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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Paradox of Non-Racial Politics While Recognising the Effects of Apartheid

by Vuyani Ngalwana

Ms Helen Zille is reported in the City Press newspaper of Sunday 22 May 2011 as having said about the Democratic Alliance: "We are a party that recognises the effect of apartheid and its psychological scars. Not entrenching race as the sole marker of identity is the antidote to addressing the past without entrenching apartheid." (my emphasis)

First, neither Ms Zille nor the DA has the foggiest idea about the "effects of apartheid and its psychological scars" on the people most ravaged by it. The DA's policy in the Western Cape as regards affirmative action and preferential procurement (which is a component of affirmative action) demonstrates the fact that the DA is clueless. Despite the Constitution entrenching affirmative action (in section 9(2) of the Constitution) and Parliament (of which the DA forms part) passing legislation in the form of the Employment Equity Act to give content and effect to affirmative action in employment as a constitutional imperative, Ms Zille and the DA have effectively outlawed it in the Western Cape. Yet she claims the DA "recognises" the effects of apartheid.

The Constitution entrenches preferential procurement of goods and services from black people in section 217(2). The Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act gives effect and content to that constitutional imperative. It was passed into law by Parliament of which the DA forms part. Ms Zille and the DA have effectively outlawed it in the Western Cape and are set to do the same in all the municipalities they have recently won.  Yet they claim to "recognise" the effects of apartheid.

Second, "Not entrenching race as the sole marker of identity is the antidote to addressing the past without entrenching apartheid" is tortuous, oxymoronic twaddle. By this, Ms Zille seeks effectively to equate the redress of the inequalities of apartheid with entreching apartheid. She does so by asserting that redress focusses on race. Focussing on race entrenches it and therefore entrenches apartheid. It is an intellectually and, as it turns out, constitutionally vacuous proposition. At the risk of sounding trite, one cannot make an omelette without first breaking an egg. In this analogy the constitutional redress is the omelette and race is the egg. You cannot address the inequalities of apartheid without focussing on race.

The Constitution does so in sections 9(2) and 217(2). So, too, the legislation passed by the DA in the form of the Employment Equity Act and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act. The Constitutional Court has said on at least two occasions that in constitutional redress some people will be affected more adversely than others because of the history of inequality in this country. It said because white people have largely been priviledged by apartheid, they will be adversely affected in the constitutional redress project. That's just the way it has to be, otherwise we're papering over over deep cracks.

I'd advise Ms Zille to read at least the following judgments of the Constitutional Court and then make up her mind as regards whether she is really being honest when she says the DA "recognises" the effects of apartheid.
  • National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality & Another v Minister of Justice and Others
  • Bel Porto School Governing Body and Others v Premier, Western Cape and Another
  • Bato Star Fishing (Pty) Ltd v Minister of Environmental Affairs and Others

Ms Zille here are the effects of apartheid. Now you figure out whether this is what you have in mind when you say the DA "recognises" the effects of apartheid and then tell the voting public how you intend redressing these effects.

The Constitution now entrenches equal opportunity for all. Scores of black people are unable to take advantage of the opportunities that are on offer because apartheid denied them the tools with which they would now have been able to put to use for that purpose: quality education, skills, basic literacy. This is the effect of apartheid which has also bred an inferiority complex in black people and a sense of superiority in white people (I know it is hard in "white culture" to respect someone who is illiterate or unable to grasp the basic principles of life that you take for granted. Hence the superiority complex). How on earth can you address this problem without pouring resources on black youths with a view to redressing these effects of apartheid? How could such an initiative, intended to redress the effects of apartheid, constitute the entrenchment of apartheid?
An economics professor at Cambridge University, Professor Ha-Joon Chang, understands precisely what Ms Zille fails woefully to grasp and it is this. South Africa will remain a cappuccino society ("a mass of black at the bottom, a thin layer of white froth above it and a sprinkling of cocoa at the top") if a certain degree of "equalisation of outcomes" is not pursued with a view to creating a substantively and genuinely fair society. The failure to do this will breed economic resentment among black youths. Economic resentment breeds criminality which in turn breeds a nation that is frightered of itself. That depletes productivity levels as people are scared to venture out and the economy stalls. Think Columbia. Have you factored this scenario in your antagonism to remedial measures intended to redress the effects of apartheid?
The effects of apartheid are also more than just political and economic. An even greater damage caused by apartheid manifests itself in the perception that both races have of themselves and each other. If truth be told, many black people are generally not convinced that a black person can do a job just as well as, if not better than, a white person of similar qualification. That is an effect of apartheid. Even professional black people have fallen victim to this subtle sense of self-hatred. Such are the perverse effects of apartheid that the inferiority complex it has engendered in black people over long periods is still coursing our veins like a cancer. And this is not an affliction ravaging only the lower classes; it eats up black professionals and leaders with equal rapacity. Is this an effect of aprtheid the DA recognises? How are you going to redress it?
Here are a few real examples. Government (which is predominantly black and is the largest source of legal work) continues to instruct a small pool of white law firms and brief an even smaller pool of white advocates, while many competent black law firms and advocates eke out a miserable existence in the criminal courts dependent for the most part on the ramshackle and unreliable legal aid. These black lawyers passed the same exams as white lawyers.

Black and white professionals tend to appoint white personal assistants when similarly capable black candidates are legion. Black and white professionals herd off to large white firms for simple financial advice at exorbitant fees, leaving smaller black firms that are just as capable of rendering the same service at a fraction of that fee.
Blacks and whites readily trust a white doctor to tell them what it is they are suffering from, but are quick to seek second opinion when they (more often black professionals) dare seek a black doctor’s diagnosis. Black people tend to consider a white girlfriend or boyfriend or wife or husband something of a status symbol. Black people tend to measure their intellectual prowess by how well they pronounce English words or string together an English sentence without punctuations of “er” or “ahem”. Black people tend to view with fondness their children speaking English with an accent, and couldn’t be bothered about their inability to speak their mother tongue. These are the effects of apartheid that has bred an inferiority complex in black people. How are you going to redress them?
All this feeds into white people’s largely superior sense of themselves – superior to black people. In such climate of perceived white superiority to black, white soldiers murdered scores of black school children in June 1976 following the stoning of a police dog that had been set upon them, or simply for refusing to be taught in a particular language that is not their mother tongue. Senior white lawyers tend to seek to postpone the hearing of a court case if it should be allocated to a black judge by reason only of the judge’s blackness. In your province, white lawyers questioned the authorship of a black judge’s judgment by reason only of the judgment’s soundness, in a most bizarre demonstration of utter contempt not only for the judge concerned but also for the judicial institution and the people who appointed the judge in the first place. Are these the "effects of apartheid" that you say the DA "recognises"? How exactly has the DA recognised these and how does it intend addressing them?
A white family threw its black women employees into laundry machines, murdering them, only for the case of murder to be thrown out of court by a white magistrate for alleged lack of evidence. A white farmer considered it within the realms of decency to offer to pay a couple of thousand rand as recompense to a black man’s family after beating him to a pulp for daring to return to fetch his belongings following his being dismissed, and then throwing him into a lion’s den where he was devoured alive by a pride of lions. In some department stores the white cashier readily accepted a R200 note from a white customer without as much as a blink, but thoroughly inspect a R100 note offered by a black customer on the assumption that it is a counterfeit. A white man climbed in the front seat of his bakkie (or pick-up truck) with his dog, and ordered his black employee in the back of the bakkie exposed to the elements. Are these the effects of apartheid that the DA "recognises" and, if so, how does the DA propose to redress these psychological effects of apartheid on white people?


3 comments:

  1. It is good to see that Mr. Ngalwana has a blog, I was just missing his courage in dealing with the salient issues of our time.

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  2. Enkosi Mhlekazi with this wonderful article. However, i will venture to challenge black people to also take more interest in their own transformation. For instance, support black business, and in turn black business must support black professionals, and so on.

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  3. >>"According to Gutman, “to respond to racial injustice with a colour consciousness principle or policy is therefore not to commit any wrong at all, provided the principle or policy is consistent with fairness.”

    I suppose the "fairness principle" is not applicable to white children that excels but may not be admitted to SA universities in support of "redress" for past and present injustices that have nothing to do with them.

    "As it is morally repugnant, undemocratic and unconstitutional to hold children responsible for their fathers’ alleged or actual crimes, or ascribe collective culpability..." Dr M Ambrosini MP

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