Don’t agonise - organise against corruption and state capture: academic

This was the advice on how to deal with the situation in the country by author‚ academic and Executive Chairman of the Southern African Political Economy Series Trust Dr Ibbo Mandaza‚ who was delivering the 18th Steve Biko Memorial Lecture on Thursday night.

Mandaza said this was an antidote to state capture and corruption alongside a separation of powers and holding the executive accountable.

"There is light at the end of the tunnel."

Unisa awarded Steve Biko with a Doctor of Literature and Philosophy degree posthumously in the Z.K. Matthews Great Hall at university's Muckleneuk Campus in Pretoria. Biko's son Samora received it on behalf of his father. The lecture formed part of the 40th anniversary of Biko's death who died on September 22 1977.

Mandaza lambasted the ANC and other African liberation movements in government today. He said they have "long served their purpose" of ending apartheid and colonial rule‚ and are "ideologically constrained".

He added that some African countries have been a "resounding" failure in economic transformation‚ because they had inherited and continued to serve a bourgeoisie or "a class not rooted in production".

"State capture begins even before Freedom Day itself."

He believes this in turn has led to state capture‚ corruption and the looting of state coffers.

"By nature the conquering bourgeoisie is a class in itself and for itself. It is bereft of a national interest."

He said the "white bourgeoisie remains largely intact".

"There has not been as much pressure for the resolution of the land question as has been the case in Zimbabwe."

Unisa Vice-Chancellor Professor Mandla Makhanya and Founder of the Steve Biko Foundation Nkosinathi Biko also addressed the audience.

Nkosinathi compared the annual lecture to a herd of cattle who gather when one cow dies.

"But unlike cattle that gather in pain‚ we gather in celebration to give a symbolic and triumphant kiss to his spirit."

He said Biko taught us "material wealth alone is bad enough‚ but coupled with spiritual poverty it kills."

Makhanya said the current crisis about the funding of higher education would have a "profound catalytic impact that will either cast a light or a shadow for decades to come."

He said the Fees Must Fall movement and students calling for the decolonisation of higher education reminded him of Biko.

- TimesLIVE

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