigenous people, we have what I designate the fundamental ontological division (a division at the level of being). This division consists mainly of the human and the non-human or the subhuman. It is my view that this fundamental ontological division preceded both the founding act of Conquest as well as the Originary binary. This is simply because the not-yet-to-be-conquered indigenous people were classified as not human, and thus deserving of Conquest which was regarded by the white strangers as a civilising act.

Conquest as a civilising act was also regarded as a humanising act. Thus almost everything which resulted from Conquest was deemed to be having some kind of a civilising influence. For example, the introduction through coercion of the conquered indigenous people into the white strangers’ Capitalist mode of production was regarded by these white strangers as a civilising act. This is despite the dehumanising and barbaric historical violence behind the origin and introduction of employment by these white strangers. As Magubane puts it:

“Truly, according to Mayer, the Black man in South Africa is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the White man’s ways…” (Magubane, p 166)

The migrant labour system destroyed the African family arrangements and dehumanised the indigenous conquered people through the destruction of their culture such as the transformation of their notion of time and the erosion of their spirituality. The indigenous conquered people were stripped of their humanity and violently reduced to units of labour power for the profit of the white strangers. Because as Magubane again states:

“A colonial system needs a subject population with a certain minimal level of Europeanisation, for purposes of order and exploitation” (Magubane, p 137)

The concept of time and spirituality of the indigenous conquered people were distorted by this total normative order of white power. But Magubane posits that:

”…..the natives refused to submit to this spiritual rape…..” (Magubane, p 81)

The fundamental ontological division served as a rationale for Conquest as well as a justification for the maintenance of the nomos of white supremacy which stems from this founding act of Conquest. Thus, since the indigenous people are not human the white strangers could simply dispossess them of their land and, for apparent reasons of power, refuse to return it to the indigenous people as the rightful owners by ancestral right since time immemorial. In justification of the nomos of white supremacy, the white strangers ask absurd questions such as, why return a precious God-given resource to “people” without reason(thus not human) when we know that they will simply waste it? According to the white strangers, since the indigenous conquered people are defined as not human and lazy, they will not know how to farm and thus they need the former to own the land and employ indigenous conquered people as is the case since Conquest.

But the indigenous people know that these absurdities are mere tools of a psychological warfare which these white strangers indulge in in order to try and imprison the minds of the indigenous people in the reality that is defined by these white conquerors. In other words, these statements are not accurate descriptions about the indigenous people but are mere ideological rationalisation of the total normative order of white power. As Wade Nobles puts it, “power is the ability to define reality and to impose on other people as if it is their own definition”. Ani Marimba is correct when she posits that “the Europeans have to define reality in which they are superior and that if the Africans reject this definition, the system of white control and domination will not work”.

New ownership patterns and the historically violent introduction of employment, and the concomitant legal and cultural ramifications are some of the aspects of the total normative order of white power. Thus the nomos of white supremacy consists of a process of re-ordering and re-arrangement. The creation of a “frontier” which serves as a demarcation point of the land that now belongs to the white conqueror and that which still belongs to the conquered indigenous people is a process of spatial re-ordering.

This white settler territorial re-arrangement explains the new patterns of ownership. This spatial ordering is preceded by Conquest in the form of land dispossession, because you can only divide and allocate that which you are in control of. The creation of British colonies and the Boer Republics is the historical manifestation of the process of spatial re-ordering as a result of Conquest. The establishment of the Union of south Africa in 1910 and the concomitant invention by the white strangers of the so-called Native reserves and Bantustans is a process of land division in accordance with interests and needs of the white conquerors. Due to the demands of the white strangers’ capitalist mode of production, the division between the rural and urban emerged with its brutal and humiliating influx control legislative framework used to regulate the movement of the indigenous conquered people.

The 1913 Land Act was a legislative legitimation of land division in accordance with demands and dictates of the white strangers as conquerors. Of course this logic is in accordance with white imperialism as it manifested itself during the 1884-85 Berlin conference when without consultation the white strangers cut up and divided among themselves the continent of our ancestors. This also resulted in the creation of the so-called Protectorates or High Commission Territories such as Botswana and Lesotho. This process of spatial re-ordering took place after the destruction of African empires as centres of black power by the white strangers. Thus division and allocation take place after the founding act of land dispossession, because you can only divide and distribute that which you already possess and control.

This spatial re-ordering is accompanied by a discursive re-ordering which takes the form of epistemicide. Epistemicide, simply explained, is an attempt by the white conqueror to obliterate or distort the culture and knowledge system of the conquered indigenous people and to replace these with the new reality as defined by and in the image of the white conqueror. In other words, the nomos of white supremacy at the discursive level consists of the white conqueror defining a new reality in which he is a superior human being.

At the material level and spatial level it consists of what Fanon calls the Manichean world. This consists of two realms of existence with different values in accordance with the fundamental ontological division. The lives of the conquered indigenous people in townships, for instance, which are enveloped by poverty, ignorance and disease follow this logic of spatial and discursive re-ordering which is predicated on the fundamental ontological division of the human and the not human.

Thus it is not only at the discursive level (the level of ideas) that the conquered indigenous people in this new reality are defined by the white conqueror and regarded as not human, but most importantly they are made to live as such (as not human). In other words, the conquered indigenous people are not merely defined as not human but there is a social structure and reality created by these white strangers which correspond and affirms this definition. The nomos of white supremacy or the total normative order of white power consists of both discursive and material power as explained above. I now turn to the last section of this paper.

 

 

Beyond the Nomos of the white strangers

“For this reason, we will begin with land-appropriation as the primeval act in founding law” (Carl Smichtt)

“Land-appropriation also precedes the distinction between private and public law, in general it creates the conditions for this distinction” (Carl Smichtt)

“All subsequent law and everything promulgated and enacted thereafter as decrees and commands are nourished, to use Heraclius’ word by this source” (Carl Smichtt)

 

 

This section will focus mainly on the legal aspect of the nomos of white supremacy. Having explicated Conquest as the founding act of this nomos of white supremacy it is logical that I expand on its legal aspect (I am aware that I have already alluded to this legal aspect). For as Carl Smichtt puts it:

“Land-appropriation (read here as conquest in the form of land dispossession) thus is the archetype of a constitutive legal process externally and internally (for the ordering of land and property within a country)” (Smichtt, 47)

A critique of the law of the white conqueror as an element of the total normative order of white power will be foregrounded in this last section of the paper. The main focus will be on the current so-called constitution of south Africa. This is due to the urgency of this matter given the situation and current affairs the indigenous conquered people find themselves in. This section will proceed by way of further analysis and a suggestion of a solution for national liberation.

For as Magubane quoting J.D Bernal puts it, “knowledge of society is never a passive dogma, it is always active either in preserving or in destroying a social system”. A schematic representation of the problem we are confronted with is as follows: the founding act of Conquest in the form of land dispossession generates a total normative order and law is just an element of this total normative order of white power. Francis Cress Welsing postulates that “if you don’t understand white supremacy, everything else which you think you know will only confuse you”. And most importantly, in this regard, is her postulation that “white supremacy as an operational system of white domination permeates every aspect of a people’s activity and existence such as law, economics, sex, religion and politics”.

In this section, I want to foreground the law of the conqueror which was introduced by white supremacy as a system of white domination. In the first section, I postulated that Conquest in the form of land dispossession inaugurates new total order of white power. The legal aspect of this new total normative order of white power can be traced as far back as the time of the beginning of white settler colonialism. Roman doctrines of res nullius and terra nullius were used to rationalise the founding act of Conquest in the form of land dispossession. It was res nullius, which means nobody’s property, and terra nullius, which implies an empty land, that the white conqueror embarked on a crusade of Conquest.

Of course the introduction of the white strangers’ legal framework was a reflection of the spatial re-ordering which followed Conquest. The introduction of the white strangers’ political institutions such as parliament is important in this regard. That the white strangers’ legal framework was reflective of the process of spatial re-ordering is borne out by the introduction of the franchise (the right to vote) in the 1850s in the Cape colony which didn’t exist in other parts of south Africa. This was during the time when white settler colonialism was still fragmented. White settler colonialism was mainly consolidated during 1900s mainly after the so-called Anglo-Boer war.

The Peace Treaty of Vereeniging of 1902 marks that watershed when white power reconfigures and consolidates itself to deal, in a unified manner, with the so-called “Native question”. White supremacists such as Lord Milner and Jan Smuts were the architects of this stage of consolidated white power. There were other Acts which were introduced before the Union Act of south Africa as part and parcel of the white strangers’ legal framework. This entire legal framework was part and parcel of the new total normative order of white power. This white strangers’ legal framework, as an aspect of the nomos of white supremacy, consists of the values, interest, consciousness, culture and the philosophy of the white strangers.

These numerous Acts were the pillars of the new settler colonial framework. I am foregrounding Acts which were introduced after the Union Act as this is an Act which created south Africa as a consolidated political manifestation of white settler colonialism. These Acts are comprehensive enough as they cover the stage of white settler colonialism when under British Liberal Imperialism it was called segregation which was reconfigured later under the Afrikaner Nationalists to be Apartheid (in other words British Libera Imperialism in south Africa laid down the foundation for Apartheid, the Afrikaner nationalists merely improved and strengthened what was already there). These Acts include but are not confined to the Land Act of 1913, the Urban Areas Act, the Native Land and Trust Act, and the Group Areas Act. These Acts, as pillars of the white strangers’ legal framework, concerned themselves mainly with consolidating the process of spatial re-ordering, and legally legitimate and sustain land dispossession.

 

Because of the demands and exigencies of white domination, this white strangers’ legal framework was used and it is still used to degrade, distort and destroy, where possible, the law of the conquered indigenous people. This legal antagonism between the law of the white conqueror and the law of the conquered indigenous people followed the logic of the Originary binary (this legal antagonism should end with the law of the indigenous conquered people after national liberation becoming the supreme law of the land, i.e. Azania). In addition to this, the white strangers’ legal framework was premised, and it still is, on the fundamental ontological division of the human and the not human as already defined. Thus, in terms of the logic of the nomos of white supremacy, the law of the white conqueror is regarded as superior because the white conqueror is a superior human being as per his self-definition. And because the conquered indigenous people are regarded as inferior and not human, their law is deemed to be inferior, thus subject to degradation, distortion and destruction. It is important to bear in mind that the so-called constitution of south Africa states that it is the supreme law of the land and that indigenous law is subject to it and can be declared as invalid if it does not comply with it.

This subjection of the law of the conquered indigenous people to the law of the white conqueror has a long history going back to the founding act of Conquest. It is also important to understand that the current constitution follows the logic of the white strangers’ legal framework. Its values, spirit and philosophy are based on the tradition of the white strangers. It is nonetheless imposed on the conquered indigenous people as if it is to their benefit to follow and comply with it, when the opposite is the truth.

Remember, Wade Nobles posited that “power is the ability to define reality and to impose on other people as if it is their own definition”….. Because it is based on the tradition of the white strangers, it does what Kush Ngubane in Conflict of Minds designates the “prescription of destiny for the Africans” as if the indigenous conquered people cannot prescribe a destiny for themselves relying on their own intellectual resources. It is in line with the white supremacist colonial mentality exhibited by Jan Smuts and Cecil Rhodes who regarded the indigenous conquered people as nothing but a child race to be tutored by a superior white race.

For instance, Koyana explains that, in terms of the “Repugnancy principle”, the law of the conquered indigenous people was to be regarded by the white conqueror as valid on condition that it is not in conflict with the white conqueror’s notion of natural justice, etc. Thus it is not surprising that, on the basis of the fundamental ontological division of the white human and the not human conquered indigenous people, the Human Rights discourse was invented by the white conqueror to civilize and humanise through the assimilation of the indigenous conquered people into the white strangers’ legal framework. Thus, Human Rights discourse is another civilising act on the part of the white conqueror who regards the conquered indigenous people as not human and their law as inferior. In addition to Human Rights discourse we have what, in line with Carl Smichtt, I designate Liberal Constitutionalism. In terms of Liberal Constitutionalism there is a distinction between public and private law.

Liberal Constitutionalism is much more complex than I am explaining it in this paper, but, for our purpose, I want to foreground this distinction as the major problem for the indigenous people for the purposes of the struggle for national liberation. Simply put, the realm of public law deals with issues such as the State and Territory while the private realm deals with individual rights to private property within a given State. Individual rights to private property are highly valued by this paradigm of the law of the white conqueror.

The current debate on land expropriation with or without compensation is the point of this last part of this section. In terms of the current so-called constitution of south Africa there is a Bill of Rights; which some regard as a Bill of Whites. This Bill of Rights provides individual rights including the right to property. And then you have section 25 of this same constitution which deals with land expropriation with compensation. First and foremost, it is important in this regard to distinguish between government and State. The State is based on territory and sovereignty, while government is the bureaucratic management aspect of the State.

Thus you cannot have a State without territory or land, but you can have government without land; which is the current situation of the indigenous conquered people despite the so-called demise of Apartheid. In south Africa, currently, almost 80% of the land of the conquered indigenous people is in the hands of the white conquerors and their white beneficiaries mainly in the form of mining land owned by white mining companies and farmlands owned by mostly Afrikaners. Thus, south Africa is not an independent and sovereign African State but a white settler colonial State. In other words, the transition to post-apartheid south Africa was not based on State succession whereby land is returned as a whole to the conquered indigenous people. Instead, there was government succession whereby the black elite replaced the apartheid white elite with the same white settler colonial structure.

Ultimately there is, in post-apartheid south Africa, a white settler State and a black elite government which mainly manages this State in the interest of both the black and white elite, instead of in the interest of the indigenous conquered people as a nation. Under normal circumstances of sovereignty and self-determination a State, as a sovereign entity, has a government which serves the interest of its people or population as a nation.

It is important at this stage to invoke what I designate Sobukwe’s nation analysis. In a nutshell, for Sobukwe, Conquest in the form of land dispossession consisted of a settler nation conquering the indigenous nation which was sovereign before land dispossession. And this explains why the struggle is not one of Human Rights and democracy but for national liberation as Cabral explained. What we have in south Africa is a white settler nation racially dominating and oppressing an indigenous nation.

For the indigenous nation consisting of the Khoi, San and Bantu people to end domination and oppression by the white settlers it must restore land as a nation and not as individuals through title deeds which were introduced by the white strangers through Conquest and subsequent division of land through individual land tenure which fragment the indigenous people as a nation. The warrior-nationalist such as Shaka, Sekhukhuni and Moshoeshoe dealt with the problem of Conquest through building Empires based on land and sovereign nationhood.

Land for the indigenous people has a spiritual dimension which can be explained in terms of Triadic Ontology. In terms of this concept, being has three realms: the living-dead, the living and the yet-to-be-born. This is the idea of the indigenous nation in a spiritual sense. Thus, what the indigenous people have to do is to restore land as a nation, and not as individuals which will lead to confusion and a fragmentation of our collective power as a nation in terms of African Nationalism.

Since this is a struggle for national liberation and not individual social mobility and prosperity, mere occupation of land for residential purposes will not be enough. The point of our struggle for national liberation in terms of African Nationalism is to specifically through a national liberation movement based on African nationalism, target land owned by white mining companies as well as farmland owned mostly by Afrikaners. The aim is to take over the means of production which are now the basis of the “south African economy” created by the white strangers through racial domination and economic exploitation of the indigenous conquered people. The main objective should be to overthrow the “South African economy” which is a white settler colonial economy, and to replace it with an Azanian socialist economy. We should also guard against falling victim to the “project” of land expropriation without compensation, as radical as it may sound, which is based on the Charterist tradition (this is a tradition which follows the so-called Freedom Charter of 1955 which was drafted by whites rather than the indigenous people, as demonstrated by among others Motsoko Pheko).

This means that the current debate on land expropriation, its terms of reference, its motive, purpose, basically the entire framework is totally misguided. If you expropriate with compensation you accept individual private property relations as per the white settlers’ legal framework in terms of Liberal Constitutionalism. If you expropriate without compensation but you want to preserve the “south African economy” you leave intact, by slight reformism, the structure of white settler colonialism, i.e. south Africa as a white settler State and its concomitant racial domination and oppression by the white strangers. In other words, in both these cases you accept and operate within the nomos of white supremacy or the total normative order of white power. Simply put, you “reform” the structure of white domination and as a result impede national liberation. Ultimately it is a question of reformism (which can sometimes take a superficial radical form through radical rhetoric) or revolution, Liberalism or African Nationalism, equality or Racial Power.

As far as African nationalism is concerned, because it is a question of national liberation, there should not be a “public debate” in the first place which is based on the white strangers’ constitutional framework. There must be a rejection and negation of the current constitutional framework in its entirety as part of the nomos of white supremacy which was generated and inaugurated by Conquest. The rejection of this constitutional framework in its entirety, as opposed to mere “surgical improvement” (amendments), is not predicated on mere sentiments of misguided radicalism. The current constitutional framework was formulated under the political context characterised by the abandonment of national liberation and the pursuit of civil rights in terms of the democratisation paradigm.

This pursuit of civil rights was based on Liberal nonracialism as opposed to African nationalism. The so-called constitutional guidelines and principles, the Interim constitution and the current constitution were informed by the secret meetings and agreements reached between the white settler elite and the black elite who abandoned the struggle for national liberation and pursued the project of integration. Books such as Lost in Transformation, Tomorrow is another country, The Endgame, Freedom Next time, Elite Transition and From Protest To Challenge vol 6, provide ample details regarding the political climate in which this current constitutional framework was conceived and formulated. What is urgently needed is a national liberation movement and not the current political parties of the elite. This movement must be based on the “black radical tradition” or African nationalism in the form of Race-first Pan-Africanism a la Garvey.

This should embark on a revolution and not a “public debate” based on the white strangers’ legal framework. This revolution for national liberation will aim at restoring land through State succession in order to negate the founding act of Conquest. This should be followed by the generation and inauguration of a new normative order of black power or the nomos of black sovereignty and self-determination. And this is how in my view as an indigenous nation we can negate and transcend in south Africa the nomos of white settler colonialism. Because as Smichtt puts it:

“As long as world history remains open and fluid, as long as conditions are not fixed and ossified in other words as long as human beings and peoples have not only a past but also a future, a new nomos will arise in the perpetually new manifestation of world-historical events”(Smichtt, p 78)

By Masilo Lepuru

 

 

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