The 23rd anniversary of Steve Biko’s death was commemorated with the first annual Steve Biko memorial lecture presented by Njabulo S Ndebele. This is an edited version I confess to being one of those who have had an ambivalent attitude towards the recent national conference on racism. On the one hand, I welcomed the attention paid to this national problem of racism. On the other hand, I remain deeply worried about the terms on which the problem was highlighted and engaged. I am bothered by the phenomenon of a black majority in power, seeming to reduce itself to the status of complainants as if they had a limited capacity to do anything more significant about the situation at hand, than drawing attention to it. It is not that the complaints have no foundation, on the contrary, the foundations are deeply embedded in our history. But I cannot shake off the feeling that the galvanising of concern around racism reflects a vulnerability, which could dangerously resuscitate a familiar psychology of inferiority, precisely at the moment that the black majority ought to provide confident leadership through the government they have elected. I worry that the complaining may confusingly look like a psychological submission to ”whiteness” in the sense of handing over to ”whiteness” the power to provide relief. ”Please, stop this thing!” seems to be the appeal. ”Respect us.” I submit that we moved away from this position decisively on April 27 1994. We cannot go back to it. It should not be so easy to give up a psychological advantage. I am bothered by the tendency that when a black body is dragged down the road behind a bakkie, we see first proof of racism rather than depravity and murder; as if, if the causal link between racism and murder could not be established, the gruesome killing might not attract as much attention.
When we give to racism in Africa this kind of centrality of explanation, we confirm the status of the black body as a mere item of data to be deployed in a grammar of political argument, rather than affirm it as violated humanity. The inherent worth of a black body does not need to be affirmed by the mere proof of white racism against it. The black body is much more than the cruelty to which it is subjected. If we succeed in positioning ourselves as a people, above this kind of cruelty, we deny it equality of status. We can then deal with it as one among many other problems in our society that need our attention. I think this is what Steve Biko meant when he cautioned against ”the major danger” he saw ”facing the black community to be so conditioned by the system as to make even our most well-considered resistance to it fit within the system both in terms of the means and of the goals”.# It is possible we are not entirely out of this danger. Is the fore-grounding of race and racism a veiled admission that perhaps there is as yet no material basis for the black majority to contain this scourge through the imposition of it own versions of the future? Does this speak to the black majority’s perception that perhaps they are not yet agents of history? I ask these questions in the knowledge that white racism in South Africa no longer exists as a formalised structure. We conjure in our minds the continued existence of such a structure to our perceptual peril. There is no evidence of a Ku Klux Klan that is regrouping somewhere in the far-flung corners of the country. On the contrary, with the disintegration of apartheid as a formal structure, white racism has reacted in a number of ways. In some cases it has simply died. In other cases, particularly where strong pockets of white power remain, such as in commerce, industry and in higher education, it has either mutated and assumed the colour of change while retaining a core of self-interest, or has genuinely struggled with the agonies of embracing necessary change.
In other cases, racism also continues to exist as individualised pathology, frequently exploding into acts of suicide or desperate acts of brutality against black bodies in sight. In almost every case, we witness a crisis of identity with various degrees of intensity. But what these various forms of reaction do show is the danger inherent in a singular approach. That is why the black majority carries the historic responsibility to provide, in this situation, decisive and visionary leadership. Either it embraces this responsibility with conviction, or it gives up its leadership through a throwback psychological dependence on racism which has the potential to severely compromise the authority conferred on it by history. What is the connection between the critique of ”whiteness” and what our response to it has been; the hegemonic growth of a black consciousness (not in the sense of a philosophy or movement associated with Steve Biko, although it may not exclude it, but rather, in the more fundamental sense of the inevitability of a particular kind of social process); and the project of development so essential to our finding the future?
It will be obvious that the flow of social influence is not going in one direction from the black to the white community. There is a two-way process setting itself up as a critical stabilising factor, as we negotiate change. Because the process will not always be smooth, it will require a great deal of negotiated positions. On balance, though, white South Africa will be called upon to make greater adjustments to black needs than the other way round. This is an essential condition for a shift in white identity in which ”whiteness” can undergo an experiential transformation by absorbing new cultural experience as an essential condition for achieving a new sense of cultural rootedness. That is why every white South African should be proud to speak, read and write at least one African language, and be ashamed if they are not able to. This matter of rootedness is important. For example, from a black perspective, whatever the economic merits of the case, it is difficult not to see the transfer of capital to big Western stock exchanges as ”whiteness” delinking itself from the mire of its South African history, to explore opportunities of disengagement, where the home base is transformed into a satellite market revolving around powerful Western economies, to become a market to be exploited rather than a home to be served. This kind of ”flight of white capital” may represent white abandonment of responsibility towards the only history that can promise salvation to ”whiteness”. ”Whiteness” has a responsibility to demonstrate its bona fides in this regard. Where is the primary locus of responsibility for white capital, built over centuries with black labour and unjust laws?
A failure to come to terms with the morality of this question ensures the continuation of the culture of insensitivity and debilitating guilt. In the past ”whiteness” proclaimed its civilising mission in Africa. In reality, any advantages for black people, where they occurred, were an unintended result rather than an intended objective. A historic opportunity has arisen now for white South Africa to participate in a humanistic revival of our country through a readiness to participate in the process of redress and reconciliation. This is on the understanding that the ”heart of whiteness” will be hard put to reclaim its humanity without the restoration of dignity to the black body. We are all familiar with the global sanctity of the white body. Wherever the white body is violated in the world, severe retribution follows somehow for the perpetrators, if they are non-white, regardless of the social status of the white body. The white body is inviolable, and that inviolability is in direct proportion to the global vulnerability of the black body. This leads me to think that if South African whiteness is a beneficiary of the protectiveness assured by international whiteness, it has an opportunity to write a new chapter in world history. It will have to come out from under the umbrella and repudiate it. Putting itself at risk, it will have to declare that it is home now, sharing in the vulnerability of other compatriot bodies. South African whiteness will declare that its dignity is inseparable from the dignity of black bodies.
The collapse of ”white leadership” that would spearhead this process has been lamented. On second thought, perhaps this situation represents a singular opportunity. The collapse of ”white leadership” ought to lead to the collapse of the notion of ”black leadership”. Where there is no ”white leadership” to contest with ”black leadership” where these descriptions of leadership were a function of an outmoded politics of a racist state, we are left only with leaders to lead this country. There can be no more compelling argument than this, to urge for care and caution in addressing the issue of racism in the Southern tip of the African continent. The historic disintegration of ”white leadership” imposes immense responsibilities on how we frame notions of leadership in the resultant political space we are now inheriting. This way, the South African state is placed in a unique position to declare its obligations to all citizens. It should jealously and vigorously protect all bodies within its borders and beyond. Njabulo S Ndebele is principal and vice- chancellor at the University of Cape Town