And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life?s but a walking shadow, a poor player
Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Shakespeare.
If we knew more about death, we could explain more of it in this sort of way. If we knew more about Comrade Dr Kenneth Koma, we could explain more of him in this sort of way.
I could not help but think, listening to the moving eulogies by various speakers on that warm morning of the of March 24, as our venerable comrade was being laid to rest, that nevertheless few really understood this phenomenal man, philosopher, revolutionary, patriot, a humble soul, whom death had so furtively robbed us of in the still of the night.
It is now a quarter past the hour, as I set pen to paper. I had been tossing and turning all night, intermittently sinking into gloom and darkness, a mind troubled by morbid images of ghosts, reviving painful memories of a visit to the dead so graphically recounted by Homer in his epic tale of Odysseus?s ordeals and triumphs. But, finally plucking up enough courage to rise from my bed, I had proceeded to do what I ought to have done so many days ago, to compose a few paragraphs in honour of a fallen hero.
Of course, I do not pretend to have known more about Comrade Koma, or to explain all the things which led him to be what he was or thought, but some few are obvious. With the publication of his celebrated essay, Pamphlet No 1, which provided a major ideological basis of criticism of our politics and society, his views were followed avidly by many, on these shores and even beyond. In fact, this essay became a classic and, with the single exception of the Bible, one of the most discussed in political and intellectual circles for decades. While some, among them those on the fringes of domestic politics, believed (and continue to believe) that Koma reneged on Socialism, a process his detractors claim can be traced back to the beginning of the 1980s, the evidence for his belief has never undergone doctrinal change.
The1980s (some may recall) represents a period when the BNF embarked on a mass organisation strategy, opening the floodgates in a concerted effort to grow numerically. This is also the period when Koma proclaimed that the rich had amassed power to the exclusion of the greater majority of the population and advocated the capture of the state apparatus. In other words, it marks the beginning of the party?s overt commitment to parliamentary democracy and electoral processes. The high water mark of this process was the subsequent increase of Opposition representatives at both parliamentary and local government levels. But this is also the period when many of the so-called comrades now in the BNF and BCP leadership began clawing their way in the tortuous journey from the lower classes to the middle sections of the middle class, where most have remained today as bureaucrats, politicos, parastatal executives, or even judges.
It is often claimed by the Trotsky tendency that Comrade Koma was a revisionist, an autocrat, a leader who pontificated and did not take kindly to criticism, that woe betide anyone who got in his way. A popular example that is often cited in aid of his so-called revisionism is the fact that Pamphlet No 1 was modified and attenuated. Of course, the document was reviewed, but the review of policy goals and approach did not emerge from a vacuum.
There was an appreciation, long overdue, that the BNF was not a communist party nor was it a socialist party, in spite of the Marxist rhetoric of some of its leaders, but, an amalgamation, a front organisation, of diverse though often contradictory class interests. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the logic of the ?minimum and maximum? concept of the BNF?s program of action – a kind of ideological common denominator. The outcome was a reformulation of the concept of what is euphemistically called the ?social democratic revolution.? In all these, there is no revision of Marxism, but rather an incorporation of liberal elements which lie at the root of Marxist dialectics. There is no contradiction in such an approach. Yet this simple fact continues to elude the so-called intellectuals, left and centre, in both the BNF and BCP.
Comrade Kenneth Koma was, like a true philosopher, a patient man, and never gave up on these poor souls coming round.
The second point that should be stressed when tackling allegations of revisionism is that at the geopolitical level, the transformation of competitive capitalism into state/corporate capitalism and, later, globalisation (which, then, expressed itself as the so-called New World Economic Order), seriously called into question the classical Marxist approach to politics. At home, this meant parties like the BNF had to jettison old tools, warts and all, for new ones. This is why refuseniks were purged from the party. Such generational shifts are not unusual in the world of realpolitik.
Comrade Koma seized the time!
Failed comrades in the BNF are often cited as testimony of Koma?s wrath, even beyond his life (The Sunday Standard, April 1-7, 2007).
Contrary to what others may think, Comrade Koma never opposed those for whom mythology is a cultural characteristic (and there are lots of them about). But more important, he constantly reminded the poor – as opposed to ?the masses?, who are embraced by BNF leaders merely for their potential electoral value – that they are not poor because of anything they had done or anything they had failed to do, not because of the original Sin or the Will of God or because of bad luck, but because of economic and political conditions.
He assured our Nation that these conditions can, and will be changed. This is the legacy Koma has left for all of us and it is one that, I pray, will not sink into obscurity with his untimely death.
Throughout, I have tried to be objective, but I do not claim to be detached.
No prot?g? paying tribute to his mentor can be detached; he can only pretend to be.
At last, as a new dawn breaks upon us, and the birds chirp feverishly in song, and the tears roll down my cheeks refreshingly as morning dew on wintry leaves, I say adieu to Comrade Koma and borrow these words from Genesis (iii. 19): Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Michael Mothobi is a former BNF Deputy Secretary General. He has since left active politics.
