The responses to this week’s bombings were predictable. Political parties condemned in the strongest possible terms the wanton destruction that accompanied the bombings. The police told us, with absolute bravado, that they knew who the bombers were and vowed that it was only a matter of time before they would have them behind bars. Afrikaner organisations used the opportunity to score political points by warning the government that if it did not take this ethnic group’s concerns seriously, pent up frustrations would result in more violence by extremist groups.
And then there were the dismissive comments from all round that those perpetrators were a lunatic fringe with no potential at all to overthrow the democratic order.
That, however, is exactly the problem.
It is the very fact that these people are a fringe minority with no capacity to overthrow the government that makes them all the more dangerous. Their impotence frustrates them and makes them want to carry out the type of attacks that rocked Gauteng this week.
The worst mistake, therefore, will be to write them off and giggle at their antics.
The question we have to ask ourselves is how this species has managed to survive, eight years into the democratic era. Once we are able to answer that question honestly we will be able to work out ways to deal with what is becoming a real and dangerous threat to the peace we believed we had attained.
An inevitable consequence of our transition was that it resulted in some communities believing they had become casualties of change. These “casualties” were mostly those who parasitically fed off the apartheid system and could not survive without the privilege of being propped up by the state. There are others who would have moved up the hierarchy of the apartheid state machinery and, when democracy arrived, lost the status they did not deserve in the first place. And there were those who could not bear the prospect of their language and culture being put on an equal plane with what they perceived to be backward and barbaric equivalents.
These are the rejectionists who conspire in the dead of night to perform dastardly deeds. While some among them do believe that they can return South Africa to minority rule, most of them are just content with disrupting normal life.
Once we have got over the condemnations and posturing about the the bombings, we have to find a way to permanently kill this virus.
The short-term solution is obviously to arrest and jail those who are involved in treasonous conspiracy. We are a constitutional state with a functioning criminal justice system and a legislative framework to deal with all forms of criminality. The police and other arms of the security establishment have already infiltrated the right-wing network, leading to the arrests of leaders and operatives and to the foiling of some of their plans.
But there is a longer term and more difficult task that faces the authorities and the nation. It is the continued management of the political process in such a way that it feels inclusive.
The resurgence of right-wing activity is due to the fact that Afrikaners — incorrectly — feel that they are being marginalised in this country. As unpalatable as this might be to an African National Congress that spent the first five years of its rule reassuring whites that doomsday would never come, it has a duty to keep explaining some obvious facts to the worried Afrikaners: they are not an endangered species.
In this the ruling party will have to be assisted by the leadership of the Afrikaner community, who can produce evidence to show that the post-apartheid era has actually seen the fortunes of Afrikaners rise. As Rembrandt founder Anton Rupert has pointed out, the transition to democracy liberated Afrikaners to be themselves and released the entrepreneurial energies and skills of many who would have otherwise relied on an overprotective nanny state to care for them. They need to be made to realise that the loss of political power has, ironically, enabled Afrikaners to grow their share of the economy, where real power lies. Their language and culture, stripped of their oppressive image, have also found legitimacy and acceptance in the broader African community.
But this reassurance will not reap the desired results as long as some political parties, organisations and leaders continue to beat the drums of negativity and convince white South Africans that this country is not working.
As much as it is necessary for opposition parties to criticise the government’s mistakes, shortcomings and failures, it is irresponsible to do so in such as way that reinforces negative perceptions about South Africa.
It may not be their intention, but it is the environment of negativity that encourages extremists to fight back.