By: Siyanda Pali
In approximately 1 year from now, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) will commemorate 60 years since its inception on 25 May 1963. Egypt will celebrate 69 years since its Revolution Day or National Day on 18 June of 1953. The Federal Republic of Nigeria will celebrate its 62nd year of independence in October of this year, as will the Federal Republic of Somalia on 1 July 2022. The Republic of South Africa marked 28 years of independence on 27 April of this year. These are all significant periods of time. With the hopes and dreams of 1.39 billion people in the balance, this is a befitting time as any to take stock.
On the eve of the 20th century, the last decade in particular, the Italian Marxist scholar, philosopher, theorist, thinker and writer Antonio Gramsci was born in Sardinha, Italy. The fourth of 7 sons to Francesco and Guiseppina Gramsci, he entered the world on 22 January 1891. As fate would have it, he was a man who would fight against the odds his entire life.
At birth, and during the formative years of his life, he battled a disorder, Pott's disease, which caused a lump on his chest and his back. At the time, doctors were convinced this would be the end of him. Remedial measures for this included a harness with straps which girded his deformed frame from the armpit area, among others, from which he was hung from the ceiling as therapy. In the likely event of his demise, a coffin in which he was to be buried was stored by his parents in their house. This was the start of Gramci's life.
In addition to his personal struggles, mostly related to his health, he also endured a period of family turmoil. His father was unceremoniously arrested for alleged embezzlement in 1898, which forced the young Gramsci to abort his plans to continue his education, finding work as a casual labourer in numerous jobs. He eventually completed his high school education in Cagliari, where he resided with his elder brother Genaro, then a staunch socialist with a military background. However, despite the obvious influence of his brother, the young Gramsci's intellectual posture was not that of a socialist, but rather that of Sardinian nationalism, borne of the discontent of the Sardinian peasantry such as miners by their rapidly developing northern neighbours, which was invariably repressed by the Italian mainland.
It was in 1911 that Antonio Gramsci won a scholarship to study at the University of Turin. Aged 20, his stance shifted from that of Sardinian nationalism to that of a society divided along class lines: bosses and workers. Despite possessing academic and intellectual chutzpah, Gramsci discontinued his studies at the University of Turin in 1915 at the age of 25 due to mostly the blight of ill-health, financial difficulties as well as increasing political engagements, leaving the university having acquired a vast knowledge of philosophy and history.
Gramsci later fell foul of Mousoulini's fascist regime, which led to his arrest in 1926, despite his parliamentary immunity, amid an imposition of emergency laws predicated by an alleged assassination attempt on Mussolini's life. The words uttered by the then prosecutor at the trial are perhaps the most famous words uttered at that time. They continue to capture the imagination of thinkers, readers, writers and scholars alike. "For twenty years, we must stop this brain from functioning", were the ironic utterances of the prosecutor. Little did they know that Gramsci's imprisonment would have the complete opposite effect on his intellectual prowess and productivity. He ended up writing more than 3000 pages of history and analysis, as well as more than 30 notebooks.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx predicts that at some point, the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie. All they had to lose were their chains. He foresaw that they would then implement a new system of economic stratification. There's no doubt that some were hoping that this would be Communism. Perhaps others were hoping for Socialism. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. To the surprise of some Neo-marxist scholars, this did not take place in the west during the 19th century, neither did it occur in the 20th century. Why was it that people who were working in intolerable conditions, which may have very well inspired the Communist Manifesto in the first place, remain in such conditions?
Friederich Engels made a scathing critique of Capitalism in his 1845 book "The Conditions of the Working Class in England". To his credit, it was based upon facts and evidence, which he dutifully gathered from parliamentary reports, chamber of commerce dispatches etc. His goal was to engage in his critique based upon an objective data framework. Engels noted, among other things, that, "They are given damp tenements, basement hovels or attic rooms that are neither water-proof from above or below. Their houses are built in a way that the moist air has no outlet..women made incapable of giving birth, children crippled, men weakened, limbs crushed, entire generations blighted, infected with emaciation and infirmity, merely to fill the purses of the bourgeoisie". At a broader level, it raised questions about what happens in a society when the full might of the negative externalities of rampant industrialisation in the form of capitalism is at its zenith? It raised questions about basic labour rights in societies.
In spite of the above conditions of despair, Marx's prediction did not come to pass. It became clear among some thinkers and scholars that control over a population extended far beyond the hallowed halls of parliament. It became evident that political control is almost always predicated by cultural control. Gramsci also examines the concept of political control, exploring the question that when there is a dominant class or social group in a society, how does such a class or group rise to power? Why would the proletariat acquiesce to participating in a system which contributes to their repression or oppression?
The answer to why the latter was true, according to Gramsci, was due to a concept which he referred to as Cultural Hegemony. Gramsci the thinker is probably most well-known for his work on Cultural Hegemony, which was an expansion of 'hegemony' as propounded by Russian Marxist Vladimir Lenin, which described the political leadership of the working class in a democratic revolution. The root of the word 'hegemony' has it's origins from the Greek, which means, "to lead" or "to rule over" according to some translators. In ancient Greece, a hegemon then, was a state with an extraordinary military advantage over another state. It denoted the threat or possibility of physical dominance of one state by another. As such, if the weaker or relatively weaker state did not comply with the demands of the hegemon, they faced the probability of a certain unpleasant future event such as annexation, invasion, being burnt to ashes etc.
The term 'hegemony' referred to the danger or possibility of physical dominance over a population. As highlighted by Stephen West, in the modern era in which we live, the definition of hegemony needs to evolve to capture the reality of the status quo. Those who exercise power have come to know that military dominance is but one method of exercising control over a population, and that a far more effective means to do so, is by manipulating the cultural parameters which people have to circumnavigate. To be a human being, among other things, is to live within a certain culture. This then begs the question: What is a culture? It is a set of norms, structures, ordinances, taboos, values. To paraphrase Stephen West, "it is the sum-total of all the rituals we engage with on a daily basis which all come together to create a cohesive society." To what degree, according to Gramsci, do the current norms and rules exist to reinforce themselves? To what degree do the current rules and norms exist in the minds of the population as nature in the world? To what extent is the reality of the world we live in attributable to nature, and how much of it is attributable to culture?
The latter are incredibly pertinent questions because according to Gramsci, if a group or class can control the narrative, and convince the layman that the current set of cultural norms is a static, natural way in which the world is or works, there is little chance of protest, seeking justice or change.
To explain nature, Jim Collins provides useful input in his book, "Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap, and others do not". He states," To use an analogy, the "Leadership is the answer to everything" perspective is the modern equivalent of the "God is the answer to everything" perspective that held back our scientific understanding of the physical world in the Dark Ages. In the 1500's, people ascribed all events they didn't understand to God. Why did the crops fail? God did it. Why did we have an earthquake? God did it. What holds the planets in place? God. But with the Enlightenment, we began the search for a more scientific understanding -physics, chemistry, biology and so forth. Not that we became atheists, but we gained deeper understanding of how the universe ticks. Similarly, every time we attribute everything to "Leadership," we're no different to people from the 1500s. We're simply admitting our ignorance. Not that we should become leadership atheists (leadership does matter)".
According to Gramsci, dominant social classes have the ability to dictate cultural norms. As such, those born in such societies tend to associate these cultural norms as nature. They often see things as 'the way the world is', something one ought to learn to accept.
The latter, as per Gramsci, is the reason why Marx's prediction did not come true. It is why the proletariat never broke free from the chains which oppressed or suppressed them. They had accepted them as the "natural state of the world they lived in."
According to Gramsci, cultural norms become the 'common sense' which the proletariat use to rationalise their position in the world. When the 'common sense' of one's world serves to justify the dominance of one class by another, with any reasonable critique made of the status quo met with the unsatisfactory response "that's how the world is" or "that's how the world works", ones very being becomes a pillar upholding cultural hegemony. Gramsci does not necessarily purport that life should be one without any exertion, challenge or difficulty. However, the more plausible question would be: how challenging, strenuous or difficult does life have to be? What aspects of one's life, accepted as culture, does one accept in their life, and as a result, only benefits in a highly skewed manner, the interests of a dominant group in a society?
One of the best examples of this is the prevalence of overt and subliminal racism in a society. It permeates every aspect of everyday life, and navigating this is no small feat in South Africa, Africa or anywhere else in the world for that matter.
In 1992, Nelson Mandela, Tito Mboweni and Saki Macozoma were part of a delegation which represented South Africa at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Mr Mandela was to appear with a panel of other speakers such as FW De Klerk and Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi. The then future Minister of Labour, Tito Mboweni and Saki Macozoma pursuaded Nelson Mandela to tone down his rhetoric on nationalisation. While at Davos, having caught wind of the ANC's economic plans, Li Peng, China's Premier at the time, requested the chairperson of the WEF to arrange a meeting with Nelson Mandela, during which he shared that from China's own experience, perhaps nationalisation was not the best route to take. This sentiment was echoed by the Vietnamese Prime Minister. After these discussions, Mandela beckoned to the ANC delegation that they ought to "forget this nationalisation thing, [and] focus on the basic needs of our people". Shortly afterwards, the team was off to South Africa, and following some deliberations and the Nasrec Conference, a policy document, 'Ready to Govern' was born.
What an awesome responsibility was placed squarely upon the shoulders of South Africa's first democratically elected government. In essence, they had to conceptualise a new country, after centuries of colonial and apartheid rule. Some aspects were handled masterfully, while others can and should be improved.
The importance of Gramsci's work as a scholar is perhaps useful for not only South Africa, after 28 years of democratic rule, but also for the African continent, with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) formed in 1963, and its successor, the African Union, formed in 2002 in Durban, South Africa. By pausing to consider what aspects of our lives in actual fact constitute nature and what aspects constitute culture, and deeply interrogate Gramsci's theory of Cultural Hegemony, perhaps we can make strides towards crystalising what our values are, ensuring that the national democratic revolution can find expression in South Africa, and across Africa.
