Growing coloured perceptions of an African threat on the jobs and housing fronts in the Western Cape have been thrown into relief by new research on race relations in the province.
Tensions between black and coloured groups ebb and flow with pressure on social and economic resources, and the politics that plays on inter-group competition.
Always a theme of party politics, the issue of inter-group racism has been raised for discussion by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool in the lead-up to the provincial African National Congress conference, in what is a fairly daring move.
Coloureds make up well over half of the province’s population, Africans less than a third and whites about 20%. There is a strong element of coloured defensiveness, especially as affirmative action is perceived to promote specifically African interests.
The December 2004 round of the South African Reconciliation Barometer Survey, conducted by Markinor for the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, found that 66% of Cape Town’s coloured community believes the government does not care about people such as them. In the lowest income categories, this figure peaks at 86%.
Interestingly, fewer white Capetonians — 59% — share this perception about the government. Forty-nine percent of Africans feel the government does not care.
Such perceptions among coloureds in Cape Town, the group’s heartland, form a background to recent racial tensions over the moving of Africans, homeless after a shack settlement fire, to the Spes Bona hostel complex in predominantly coloured Athlone.
The reaction has been labelled racist, but cannot be wished away. It points to structural challenges that are ignored by the authorities at their, and our, peril.
Job security is a big issue: 35% of coloureds believe they may find themselves without a job by this time next year, while another 21% indicated that their employment prospects are uncertain.
Comparative census data point to a marked shift in education and the labour market. The percentage of Africans who finished high school in the Western Cape rose dramatically between the censuses to 54%, while those with higher qualifications increased equally, by 59%. These growth rates were not matched in the coloured community.
This suggests increased pressure of competition, especially at the low- and semi-skilled end of the job market. Under apartheid, these jobs were traditionally reserved for coloureds. The employment rate of Africans in these categories is not high, but the census shows that whereas 5% of all the clerks in the Western Cape were African in 1996, the figure had doubled to 11% five years later.
The equivalent figures for Africans in service sector positions increased from 19% to 25%. The implementation of the Employment Equity Act might have accelerated the process in recent years.
Our fieldwork suggests that many coloureds in the lower income groups feel they are under siege in the labour market — hence the commonly heard phrase: ”First we were not white enough, now we are not black enough.”
While seemingly insignificant in percentage terms, the rate of increase and the consequent sudden visibility in the workplace creates perceptions of African advancement based on racial favouritism rather than skill.
The Western Cape bureaucracy in Wale Street can provide credible statistics to suggest that job procurement is more equitable than it was in the past. But to a coloured worker 5km away in Salt River, the immediate factory environment may look totally different.
Feelings of marginalisation in the labour market may be multiplied by the perception that preferential service delivery is given to blacks. The pace and sheer extent of migration to Cape Town often requires urgent action to provide shelter and services to avert social crisis.
The draft Integrated Development Plan (IDP) of the Cape Metropolitan Council estimates that 48 000 poor people migrate annually to the city. According to the IDP, this translates to an additional 14 000 impoverished households that need housing and social service support each year.
All social services are overstretched. But according to the South Africa Reconciliation Barometer Survey, black and coloured groups are substantially satisfied with health, education and basic service delivery — while parting company dramatically over housing.
According to the survey, only 39% of coloured Capetonians give the government a positive evaluation for its efforts in housing provision. No less than 93% of Africans in the province are satisfied with the government’s efforts.
This perception may be derived from the government’s policy focus on housing residents of informal settlements and may be reinforced by the continued racialised nature of Cape Town’s neighbourhoods. While the authorities should be lauded for their commitment to improving quality of life, the implementation of their programmes may in fact fuel tensions.
The logic of building houses in the same racially spatialised areas creates such perceptions. The government should target new urban housing projects at neutral spaces, leading to the emergence of communities that are integrated in race and class terms, with equitable facilities that can grow organically.
Here multiracial communities could grow together, endowed with symbolism, landmarks and monuments that do not speak of domination or cultural threat. Such a policy would also have a profound effect on how Capetonians view each other in the workplace.
Cheryl Hendricks and Jan Hofmeyr are researchers with the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, which produces the South African Reconciliation Barometer