Many liberal white South Africans are suffering identity crises. After 10 years of democracy they are asking themselves whether they’ve come through the rigours of transformation with their principles intact. Answer these 14 questions honestly and see where you stand.
1) If Tony Leon, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Eugene Terre’Blanche were travelling in an aeroplane that was about to crash, to whom would you give the only parachute?
(a) Tony Leon
(b) Marthinus van Schalkwyk
(c) Manto Tshabalala-Msimang
(d) Eugene Terre’Blanche
(e) The previously disadvantaged pilot
2) In which of the two following ways would you describe the recent hostage-taking in Beslan, Russia?
(a) As a result of insensitive political handling of the delicate situation in Chechnya, some freedom-fighters had no option but to create a situation in which, unfortunately, a few younger people were put at risk
(b) A group of sub-human religious obsessives planned for and cold-bloodedly murdered 200 children
3) Where did Snuki Zikalala gain his doctorate in philosophy?
(a) Witwatersrand University
(b) South Dakota Degrees-by-Return-of-Mail College
(c) Bulgaria State University
(d) The Market Theatre
4) When did you last visit Soweto unaccompanied by an armed police escort?
(a) In 1968 to pick up some new songs and dances for Ipi Tombi
(b) As an army reservist during the 1976 riots
(c) When you got blind drunk at an Alberton launch party and set off in the direction of Durban
5) What fundamental emotion is triggered in you by the term ‘black empowerment”?
(a) Fear and trembling
(b) Feelings of inner warmth tempered by faint anxiety about the resale value of your house
(c) Panic that your British passport doesn’t have the right of residence stamped in it
6) Into which of the following classifications does Nadine Gordimer fit?
(a) Well-meaning northern suburbs housewife
(b) The authentic voice of black suffering under apartheid
(c) An egregious carpetbagger
7) What would be your primary reaction if you found yourself being hijacked by white criminals?
(a) Overwhelming feeling of surprise
(b) Overwhelming feeling of relief
(c) Overwhelming feeling of disappointment at an obvious failure of affirmative action
8) After a trip overseas you arrive back to find the corner of the suburb in which you live has been isolated behind road booms. What do you decide do do?
(a) Put your house on the market because you don’t want to live in a racist suburb
(b) Put your house on the market because the installation of the booms have raised its value by 20%
(c) Phone up Derek Watts
9) You look out of your window one morning to see that a black woman is reading your electricity meter. What do you do?
(a) Rush out to make sure she’s writing down the numbers correctly
(b) Invite her in for tea and cakes
(c) Try to bribe her
(d) Call your neighbourhood security company
10) How many plastic coat-hangers do you own?
(a) Fewer that 10
(b) More than 10 but less than 50
(c) More than 50 but less than 100
(d) None
11) What term do you use to refer to the first president of democratic South Africa?
(a) Mr Mandela
(b) The Father of our Nation
(d) Madiba
(e) Winnie’s ex-husband
(f) What’s-his-name
12) At dinner parties how do you refer to the female employee who cleans your house, does the laundry, makes the beds, prepares and cooks food, baby-sits the children, does the ironing and generally runs the home?
(a) Our maid
(b) Our kitchen girl
(c) Our valued domestic worker
13) On what grounds do you pay your valued domestic worker no more than the legal minimum rate?
(a) Because paying her more will make you unpopular with other homeowners
(b) Because you add plenty of payment in kind, like giving her second-hand clothing, bread that’s gone stale and letting her use the iron for personal work
(c) Because she uses the phone when you’re out
(d) Because she steals
(14) You are driving late at night down a lonely road that passes a squatter camp. It is mid-winter, icy cold. Your car is rocked by a vicious wind and the rain hammers down. Your headlights pick out a figure hobbling down the side of the road. The figure gesticulates weakly at you to stop. As you get closer you see it’s an elderly and pitifully thin black woman trying to lug a huge suitcase with one bony hand. Clinging to her other hand is a tiny one-legged child dressed in rags who appears to be racked by violent coughing. What do you do?
(a) Stop and pick them up
(b) Gesticulate to indicate that you are turning off soon
(c) Slow down a bit so that you don’t splash them too much
(d) Stare straight ahead as if you haven’t seen them
Scoring: A pure white liberal South African will have answered (in order): e, a, d, c, b, b, c, c, b, b, d, c, b, c.
Anything less than that and you are advised to contact Humans Right for Lawyers for counselling.