Wilmot James
Nelson Mandela had an interesting response, in 1978, to the black consciousness movement’s attitude to the Afrikaans language. For those of us old enough to remember those days, we may recall there was considerable objection to the use of Afrikaans even among those who spoke it fluently, and including many having Afrikaans as their moedertaal.
”In dealing with a question of this nature,” Mandela wrote, ”we must learn to think with our brains and not with our blood. The [black consciousness movement’s] approach is emotional and far from objective.”
Mandela went on to say: ”Afrikaans is also the language of a substantial section of the country’s blacks, and any attempts to deprive them of the use of their language would be dangerous. It is the home language of 95% of the coloured population and is used by Indians as well, especially in the country dorps of the Transvaal. It is also widely spoken by the African youth in the urban areas, and to tamper with their medium of expression will finally drive them into the opposition camp. Even if only Afrikaners spoke the language it would still be unwise to abolish it.
”Language is the highest manifestation of social unity in the history of mankind and it is the inherent right of each given group of people to use their language without restriction. Not only would its abolition be out of step with progressive developments in the enlightened world, but also it would be inviting endless strife. The question of minority rights has been of major concern to progressive forces throughout history and has often led to sudden and violent strife from the aggrieved community. Today [in 1978] South Africa has almost three million Afrikaners who will no longer be oppressors after liberation but a powerful minority of ordinary citizens whose cooperation and goodwill be required in the reconstruction of the country.”
This is a fascinating and quite extraordinary passage. It is a point of view developed long before our negotiations started and a full 16 years prior to Mandela taking on as president the nation-building project started in 1994, now, regrettably, dissipating. The point I wish to dwell on is the public responsibilities of majorities and minorities in a perhaps renewed effort at nation-building in the difficult era of globalisation.
You will recall that whites were persuaded to participate in a democratic solution to our impasse of the 1980s by surrendering exclusive access to political power in exchange for keeping everything they had accumulated in assets (property and wealth) over a long period, in a system loaded in their favour.
The consequence of this history is that real changes in living standards of black and coloured people could occur only with market-based reforms in state spending and administrative actions.
Reformist change within market constraints could proceed only with high levels of economic growth, beyond the 6% minumum specified by growth, equity and redistribution standards. We have not achieved even 3%.
The result is a budget, great at achieving macro-economic stability and fiscal balance, poor at making a real difference to the lives of the poor. The pressure from below is therefore on, government increasingly lacks the ability to persuade black and coloured people to lower their expectations and, instead, shifts the blame towards whites and, quietly, the Indian commercial classes, as greedy, exploiting, acquisitive classes sans conscience.
The truth is that the great compromise of 1990 compromised the democratic government’s capacity, try as it may with the best of intentions in this globalised post-cold war period, to rapidly empower the huge poor population of this nation beyond its horizons of misery.
Change will come, but it will be slow, it will be a struggle, it will be class divisive and we all better face up to it with our heads and not our blood in a manner that keeps this nation of communities together.
We all know that the truth commission achieved much but failed to mobilise the consciences of the many individuals who wielded the political power of apartheid. By this I do not mean the faceless aggregates. I mean the individuals who made the political decisions, like PW Botha and Magnus Malan. These were the people who should have taken responsibility for apartheid, for indeed they were responsible.
There were, though, many individuals mostly white, but also African, coloured and Indian and it is therefore a banal crudity to reduce such awesome responsibility to a simple moral division. We should not suspend our analytical rigour and theoretical sophistication what happened, by the way, to the theory of collaboration? and think with our blood rather than with our head, as Mandela put it so powerfully.
There is room for charity in this society. I suspect that the Home for All campaign, and the white apology on which it is built, is a promise of white charity to black. If that is so, then say it. It’s fine.
This is an edited extract of a brief address by Wilmot James, associate editor of the Cape Argus, at a public meeting on ”White Guilt and White Apology: Does It Matter?” at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa Cape Town office on March 6