Yunus Carrim, an ANC MP in the National Assembly, jumps into the debate on Africanism which has recently surfaced again
Current debates about “Africanism” in the African National Congress cannot be separated from wider debates about the “national question” in South Africa today. And debates about the “national question” are crucially linked to debates about the nature of our overall transition; the one mirrors the other.
What does non-racialism mean in practice today? What is the value of the notion of a “rainbow nation”? How do class and gender relate to nation-building? How does affirmative action fit into nation- building?
In what senses is it still useful to link coloureds and Indians with Africans collectively as “blacks”, and in what senses is it useful to understand coloureds and Indians as “minorities”? How does provincialism impact on nation-building? What about the increasing xenophobia among South Africans?
These questions are being addressed against a background of understanding that the ethnic and racial identities of
the apartheid era cannot be attributed solely to the state’s social engineering
and that their resilience in new forms poses enormous challenges to the emergence of a broader South African national identity.
Given the ANC’s “broad church” character – including its range of ethnic, racial and class groupings, and differences in historical tradition – it is inevitable that there will be differences on the nature of the national question.
It is also understandable, in view of the legacy of the past and complexities of the present, that competition for positions, turf, material reward and hegemony of ideas will also, at times, assume ethnic and racial forms. Can one expect otherwise?
Within the ANC there are both abstract non- racialists who do not sufficiently acknowledge cultural identities, and those who tend to over-emphasise these identities. In between is a middle ground that seeks to ask: how can we provide space for the expression of people’s multiple identities in a way that fosters national unity?
In terms of this approach there is
nothing inherently conflictual between asserting African leadership and non- racialism. And while affirmative action is for all blacks, since Africans constitute the vast majority and are, in general, the most deprived, it is inevitably mainly Africans who will be its prime beneficiaries – in a way that also includes poor coloureds and Indians, and eventually whites.
It is recognised that ultimately affirmative action is not about race, but about need – and the rich of whatever colour will have to contribute to the development of the poor, regardless of colour.
While the nation-building process must reflect the culture, values and interests of all our people, it must, in the long term, reflect primarily that of the African working class and its allies – in a way that provides space for the expression of a multiplicity of identities that are reconcilable with it.
In this context, to focus on the numbers of non-Africans in leadership positions in the ANC, the government and other areas of society is useful but not enough. It can be misleading. Non-Africans are prominent in the ANC and government, not dominant.
This prominence is transitory. Most non- Africans serve primarily African
constituencies. Those in key leadership positions are often there because of their contribution to the struggle as a whole.
For example, Minister of Communications Jay Naidoo emerges from a trade union background and Minister of Transport Mac Maharaj from the armed and underground political struggles. They
are not specifically representing the Indian community of Chatsworth. (This does not mean that they should not do more to win this community over to the ANC.)
It is not just a question of focusing on the racial composition of ANC MPs, but more fundamentally, the direct accountability of MPs to voters. Through multi-party consensus, an appropriate combination of a constituency and list system of elections can, in future, be devised that will partly address any undue racial and ethnic imbalances.
In other words, the legitimate concerns of those identified as Africanists can be addressed without challenging the ANC’s non-racialism.
An approach that emphasises mainly African and working-class leadership and content to nation-building can serve to enrich non- racialism, and has to be distinguished from a narrow exclusivist Africanism that does not serve the cause of fundamental transformation in this country.
But even this latter approach, fuelled by the limited pace of the transition, is a legitimate current within the ANC. It must be engaged with, rather than denied. The answer to it is certainly not an abstract non-racialism that obscures the racial and class realities of the present.
The national question must rather be given a content that serves to transform South Africa in the interests of primarily the poor and disadvantaged, of all South Africans.