THERE are now quite a few educated and highly articulate young African men who are publishing influential books in the country. They see themselves as important “thought leaders”.

Professor Zakes Mda is on record as saying there has never been a period in South African history when so many young black people were writing, writing and writing.

If he is right, this is a most significant development for post-apartheid South Africa. Oh, yes, Africans have finally taken their self-knowledge, history and destiny into their own hands and are telling their stories the way they have lived and experienced them. But is this really a positive development?

The emergence of prominent young African “public intellectuals” hardly gives anyone sleepless nights.

It is also not true that if an educated and highly articulate young African man becomes a renowned “public intellectual” the balance of political discourse and perspective in society is altered.

These over-celebrated, supposed leading members of the African intelligentsia love to hog the media spotlight and address what they consider to be powerful and influential seminars, conferences and cocktail parties.

But the truth is that these young men are not a threat to the economic status quo.

They are not revolutionary agents of change.

They are much loved and fêted by the bankers, capitalist CEOs, foreign donors, funders and pseudo-left publishers who pursue the truth as seen through white eyes.

This sector of society loves to put them onto public pedestals because they are good at pointing out the failures of the so-called black African majority government.

These highly articulate young African men (but very few women) may appear to be “taking control of the continent’s destiny” but they are doing it through western books written in English. When you think about it, you soon realise that in this country’s book publishing industry and writing fraternity the thing that is being promoted and preserved is white hegemony.

Instead of more whites thinking like blacks in terms of poverty, racism and unemployment, for instance, and seeing the goings-on in the land through black eyes, we have more blacks thinking like conservative whites.

To paraphrase Franz Fanon, we have far too many young black PhDs with “white minds in black heads”. They are intellectual coconuts.

They are very quick to dismiss and denigrate the gains of more than 350 years of anti-colonial and apartheid struggle.

Their constant carping causes black Africans to lose confidence in the capabilities of their “own people”, if there is such a thing.

In fact, with such useful idiots aplenty, whites liberals do not need to utter and write negative things about the alleged poor achievements and failures of our democracy and freedom. They now leave it to educated and articulate African men who have become celebrities because of their anti-government rhetoric.

It is not that what they have to say is not valid.

The issue is that only those black intellectuals who will say the negative things that whites are afraid to say about a black African majority government are given this platform.

Therefore one must ask whose interest, if any, do they represent?

The answer is quite simple – they represent only themselves.

After all, what they utter is only mere opinion presented as fact. And having an opinion is as common as having a cold – we all have them.

So these self-appointed coconut intellectuals should not take themselves too seriously.

The world does not revolve around their heads.

Sandile Memela is an author and spokesperson for the Ministry of Arts and Culture. He writes in his personal capacity