Nzambi's protege

 

Njabulo Ndebele Junior, the nephew of the former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, was fed up. He was more than tired of seeing South Africa, the country of his father's birth, turned into a hell by those illiterate people who came to power. The country was cursed by Macardit, the deity of bad luck. There was total insecurity, nothing worked. One needed an army of bodyguards to get around, as much to avoid being kidnapped as to avoid being robbed. It was chaos in the African way, like everywhere else on the black continent. Except that South Africa had been rich, in the time of the whites. Njabulo was part of the new generation of intellectuals who, following Alexis Dieth, were not satisfied with the guilt of colonization and slavery alone to justify Africa's failures and its absence from the international scene. The colonies had been gone for over a century, the slavery practiced by Arabs and whites was now being practiced again by blacks on their own brothers. Njabulo Ndebele Junior was digging out the archives previously cleared by the Senegalese anthropologist Tidiane N'Diaye: the slave trade had begun long before the beginning of European colonization.

Njabulo was no longer living in Africa. For an intellectual with integrity, this was no longer possible. Between the islamists in the north and the cannibals in the south, the continent had really become a coffin for intelligence.

In South Africa, the ANC had plundered the country. Nothing remained of what had been built and developed by the whites. When Mandela died, the country was already in the red. But since julius Malema and his successors took power, South Africa has been sinking into the Magombe, the realm of death. The rise of these openly racist regimes had caused international turmoil, fanning ethnic conflicts within mixed-race Western societies. European chancelleries began to encourage people like Njabulo, people whom the West saw as a counter-fire to Malema and all those radicalized people who were leading Africa into a suicide spiral.

Africa had been run by bastards for too long. South Africa used to be the richest country in Africa, when apartheid prevented blacks from benefiting from white prosperity. Since independence, successive ANC black governments have allowed only a few "black diamonds" - blacks with ties to power - to get rich. The rest of the country was sinking into unemployment, nothing was working.

It was still claimed at that time that black governments were not racist against whites, despite laws that officially gave priority to blacks in all government jobs and in most private companies working with the government. The international community remained silent as long as the most powerful people in the world were allowed to pursue their business. Racism against whites was not racism, was it? Njabulo was past that kind of sophistry. He believed in the truth.

Meanwhile, the people of Africa were suffering as they watched the country being handed over to incompetent and corrupt people. But since the blame was constantly being laid at the feet of the whites, and the blacks in the Bantustans, many of them wretchedly illiterate, had learned to hate their former masters, it worked. It was the classic argument of the "liberators": always blame the former rulers...

ANC governments automatically followed one another, tapping into an electorate of easily manipulated fools.

Until Julius Malema, the most racist of all black politicians, took power and drove out for good the last whites and Indians who had dared to stay on the land that only their ancestors had made prosperous. The international community only woke up, strangely enough, when Julius claimed to be closing the doors of the country to multinationals and international banks. Julius Malema didn't want whites, Chinese or Indians. He only wanted Zulus in his country.

It wasn't long before one of his paid henchmen shot him. Since then, Julius's successors have been, oddly enough, more reasonable in their talk of industrialists and international bankers...

Njabulo observed and analyzed the contemporary history of his country without complacency. He observed and wrote about the nullity of men, the ridiculous traditions, the condition of women, which summarized the failures of a continent that made no effort to get out of its nightmare. With such opinions, Njabulo had to ask Russia to host him. The Chinese, too economically involved in the continent, refused to host him. In private, Chinese intellectuals congratulated Njabulo for his uncompromising analysis. In public, they wanted no fuss, too happy to plunder the wealth of a continent so badly managed.

Little by little, Njabulo had cut himself off from all his friends of African origin. His speech was disturbing. His wife had left him, no longer able to bear the remarks and reproaches of friends and family. Njabulo remained stoic. His knowledge of the Bantu tradition brought him peace, the fire of justice from Nzambi, the supreme creator. Everything was there. But one had to be willing to search, to have the courage to speak.

But the young African generations appreciated the intransigence of his fight for truth. They started to follow him, to read him, to listen to him. He was nicknamed the "protégé of Nzambi". Njabulo had begun to receive threats. He felt spied upon.

One day in Paris, while on his way to a conference, he was attacked with a knife by three South African agents who were waiting for him downstairs in his hotel. He received a blow in the back and another in the fat of the arm. No vital organs were hit. The men were arrested and identified. A scandal had erupted, opportunely amplified by the international financial community, which wanted to get rid of these business-damaging politicians.

Now Njabulo Ndebele Junior was convalescing in his hospital bed, watched by the police. "Even a political murder, they are not able to do it right..." he wrote in his daily post to his fans.