A faulty perception persists among black people that environmental issues are, at best, a matter for bored white liberals who have too much time at their disposal.
At worst, the same whites are seen as bitter because employment equity and BEE now allows insolent darkies to drive around in large, gas-guzzling 4x4s, when the apartheid superstructure was hell-bent on keeping them poor.
I am sure there are whites who don’t like the fact that blacks now have access to these things, just as there are men who think the new order just gives too much power to women. Well, folks, tough!
But in our contemporary thinking, it may serve us well to note that when the oldest liberation movement on the continent, the ANC, adopted its black, green and gold colours in 1925, it put environmental issues squarely on the agenda.
In that simple gesture they articulated what and who the issues and victims were. Black was for the people who were oppressed by a white minority regime, gold was for the resources (and one of the main reasons for colonialisation). By choosing green to reflect the land, the organisation put the spotlight on the most obvious symbol of black people’s landlessness in the country of their birth and ancestry. Izwe Lethu! (the land is ours) became the battle cry of the Pan-Africanist Congress after its breakaway from the ANC.
Unfortunately, apart from a few activists fighting for land restitution, the formerly oppressed think that as long as they have title deeds, it is not their business to protect the land.
While one accepts that land redistribution is still far from satisfactory, there remains a responsibility to use what we have properly.
Instead of unemotionally appraising the role of someone like Paul Kruger (who, in 1898, put the land between the Sabie and Crocodile rivers under the protection of Nature Conservation), we argue about whether his statue should be at the gate of a most precious heritage site.
Kruger’s actions ensured that the present generation of Africans would know how their ancestors lived. Yet, when so-called development projects ignore the dire impact they have on the environment, such as the building of a 2010 stadium in Nelspruit, we do not express the same ire we reserve for Oom Paul.
Blacks hold their tongues when Capetonians debate whether the tahr running around Table Mountain, purportedly destroying a unique ecosystem, should be shot out of existence; about whether Pretoria’s jacaranda trees are an asset or a liability; and when game farmers think it cool to put hapless lions at the mercy of blood-lusty foreigners. It does not seem to bother black folk that it is the environmental legacy of their ancestors and their grandchildren that is being debated.
The defence is usually that black people have more immediate problems to ponder instead of wondering what will happen to the ozone layer. Fair enough, except that global warming is already hitting Africa harder than Western countries, which produce the gases that make weather patterns so unpredictable.
Besides, if blacks can afford gas-guzzling Humvees, I’m sure we can afford a bin each to recycle plastic, glass and cans. While we tell hotel guests that water is a scarce resource in Africa, there is also nothing stopping the poor from not letting water run incessantly when they do their laundry. There is no reason for them to throw their garbage into streams instead of into rubbish bins.
In short, blacks must start behaving as though this land is indeed ours. Just as our forebears fought for us to enjoy it, we owe it to them to keep it in faithful trust for our grandchildren.