Land Party is anti-nationalism and anti-tribalism

Gcobani Ndzongana, National Convenor of the Land Party, shares his political ideology and views on the history of the Khoisan and the Xhosa people in the Cape.

I am anti nationalism, I am anti tribalism, that is one of the reasons in a Land Party state we want to abolish the racial terms eg. Black, Whites and Coloreds terms. We want people of our nation to be called South Africans regardless of the color their skins.

I sometimes forget that I'm a Xhosa because I always introduce myself as an African. I define myself as an African. One of the reasons I hate Zuma is because of his strategy to use tribalism and politics of race to divide our country. We will never build a united and prosperous South Africa if we are obsessed about politics of race and color.

The people of Lesotho and Botswana have their right to remain independent but if they want to be part of our government I can't deny them that opportunity but it must not be politicians who decide they want to be part South Africa or not, the people of those countries must decide if they want to be part of a prosperous community state of Southern Africa. I don't think it is wise nor uniting the nation to keep reminding people that they are settlers or European descendants.

Land Party draws these lessons from all the heroes and founding fathers of communist states, but we do so carefully and with unique South African characteristics. We only use positive strategies from Deng - particularly his economic development in China. This is the reason we mention that all will be done through South Africa's context.

If I had to unpack my philosophy and style of leadership: I am militant, radical and a practical Revolutionary Socialist. I am a people's organizer, I'm not a theorist, I am not autocratic nor am I sexist; I don't put religion before my being. My humanity comes first and my religion second. I do not use religion to make or take decisions, my political beliefs are not influenced by my religious beliefs like many politicians, something that truly makes me an activist but not a politician.

My response to the Khoisan people or my position about the Khoisan people is not the position of the Land Party. Land Party constitutes different types of people from different backgrounds, so every member has the right to put forward their position about the Khoisan people.

I stand by my position about the Khoisan and the Cape. In fact the Khoisan people are scientifically proven to have come down to the Cape from Botswana and they are traced from central Africa. As they were moving freely in Africa like many other Africans, the Xhoisan people, now affectionately known as the Khoisan people, lived with the Xhosa people in Cape. In fact they found the Xhosa people in the Cape and they hunted Xhosa cattles thinking they were wild animals that did not belong to anyone.

That's where they had their first battle with Xhosa people and they ended up calling them Xhosa which means fierce people. The word Khoi is derived from the word Xhoi. The settlers couldn't pronounce the word X, so instead used K.

The Xhosa and Xhoisan people lived together, they exchanged women and traded food together until the start of the frontier wars where they fought side by side together against the British army. Until the British held the Xhoisan people hostage and put them in front of the barrel of the rifles when the British army was facing a major defeat of its kind. They used the Xhoi people as shields to fight Xhosa people.

I have Xhoisan ancestors, just like many Xhosa people share a bloodline with the Xhoisan people. We share language, and a lot of things with the Xhoi people. If we are to build a strong nation, I believe we must build a united South Africa.