Mysterious Moves of Revolution: Specters of Black Power, Futures of Postcoloniality

Abstract

This chapter begins with C.L.R. James’ quip on considering the passage of his ideas to South Africa, that “revolution moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.” From a reading of James’ Black Jacobins the paper shifts to a diagnosis of four dialectical moments in anti-apartheid Durban, South Africa. The ‘moment of the disqualified’ exemplifies best what James (citing Hegel) calls “the seriousness, the suffering, the patience and the labour of the negative.” Emerging from this detour through the rough and tumble of revolutionary Durban, through the making and unmaking of coalitional Black politics, the paper connects the critique of the essential Black political subject with the work of reimagining revolution against racial capitalism. The key argument is that a postcolonial politics to come must circuit through the insights of the Black radical tradition, while stretching the spectre of Black Power into new, and newly creolized futures.