Back in the Seventies and Eighties, old school friends and other whites of my acquaintance who were perturbed by my anti-apartheid activities would ask why I was ”giving my life up for the blacks”. I would explain that I wasn’t doing what I was doing ”for the blacks”, but for a society free of oppression and exploitation, a gentler, kinder society that was also concerned with the environment and with the rights of women and children.
Of course, for me as a South African, apartheid was the most obvious manifestation of all that I didn’t want in my world. Thus I joined the struggle.
However, though we have won the battle against apartheid, I don’t believe we have created a perfect society, nor indeed that any other country has ever done so. I think anyone who believes that the only issue of struggle in South Africa was apartheid has a very narrow understanding of the challenges facing our world.
We have, however, achieved an enormous amount to be immensely proud about. We have created the most progressive Constitution in the world that, together with the Freedom Charter, is there to guide us as we travel the challenging road of transformation. What we also have is a whole range of people who are committed to that Constitution and to the building of a new and better South Africa.
And it includes a significant number of progressive whites, including the so-called white left, who work in all three spheres of government in political office and as public servants, in the trade union movement and in a plethora of NGOs engaged in an infinite range of important social and economic issues. They would not, in my view, be among the white left that Raymond Suttner refers to in his article (”What happened to the white left?”, January 14).
While he poses a number of pertinent questions about the whereabouts of the white left in the post-apartheid years, he does not seek to define the white left and I sense Suttner may be referring to a broad grouping of activists who were white and opposed to apartheid, but may have ranged from radical liberals to communists.
I agree with him that there are white left activists who, for a variety of reasons, decided to withdraw from politics and from activism. But, as I have indicated, there are as many who did not and who are currently involved in a far greater range of activities in and outside of the government than before in their efforts to take forward our democratic project.
In his article, Suttner also argues that ”the notion of withdrawal from building the new South Africa is not an option for most black comrades, despite the pain many continue to bear”. However, I think it is true to say that there are many former activists of all colours who have, in our normalising society, decided to ”normalise” their lives by pursuing their own interests with a reduced involvement in formal politics. In some cases, they too have withdrawn out of a sense of disillusionment. But we should not be surprised — this is a common phenomenon in any post-conflict situation. And so I am puzzled by the singling out of the white left in this regard.
In his article Suttner cites ”a shrinking from Africanism” and a disappointment that ”expectations of freedom have not been met” as reasons for the apparent retreat of the white left. It should be remembered that the National Union of South African Students, a structure through which many of the white left learned their politics, promoted Africanisation as one of its key themes back in the 1980s. Perhaps the problem is that these concepts mean different things to different people.
Gcina Malindi, for example, in a passionate letter (January 21) in response to Suttner’s article, says he believes that there are elements in our society whose interpretation of Africanisation is that all significant positions must be occupied by black Africans and that this has meant the exclusion of whites, no matter how impeccable their anti-apartheid and left-wing credentials.
This has been the experience of some (not all) members of the white left but, though regrettable, such a process is surely to be expected in any period of transition in any previously divided society. I do believe, though, that this version of Africanisation is not hegemonic and that those with wisdom and vision in the African National Congress and in government will not allow this to become hegemonic. I also believe that there are broader, more positive and more inclusive notions of Africanism and Africanisation that are not based narrowly on skin colour.
As to people’s expectations of freedom not being met, my sense is that this is also not, as Suttner suggests, peculiar to the white left. I work in a predominantly black environment and I live in a predominantly black community. In both, I hear criticisms and expressions of disappointment. The dissatisfaction may, in some cases, be different to that expressed by some members of the white left, but it exists. Some critics are ANC members, others are not. Criticism of aspects of our society does not necessarily mean a wholesale rejection of the ANC, the government or the new South Africa, regardless of whether the critic is an ANC member or not.
The important thing — and here I agree fully with Suttner — is for the white left to continue to commit itself to the democratic project. They should, like everyone else, also accept and understand that not all their personal expectations will be met and that we will never achieve the perfect society. But we must continually strive towards that perfection.
I am employed in government, I am active in my community, I am involved in the ANC branch in my area, I am one of thousands of white lefties out there who have not disappeared. Let’s celebrate that.