As I write this article, I am struck by the thought that it was exactly 90 years ago in June that race became a legal determinant of whether a person had a right to land in South Africa.
I was born into this reality 43 years later and so it remained for another 38 years until the advent of democracy in 1994. I see the scars it has left on members of my extended family who remain trapped in some of the most desolate parts of our country. For what it’s worth, I belong to the lucky side of the family who managed to find their way to the gold mines of Johannesburg. But even here, my grandparents and my father did not pass the race test, and were bundled out of Fietas and relocated to Orlando East, where I was born.
One newspaper’s editorial recently referred to the 1913 Land Act as ” the most brutal, most protracted and all-pervasive legislated system of [racial] discrimination that the world has yet seen …” This and a litany of other racist laws were to constitute what defined South Africa until 1994. So how can anyone hope, let alone try, to convince the majority of South Africans that racialism is not an issue?
Of course, it is no longer the law of the land, but the writers of our Constitution understood the depth to which racialism could ensconce itself in the recesses of people’s subconscious minds. From those depths, it has from time to time found opportunity to express itself in ways that may not always be obvious and at other times has assumed violent and abusive dimensions. It is no surprise, therefore, that the preamble and founding provisions to the Constitution proceed by recognising the scourge of racial discrimination in our country’s history. It recognises ”the injustices of the past” and believes that South Africa belongs ”to all who live in it, united in our diversity”.
All that 1994 did was provide us with the rules of the road as we march towards a vision of non-racialism and non-sexism. This is the dream of most South Africans and has been the basis on which the struggle has been fought for generations. The struggle did not end with the laudable declarations of Kempton Park, but heralded the beginning of a more daunting chapter of our transition to democracy.
Non-racialism cannot survive as a principle and/or desired state if it is a value that is espoused only by those who were victims of racial oppression. It is as important that those who benefited from our historical misfortune are responsive to the essential principles of the new dispensation.
This responsiveness should not be tokenism nor should it be used as an opportunistic ploy to gain access to lucrative contracts or to dupe prospective voters.
At the height of the conflict during the Eighties and Nineties the United Democratic Front remained unshaken in its commitment to this ideal. Its ”call to whites” campaign sought to communicate the message that ours was not an anti-white struggle and that they also had a future in post-apartheid South Africa. These were no platitudes, this was a strategic position based on an objective understanding of the historical forces that were shaping the future of our country.
Understandably in the course of the struggle there were those from the camp of the oppressed who would sooner ”drive the oppressors into the sea” than admit the prospect of a common future. But visionary leaders of the calibre of Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela taught us that our struggle was not against the whites per se, but against a system of racial discrimination and domination. This was a forward-looking view that was damn difficult for the progressive forces to champion and defend. Mandela stuck to these principles even when he was faced with the prospect of a death sentence for treason.
I believed in this view (and still do), as did many of my compatriots, even though we were detained, tortured, jailed, exiled and some were even killed for our commitment.
Oh, how I wish I could say it was all a bad dream and all I needed to do was wake up for it to be gone. But the reality is that 10 years after great declarations were made at Kempton Park, our generation still faces the responsibility of exorcising deeply rooted manifestations of racialism from South Africa. To do this we have to fully appreciate the nature of the problem. We have to come to terms with the extent of social fragmentation it has occasioned and the debilitating effect it has had on public attitudes.
While we have made significant advances in overhauling the political superstructure there can be no escaping the stark fact that our socio-economic paradigm is still, in some respects, feeding off its racially constructed framework.
The implication is that de-racialising all areas of economic activity must be approached with greater urgency.
It would, therefore, seem to me that the need to proceed expeditiously with the transformation agenda requires a leadership that does not shy away from difficult issues that threaten our young democracy.
It has never been suggested that reversing more than 300 years of racially defined political and economic relations would be easy. Look at the brazenness with which neo-fascist groups around the world are spewing their racist venom. We cannot be complacent. We have to make it extremely uncomfortable for anyone with even the slightest disposition towards racialism to live in South Africa. Leaders of political parties with traditionally white constituencies have an equal responsibility to de-racialise the mindsets of their support bases. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations.
Those of us who were once underdogs have to guard against vindictiveness. We have to understand that a sustainable future cannot be built on anger and hatred. Our belief in the basic tenets of the Freedom Charter ensured a magnanimous victory that defined our unique transition to democracy. Our leaders have remained steadfast in the conviction, codified in the charter, that ”South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white”.
Armed with this conviction, we delivered millions of South Africans over two elections. They understood the message. I say this while fully appreciating that the inculcation of a non-racial ethos in our country cannot be an event or a phrase in the Constitution. It has to be fought for if it is to find a place in the South African consciousness. The occasional newspaper article on the subject is not adequate enough to deal with a subject that has been a feature of South African life for more than 300 years.
It is one thing to argue for non-racialism from a genuine commitment to the ideal. It is another, and an aberration, to do so out of opportunism with the sole purpose of driving a wedge between the ruling party and its support base. The latter bears the hallmark of cynicism that South Africa does not need at this juncture in its evolution. Political expediency is a reckless and dangerous enterprise.
It is increasingly difficult these days to find anybody who admits that they supported apartheid and the same applies to racialism. I am not a scientist or a psychoanalyst, but I have a reasonable ability to sniff out racist attitudes even when they are heavily disguised. The problem is that when racialism is dressed up its carriers are often unaware of it. Racialism is often like an odourless, colourless poison — insidious but deadly. When it comes in this guise it has the propensity to be patronising and self-righteous while seeking to advance itself for selfish ends. It is this form that evokes the greatest reaction from among those who wake up to its insidious machinations.
South Africans have no alternative but to continue engaging each other on the issue of race. This should be done in a non-threatening way, of course, so that discourse remains open and fearless. If we do not, the issue will go the same way as that of HIV/Aids — spoken about in hushed tones only to emerge as an issue when it is already too late.
Murphy Morobe is the chairman and CEO of the Financial and Fiscal Commission