Lynching is explained as a method of social and racial control meant to terrorise a caste or class into submission or inferior status. This method is commonly used to subvert a rules-based process that the lynching mob and individual know would outlaw. Lynchers administer torment and torture (physical or mental) to the victims or their kin to levels where their entire being is fractured into pieces.
The
significance of lynching transcends the specific issue raised as the reason for
it. It is, in essence, a ritual that makes those being lynched representatives
of their kin, kind, clan, tribe, or perceived and manufactured caste. The
entirety of the act generally serves as a warning to the lynched and their kin
never to challenge the manufactured supremacy of those who carry out the
lynching.
Lynchings
had an impact only when they were public events. They required suitable
platforms and audiences to convey their genuine ideological intentions. The
lacerations were so deep and symbolic that those belonging to the class or race
of the lynchers would have their image as a backdrop of permanence, anchoring
their status about the victim.
The
most profound and most brutal form of lynching is one administered by a member
of your caste, tribe, class, or kin in the full glare and applause of the
lyncher class. Ordinarily, those who are an audience of the lynching are not
always in agreement with the lynching, despite their collusion or approval by a
presence that never objected at the scene or immediately thereafter.
Lynching
is a form of terrorism and crime against the more profound human being lynched,
and not necessarily the person who administers the lynching. It is an act of
vigilantism in pursuit of legitimising a dogma or ritual; its survival requires
the approval or applause of a mob.
The
vitriol that characterised the public lynching of Papa Penny, a cultural icon
whose contributions to the self-determination of the Vatsonga-Shangaan people
of Southern Africa, is an unforgivable and unfortunate act of betrayal. As it
unfolded in the trending videos, it resembled the lynching by public hanging
that characterises contexts where supremacy is at stake.
In
an era when society has advanced to respect and fulfil its obligations to
afford all their cultural rights, the idiotisation of artistic icons is in
itself profoundly idiotic if not intellectually hypocritical. The world of
intellectuality is one that self-regulates through established decorum. The
culturally intelligent or the intellectually advanced in cultural matters would
know what it takes to understand the fundamentals of cultural interaction and
building a mindful approach to the comprehensive impact of lynching icons that
carry with them a significant load of self-determining a people, tribe, or
class.
Cultural
icons are not merely products of structured learning experiences legitimised by
certificates or equivalents. They arise from an organised system of
values, attitudes, beliefs, and meanings that interrelate and are influenced by
their context. Those lacking cultural competence, often due to selective and
uninformed perceptions, stereotypical expectations, inaccurate attributions,
and cultural programming, tend to misinterpret the intellectualism inherent in
the works of cultural icons like Papa Penny.
The
frames that define us as intellectuals —if indeed we all are, or if those of us
who have fulfilled the criteria of one degree or another —are not the context
in which we can arrogate god-like powers to make assertions
against fellow human beings. To cultivate cultural intelligence, an
intelligence that many cultural icons possess, and those who have
self-educated or been endowed with skills, knowledge, and attributes through
life's experiences, we must suspend the cultural cruise control that our
limited understanding has imposed upon us. Instead, we should aim to develop a
state of perpetual mindfulness.
This rendition suggests that if the
statement 'Papa Penny is an idiot' were repeated in the mother tongue, which
has different grammar and vocabulary, it would have structured the thought
differently, making it more challenging to conclude that lacking formal
classroom education equates to being an idiot. This conclusion aligns with a
specific orientation and frame of thinking when considering the context in
which the intelligence Penny represents is situated. The chaos arising from
intercultural contestations regarding the value of indigenous intelligence
versus the restrictive intents of encroaching foreign intelligence leads to the
assumption that the one appearing weak is an idiot. At the same time, ignoring
what is not inherent to the other is equally foolish.
You
cannot conclude anything about other people’s intelligence without
understanding what influences your judgment. The new form of intelligence
involves avoiding minimising and exaggerating what you don't know, guided
by a perspective that acknowledges our limited knowledge. Ultimately, we are all
threads connecting the broader spectrum of expertise. I hope that the person
Papa Penny has become serves as an opportunity to highlight how crucial he is
in connecting the rest of us with what we did not know; he needed no master’s
degree to serve as a thread.
In
one of his seminal speeches, President Samora Wa Ka Mashele said, "For the
nation to thrive, the tribe must die". If degreed individuals, including
myself, are becoming a tribe that limits the nation from thriving in all
dimensions, then Jaha la ka Mashele, Samora, saw it before the rest of his
family and the rest of us. As Papa Penny composed, "Milandzu Bhe,"
and Dr. Thomas Chauke encouraged him by saying "Wo Tiyisela," we
invoke the wisdom of all tincambi ta tiko and say, "To be an idiot is an
accomplishment if it is a result of an organic process."
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