Laurie Nathan takes Frederik van Zyl Slabbert
to task for trying to sweep our racist past
under the carpet
FREDERIK VAN ZYL Slabbert’s article on the
Barney Pityana-Dennis Davis debate and the
Professor William Makgoba crisis at Wits
University was a great disappointment (April 4
to 11). Instead of offering new insights on
managing racial tension, he dismisses the two
events as ”political farce” and ”much ado
about nonsense”.
Slabbert finds it depressing that ”those who
were nursing grievances, hate or guilt rushed
forward to pour out their passions in public”.
He had hoped that ”the whole point about our
transition was to get away from this kind of
political theatre”.
Slabbert’s position reflects a denial of the
significance of racial oppression and its
long-term material and psychological
consequences. A mere two years after the
transition to democracy, we are somehow
expected to put aside the pain, anger and
prejudice generated over decades.
This expectation is entirely unrealistic. More
seriously, denying the lasting impact of
apartheid on the white and black communities
is counter-productive. It is more likely to
fuel than defuse racial tension.
Ethnic and religious groups which are
subjected to massive, systematic repression
will be affected for generations. Just as the
trauma of the Holocaust remains imprinted on
the psyche of Jews, so the trauma of apartheid
is an integral part of the consciousness of
black South Africans.
The anguish associated with that trauma is
expressed publicly in different ways: from the
testimonies of witnesses before the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, to the petitions of
people forcibly removed from their land, to
the angry voices of Makgoba, Pityana and
others.
By describing these voices as ”boringly
familiar and totally unoriginal”, Slabbert
belittles the history of brutality and
humiliation which gives rise to them. His
position is likely to be derided by blacks as
the product of a privileged life.
Of course, I cannot speak for black people.
But I can say with certainty that Jews view
criticism of their abiding agony over the
Holocaust as anti-Semitic. Groups which have
been oppressed because of their ethnicity or
religion will debate among themselves the most
appropriate way of coping with their
experience, but they are not amused when
outsiders tell them to calm down and move on.
Slabbert is equally dismissive of the problem
of white racism. He concedes that ”some”
whites may be racist, but then this may also
be true of ”some Muslim fundamentalists and
black ecologists with wandering squints”.
Whites who seek to confront the problem are
scorned as ”pale-faced ululaters [who]
prostrated themselves with self-
flagellating confessions of primordial guilt”.
Is Slabbert seriously suggesting that racism
was not drummed into us from childhood? That
any single individual did not absorb that
prejudice? Or that the prejudice suddenly
evaporated with the election of a new
government?
Today one is hard-pressed to find a white
person who admits to having supported
apartheid. The truth of the matter is that
whites, almost without exception, benefited
immensely from that system. Only a tiny
minority opposed apartheid, and then mostly in
conditions of relative safety and comfort.
In any event, white racism is alive and
kicking. It no longer takes the form of
legislated political domination, but it
continues to manifest itself in crude and
subtle ways. The most insidious is the
assumption that white values are universal
and, by implication, superior to those of
other groups.
For example, Slabbert strongly opposes
Makgoba’s notion of transforming Wits to
capture the ”African essence” of a university.
Without referring to any specific proposition
advanced by Makgoba, he rejects as general
”nonsense” the ”idea that a university should
reflect some political, religious, cultural,
or racial/ethnic essence”.
Implicit in this stance is the idealistic
notion that a university can have a universal,
culture-free essence. What is this essence and
who defines it?
While certain technical standards may be
broadly accepted across cultures, standards
which have to do with values and concepts are
contested. Religious, ethnic and national
groups have significantly different
perspectives on teaching, learning and the
broader stuff of philosophy and politics:
freedom, equality, justice, etc.
This diversity and contest of perspectives
makes for vibrant, dynamic universities and
societies. The problem only arises when one
group imposes its views on the rest. Precisely
because this occurred during the apartheid
era, as Slabbert acknowledges, our campuses
are engaged in a heated struggle to redefine
their mission and character.
Yet Slabbert trivialises this struggle,
referring to Wits as a ”smaller, lesser-known
venue in the large scheme of things”. He
ignores the relationship between racism and
power, and the fact that power is exercised at
many levels. White domination has been
eliminated in the political arena, but it
still prevails at an economic level and in
forums like universities and the media which
inform the ideas and debates of broader
society.
At the heart of Slabbert’s argument is a
strong antipathy to ”generic racial
labelling”. I share that concern. Broad
generalisations ignore the rich diversity that
exists within groups; they undermine the
integrity of indiviiduals and the significance
of individual choice; and they lead us down
the slippery slope of racial stereotyping,
bigotry, hate speech and worse.
Nevertheless, I have deliberately used the
generic terms ”white” and ”black” throughout
this article. This distinction, manipulated
though not created by apartheid, has shaped
our institutions, neighbourhoods, thinking and
behaviour in countless, profound ways.
The identity of individuals is moulded by
their association, through birth or choice,
with a particular religious, ethnic or
national group. Their sense of group identity
may be strong or weak, but it is inevitably
heightened when, as under apartheid, they are
privileged or persecuted because of that
association.
A healthy multicultural society will not be
built by suddenly becoming colour-blind,
oblivious to the difference between, say,
Venda and Jewish cultures, or the African and
coloured communities. It will only be built by
acknowledging and learning to respect and
value these differences.
Whites who interpret this article to mean that
they should become passive and sycophantic
have misunderstood the nature of the
challenge. The challenge is to become self-
critical, not uncritical; to acquire some
humility, not be submissive; to become
empathetic, not paternalistic; and to accept
responsibility for our past, not wallow in
guilt.
We have to confront our own racism, stare our
history and its long shelf-life in the face,
and appreciate the necessity for acts of
atonement. This would surely be more
instructive, if not more productive, than
engaging in acts of denial.
Laurie Nathan is the executive director of the
Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of
Cape Town