Conservative whites lack the cohesive political leadership that is necessary to lead them beyond the laager of exclusion Charles Villa-Vicencio ‘Every time a white person speaks in this conference, another white stands up and says he or she is not speaking for me.” An observation made at the recent racism conference in Sandton. At Stellenbosch University the question was asked concerning the identity of present-day Volksleiers. There were clearly no obvious names and certainly no consensus on the matter. “Afrikaners have never really been united,” observed someone. “The difference is that now we don’t even have any obvious contending leaders,” observed another. And, what about die Engelse? Again, no obvious answer.
The marriage of convenience or companionship that constitutes the Democratic Alliance is unlikely to ever provide any more than a temporary shelter for an alienated white minority plus a few anderkleuriges.
Perhaps that is the good news. Whites are divided and so non-racism has a chance. All that is needed now is for the ruling (largely black) alliance to splinter so that we can have serious political debate among parties comprising all the colours of the rainbow nation. This constitutes the “enlightened” wisdom at most white dinner parties. The less “enlightened” counsel offered on such occasions is a mixture of “get the hell out of here” and “brace yourself for worse to come”. If, however, whites desire a place in the sun for themselves and their children it is necessary to engage boldly in non-racial politics. The heady days of black consciousness offered a different kind of wisdom. It was essentially that each group ought to work out its own salvation – to work among its own and to liberate itself. This was essentially a strategy or process. The goal was never racist. It was a way of working towards a time in the future, when we will all find one another in a genuine non- racist society. The attainment of universal suffrage has partly realised this, while many lament the fading of the rainbow. Antjie Krog has called for a “white prince of reconciliation” – the white equivalent of Nelson Mandela or Desmond Tutu. (Maybe a princess?)
The need is for a genre of white political leadership that is able to take a white population that, to borrow the words of Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, is “rife with racial stereotyping, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, entitlement, victimology and arrogance” into the new era. FW de Klerk on two notable, but often forgotten, occasions showed this kind of leadership. The one was when, in the face of huge political opposition, he allowed the first legal march in Cape Town in September 1989. This was in many ways a braver gesture than his February 2 1990 speech. The nation and the world demanded the latter. If, like his predecessor, he too failed to cross the Rubicon, the consequences would indeed have been too ghastly to contemplate. The other was after Andries Beyers won the Potchefstroom by-election for the Conservative Party in March 1992. In the face of severe opposition from within his own party, De Klerk presented whites with an irrevocable choice in the form of a referendum. The nation accepted the challenge and voted for negotiations. The rest is history. But in so doing, to quote Leon Wessels, he “used all his credits” with the majority of Afrikaners. In the months that followed, he failed not only to fulfil the expectations of blacks
but lost the support of many conservative whites. General Constand Viljoen, in turn, served the nation by preventing a coup d’etat on the eve of the first democratic elections
and taking the Freedom Front into the elections. He too has since probably used all his credits and today finds himself leading a party that is unlikely to follow him in any further imaginative moves. A great leader is one who is able to take his or her people beyond where they are instinctively ready to go. Few survive beyond the initial break-through. There is the story of Sir Winston Churchill in the wake of World War II, General Jan Smuts in 1948 and Mikhail Gorbachev who saw his philosophy of perestroika fall victim to the reactionary capitalism of Boris Yeltsin.
Who then will lead conservative whites beyond the laager of exclusion? Some are self-confessed racists. Then there are the more genteel and sophisticated, recalcitrant whites (often English- speaking) who are perhaps less ready to embrace a future in this country than are many Afrikaners. Saki Macozoma, writing in a recent edition of the Financial Mail, speaks of great societies being held together by some kind of an “intangible but powerful force”. We need to build a South African dream that transcends difference without denying diversity. But, yes, it will probably take an Afrikaner to bring the Afrikaner to the party and a white to mobilise the broad cross-section of whites “who cannot agree among themselves”. In their better moments whites realise the need to help forge and join a non-racial future. The question is how? They know there is no alternative, except for “getting the hell out of here”, and this is an option not all are ready to embrace and few can afford. Nervous whites need leaders who are close enough to them to understand their fears, because they themselves experience these anxieties – and far enough ahead to lead them into a different kind of dispensation. There is no obvious such leader on the horizon at present. So, there is something to be said for whites to start talking among themselves with a view to dealing with their fears, sense of victimisation, psychological defeat and lack of political organisation.
It involves a different kind of white consciousness. It is a consciousness that must be worked out in relation to and in conversation with black South Africans. Deputy president Jacob Zuma, in closing the racism conference, quoted the strong words of Albert Luthuli: “The task is not finished: somewhere ahead there beckons a civilisation, a culture – It will not necessarily be all black, but it will be African.” Words worth pondering. Dr Charles Villa-Vicencio is executive director at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation