Since April this year, the African National Congress Youth League and trade union Solidarity have been discussing whether the youth should be exempt from affirmative action.
Dirk Hermann, deputy secretary general of Solidarity, argues that applying affirmative action to youth born after 1994 is racially insulting to both blacks and whites. It should be phased out. Zizi Kodwa, ANC Youth League spokesperson, says affirmative action was never meant to be a permanent policy, but remains relevant in the medium term to redress race-based poverty.
Against affirmative action
Most young people — black and white and aged between 18 and 23 — believe the youth should be exempt from affirmative action. This was one of the findings in a recent opinion poll conducted by Professor Pierre du Toit of Stellenbosch University and Markinor. Fifty-three percent of young people thought this way, while only 19% believed young people should not be exempt from affirmative action. The rest were neutral.
This was the same poll used to predict the results of the 2004 general election, which had a margin of error of only 1%.
Because of this one can assume that the findings are an accurate reflection of how South African young people feel, within a 1% variation either way. It is also the only scientific poll ever taken on how young people view affirmative action. The other (political) versions tend to be emotional, mostly populist and without a scientific basis.
If our country were to hold a youth referendum to find out whether young people should be exempt from affirmative action, the result would, therefore, be positive. The democratic answer to the question why this exemption should be granted would be: “Because that is what the youth want.” I could easily end this article on that note, merely adding: “I rest my case.”
Instead I shall add substance to the feeling of young people by dealing with four pertinent points.
Free the youth
Young people, both black and white, are the greatest victims of affirmative action. More than 80% of all successful young black professionals succeed on the strength of their skills, not as a result of affirmative action. In the sporting arena, a professional rugby player such as Bryan Habana is ranked among the world’s best, not because he is a quota player, but because of his talent. He nevertheless constantly has to prove his ability and the fact that he receives no special treatment.
Young black professionals resent the fact that they are not judged on their abilities, but by their race. The same is true of young whites who feel that race, rather than merit, determines their future. They resent the fact that they are made to pay for a system in which they had no part.
This is the first year in which school-leavers have spent their entire school career in the post-1994 era. They are, in other words, free South Africans. But, despite their freedom, both black and white young people are affected by affirmative action. The last act of the struggle should be to liberate all young people from racial discrimination.
Focus on input
The focus of affirmative action – as it is applied to young people – should be on the input aspect of training and development. The number of black university and technikon students in South Africa has increased by 101% since 1993. White student numbers, on the other hand, declined by 20%. This means that the education sector has been successfully transformed in the period since 1994 to offer thousands of black students the opportunity to pursue further studies.
According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the number of black graduates has increased by 295% since 1991. The number of white graduates declined by 11%. Surely black graduates cannot claim additional preferential treatment? And, if they do, would it still be a corrective measure or blatant racial preference?
This brings us to the myth that young black graduates still have a greater struggle than white graduates to find jobs and that they are therefore entitled to continued benefits from affirmative action. The problem does not lie in discrimination on the basis of race. It lies in discrimination on the basis of career choice. The low pass rate of black matriculants in science and mathematics leads these students to opt for the “soft” sciences in their career choice.
These are the fields in which the economy is experiencing an oversupply. The solution to this problem does not lie in affirmative action, but in better science and mathematics teaching and better career advice.
Focus on the poor
A case can be made for the argument that tens of thousands of black children grow up in squatter camps and get a substandard education. But not all poor young people in South Africa are black and neither are all black youngsters poor.
The black middle class has overtaken the white middle class. There is no justifying preferential treatment for a black child from a private school in Sandton over a white child from a corrugated iron house in Danville, merely because the former child is black.
In its current form, affirmative action is based on representation. It is applied only at the higher levels, where whites are overrepresented.
Achieving the current affirmative action goals will make no difference to the unemployed masses of people in squatter camps, who occupy the lowest economic rungs. Using the poor as motivation for continued affirmative action is immoral. The elite use the plight of the poor for self-enrichment.
The solution to poverty does not lie in affirmative action, but in huge social development programmes to transform poor communities into working economies.
Let affirmative action die a natural death
The International Labour Organisation stipulates that affirmative action must be temporary. The permanent nature of South Africa’s affirmative action programme means that the country is in violation of the international affirmative action resolution.
Exempting young people from affirmative action would create a natural cut-off date and would bring South Africa in line with international affirmative action policy.
Young people, black and white, will be truly free only once they have been liberated from affirmative action — and we all deserve freedom.
Dirk Hermann is deputy general secretary of Solidarity and has recently completed a doctoral thesis on affirmative action. His book on the subject will appear at the end of June
For affirmative action
There are people who are quick to point out that affirmative action is tantamount to reverse racism or make the claim that young people are generally opposed to it.
This argument is evident in Dirk Hermann’s resistance to affirmative action and belies his ideological opposition to it on the basis of its functionality, rather than “class” interests, which we would argue are, in fact, racial interests.
Not only are many apartheid beneficiaries opposed to affirmative action vis-Ã -vis employment equity, they generally are opposed to our transformation agenda because of an innate fear that they will lose their racial dominance over the means of production in our country.
Affirmative action is essential to deracialise this historical determination of wealth based on race.
Had South African white people actively contributed towards bridging the apartheid gap, there would be no need for affirmative action. Opposition to it has been part of our democratic expression and the hallmark of the Democratic Alliance since 1994.
While Hermann and others might argue that today’s white youth had nothing to do with the system of apartheid, our counter-argument is that young people inherited the apartheid legacy on whichever side of the wealth/poverty line they were born. We agree that, at some point, we would have to do away with the affirmative action policy, but the legacy of apartheid remains a reality for millions of people who still require racial redress.
We agree that competency must be the basis for employment. But first, unfair competition must be eradicated: insufficient maths and science teachers in rural areas, inability to pay fees, inability to buy books and lack of access to the internet places poor, black students at a disadvantage to their more privileged white counterparts. At university, both groups are expected to compete on an equal footing having had an unequal basic education.
Affirmative action was not meant as a permanent framework, but a temporary corrective measure. People such as Hermann would do well to reorient their mindsets away from preserving the legacy of apartheid with the false hope that, in time, it would unwind itself and instead focus on how we can help build a South Africa where race is not the defining factor.
Zizi Kodwa is the spokesperson of the ANC Youth League