A Master’s Tool Dismantling a Master’s House
People who know me from various angles still pretty much all know that I’m oddly obsessed with the various “afterlives” of Audre Lorde’s famous statement that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”.
The reason I say “afterlives” is because, in true “death of the author” fashion, the phrase is most often invoked not in the context of Lorde’s original topic (roughly speaking, the exclusion of queer women of color from “mainstream” feminist thought), but instead in heated arguments within social movements about the role of nonviolence in social change.
And, the other day I realized that the ANC’s plan to end apartheid, hatched by none other than Nelson Mandela (one of my favorite enders-of-oppression in all of history… see this now-published post!), provides maybe the best example I’ve ever seen of a master’s tool – the tactics and strategies utilized by the pre-Israeli Yishuv to terrorize British and Palestinians into submission as they built the future state of Israel – being turned back against the master: in this case, turned back against Israel’s closest ally, Apartheid South Africa, in the form of Mandela’s “M-Plan”:
Ironically, its [the M-Plan’s] shape was based on a blueprint drawn up by Nelson Mandela nearly a quarter-century earlier, a plan which in turn had borrowed from the Zionist Irgun guerrilla experience in British-occupied Palestine.
The quote is from (Davis 1987), an actual must-read for understanding how exactly the ANC (though, specifically, the ANC alongside the SACP and their joint armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe) brought about the end of Apartheid… And while we’re talking about ending Apartheid… may as well read this book as well 🤔:
And with that… Gotta blast!