One of the most striking developments around the race row over the past week was the intervention of the Group of 63, a wide range of Afrikaners from conservatives to anti-apartheid figures such as Breyten Beytenbach, concerned by the defeatist attitude by some of the old Afrikaner establishment on the language and cultural issue.
It was in effect a case of a “broedertwis” being abandoned in recognition that there was an enemy at the door, threatening not just the “broeders” but their family and home. In that reaction is to be discovered the cement of our nation – the notion of a greater identity which once upon a time would have been described as patriotism. It is a sense of identity which does not crush other identities of community, but binds them together. A recent expression of that greater identity was the hymn of praise a couple of weeks ago from the African National Congress national representative Smuts Ngonyama to the national rugby and cricket teams. “From where I was seated, I was overwhelmed by the exuberance and excitement of the fans, who, right from the singing of the national anthem, displayed a sense of unity known only by South Africans,” he declared of the Springboks. “They sang and cheered with one voice and danced with one rhythm to the beautiful runs of the likes of my favourite player Robby Fleck as they cut through the All Blacks like a hot knife through butter. This is one sport you have to go to to understand what new and true South African patriotism is.” White and black South Africa has been like a married couple who have allowed their frustrations to boil over into open quarrel, in the heat of which the words have long since lost their meaning. It is incumbent on ourselves to recognise how pointless and increasingly self- destructive this quarrel has become and to put the issue aside. Not to let it fester in denial, but to give us time to go back over the quarrel. We need to recognise that, whatever the rights and wrongs, a resentment does exist which needs be addressed. But we also need to recognise that it is an issue which arises from the past and, whatever its legitimacy, it must stand aside while we deal with the challenges posed by the present and the immediate future. When monsters such as the Aids plague are knocking at the front door it is no time to be squabbling over the family history of the beasts. Who knows, but in that truce it might be discovered that the real gulfs which divide us are not the happenstance of pigmentation, but between the healthy and the ill, between the rich and the poor and between men and women of goodwill and those lacking it. Leave John Robbie alone Strange, is it not, how weak the strong can be. The African National Congress is in government with a two-thirds majority; it controls every commanding height and upper slope of the state bureaucracy; and it justifiably prides itself in being a liberation movement which survived 82 years of struggle to win the victory its constituency expected of it. Yet the ANC leadership cannot take criticism. A strong word spoken against it does not cause ANC leaders a bout of introspection; severe criticism does not stimulate them to take issue with a critic on the merits of an issue; and a serious difference of views does not prompt them to celebrate the existence of what they claimed to be fighting for: democracy. Instead, the ANC leadership wants to shut up its critics or deprive them of a hearing. Evidently, somewhere in the recesses of ANC leaders’ collective mind, buried under dusty piles of pious platitudes about their belief in freedom, is the notion that no one should criticise the ANC; and, worse, that no one should dare to criticise it. The latest example of this shameful behaviour is the attack on John Robbie of Radio 702. On Tuesday evening, Robbie gave Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang hell for evading simple questions about the cruel shambles that is this government’s policy on HIV/Aids. She deserved nothing less. To protect a president’s delusion, she has lent her voice and professional respectability to a mad fight against best science that is costing thousands of lives, causing unimaginable suffering and wasting the country millions of rands. Robbie showed up not just the absurdity of Tshabalala-Msimang’s position, but also her disregard for Aids sufferers that was evident in her failure even to defend it. For this, Robbie is now under the ANC’s cosh. The ANC has called on Robbie to resign – or for Radio 702 to sack him. And we hear that the ANC’s politically muscle- bound commissars have started piling the pressure on Primedia, 702’s owners, to ensure the latter result. Primedia must not give in. If any resigning or firing is in order, Tshabalala-Msimang is the appropriate candidate. Robbie is an outstanding radio presence which this country – all of us, that is, except feeble, humourless people – enjoy and need. If the ANC leadership thinks Robbie is a problem, just wait until they meet the fury of the millions whose futures they are destroying with their mad HIV/Aids policy.