March 14 to 19 2008

Racism alive and well

The University of the Free State race video should not have surprised so many people. The truth is that racism is alive and well, and is aided and abetted by the government, which insists on classifying everybody according to their ”race” — as defined by the apartheid regime. The beneficiaries of apartheid are still sitting pretty, while its victims still feel inferior and even subhuman.

No one has asked why the women at the university did not react to the insults and resist the attempts to degrade them.

It is the 30th anniversary of Robert Sobukwe’s death and he insisted that the African people had to liberate themselves mentally before there could be physical liberation. That made him the most dangerous threat to the apartheid system.

The political climate of ”reconciliation” only demands that the masses oppressed and exploited by apartheid and colonialism must remember their place and not expect any fundamental change in their lives.

As in apartheid times, there are a few beneficiaries of the current dispensation who defend their benefits with phrases such as ”I didn’t join the struggle to stay poor” or believe in the trickle-down theory — that the currently disadvantaged will eventually benefit from the rivulets of wealth from the toilets of the new elite.

The answer to the atrocities in the misnamed ”Free State” is to empower the university cleaning women to fight back; to be assertive and confident of their humanity and able to defend it, physically if necessary.

They were obviously scared of being assaulted or of losing their jobs if they dared to resist such abuse. They accepted their inferior status as part and parcel of their fate as if it was a biblical decree.

Punishing the students is fine, but empowering the women — and getting their views on the matter — is far better. — Costa Gazi

The truth of the matter is that these are not isolated incidents, but are widespread in South Africa. To scream will not help. As with crime, there should be marches against this scourge. And we need to set up a commission where the victims can report such incidents. — Patrick Rampai, Polokwane

Why are we flying the flag?

We need to make the pledge of allegiance more memorable. How about this? On certain significant days in the school year, each secondary school raises the South African flag. The principal asks in assembly, in the language of choice:

Why are we flying this flag today?
Students: To show that we uphold the Constitution of South Africa.

What does the Constitution do?
The Constitution proclaims the rights of all people.

What secures those rights in this country?
The laws of South Africa.

Who makes those laws?
The government of South Africa.

Who is the government?
They are people chosen by the people to serve the people.

As citizens of South Africa, what do you promise to do?
To obey the laws, to vote in elections and to use my education to serve the people.

To make such a recital more significant, a team of home affairs officials should visit each secondary school once a year to ensure that the school-leavers are registered for identity books. The recital should take place in their presence. A pocket copy of the Constitution should be handed out to each school-leaver, the newly inscribed citizens.

Teachers could also use this recital creatively in social justice education by adding declarations at appropriate times of the year, such as ”Whose rights are we learning about today?” ”The rights of the child” or ”the rights of the elderly”. — Charlotte Mbali, Durban

What about the big Bro?

Kwanele Sosibo (”Nation of Islam comes to town”, February 29) should know that with the Divine Gift of Expression comes a Divine Responsibility to make sure that whatever communications or expressions we originate are as factual as possible.

Sosibo’s article is flawed in many respects. He reports that the Nation of Islam, a religious, social and political organisation most popular in the United States, has proclaimed that black people in South Africa need to reconsider their future under democratic rule, as a hindrance to their collective prosperity.

You allege that ”the Nation of Islam” as an institution holds this position. Yet you do not cite any words of the leader and national representative of the Nation of Islam — the honourable minister Louis Farrakhan — to support this claim. Why not?

Instead, you referenced the words of one ”Sultan Ala Deen”, whom you assert is a ”representative” of the Nation of Islam, but you fail to mention in what capacity he ”represents” the Nation of Islam.
This creates a false association where the reader is now programmed to equate every subsequent statement by Bro. Sultan with ”the official position of the Nation of Islam”.

In truth, every member of the Nation of Islam carries as part of his or her function the responsibility to properly ”represent” the Nation of Islam, to which he or she belongs, but none of us are qualified to officially ”represent” the position of ”the Nation of Islam” except the honourable minister Louis Farrakhan … and whomsoever He designates to do so. — Bro. Reuben Muhammad

Why shouldn’t whites apologise?

Writing in Thought Leader on the M&G Online, Sandile Memela argues there is no point in white people apologising for the hurt of apartheid. In fact, apologies achieve the same result as when anyone says sorry after offending another person, even by bumping them accidentally on the street.

What more does Memela think can be achieved? He dismisses Adriaan Vlok’s apology to Frank Chikane. If he had done his homework he would know that Vlok is also actively involved in community reparations work in Mamelodi, with mothers of sons whom his former police murdered in the 1980s.

It seems Memela’s main fear ‘is to be ridiculed by white commentators”, as he says Vlok has been. But the mothers in Mamelodi are happily working with him and getting healed in the process.

Memela also seems to believe that the current generation of whites had nothing to do with apartheid. How old were the white men who killed and maimed in apartheid’s name in 1976, the 1980s and early 1990s? Apartheid is not ‘an inheritance” for them.

He says that white people must not apologise, but must acknowledge and work with us. The government imposed affirmative action at work, in sport and other areas because the majority of whites are happy for the status quo of privileged positions that apartheid bequeathed to them to remain.

I also do not understand his claim that apartheid caused ‘deep hurt” for white people as well. A few did take a stand against apartheid and they suffered, but that is far from the general picture. — Patrick Mkwanazi, Johannesburg

Stop idolising figureheads

I agree with Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya (March 7) that ‘someone who makes us better understand our society, or teaches future generations how to anticipate electrical supply shortages, ought to be paid better than a member of the World Cup team”. But how this supports Moya’s defence of University of Johannesburg vice-chancellor Ihron Rensburg’s R5-million mansion is beyond me.

The real academics, the ones inculcating the values, skills and knowledge to which Moya refers, are not sitting in posh offices or living in multimillion-rand houses. They daily deliver the goods in overcrowded lecture rooms and ill-equipped laboratories, and, yes, contrary to Moya’s assertion, most do it for the love of their calling.

In terms of academia, the likes of Rensburg are, through the Senate, accountable to them. Yet they earn, less than a fifth of a vice-chancellor’s salary and have none of the perks of cars, houses and entertainment.

Moya’s premise would have been better served had he suggested that the R5-million spent on the house be used to reward those academics who excel in teaching or research. We need to stop venerating figureheads and direct more resources to the producers of value.

Moya expresses the misinformed belief that academics do not enter academia for the love of it and that those at the top must have ‘showed requisite love for whatever it was that got (you) there”.

The question is: what got them there? Was it years of dedication in an underpaid job, developing ‘a corps of well-educated, informed citizens”, or was their love directed elsewhere? Were they, as Moya himself suggests, solely driven by their desire for prestige, which working academics seldom achieve?

For my part, I cannot comprehend how Rensburg can justify spending R5-million on a home which exceeds normal needs while so many of his students are in dire straits.

The chasm between them verges on the obscene. But then, perhaps he has never, as I have, had students in his office who, for sheer lack of money, have not eaten for five days. — Sonia Bendix, Muizenberg

Rensburg’s mansion adds insult to the injury of inadequate housing for students at his university. I know of two students who live in a four-bedroom commune of 23 who pay more per square metre than Sandtonites. In recent years, the University of Johannesburg has sold off its land for shopping malls. I appeal to Adam Habib to look beyond the budgetary. The stress on students is unbearable. — Jonathan Padavatan

I’m a journo — ask my minister!

Mail & Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee calls me a ‘non-journalist” despite the fact that I am a regular columnist for the M&G Online‘s Thought Leader. I have more than 20 years’ experience in newspapers — the fact that I am doing government communication work should make up for that. Of course we have journalists in government!

I was not and am not involved in the relaunch of the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) and have attended no official meeting, except for one ad hoc post-mortem on how the meeting with Jacob Zuma went.

I was a prime mover in the founding and launch of the historic 1995/96 FBJ effort and am proud of it. I also understand and support the latest initiative and have been privy to some of the plans. In future, Haffajee should feel free to call me about my views. I have nothing to hide.

I am not going to make an issue of the fact that she is bringing my name into disrepute with a sinister agenda to project me as a closet anti-white racist. I am not interested in the politics of ‘blackness” and its fallacious and distorted ‘anti-whiteness”. We have a Constitution and everything that we do should comply with its principles.

If Haffajee believes the FBJ is an anti-white organisation, she should give it space to explain itself rather than portraying it in a one-sided and negative way. — Sandile Memela, Arts and Culture Ministry spokesperson

Utopianism

It was recently reported that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang wants to prevent private hospitals from hiking their rates and tariffs beyond the government’s inflation targets. Ironically, the Government Employees Medical Scheme (Gems — an initiative of Minister Manto) has hiked its members’ contributions by an average of 13%!

The government formed its own medical aid scheme to ensure that state employees are protected from above-inflation increases in medical aid contributions. With this Utopian pledge in mind I joined Gems. It turned out to be one more example of the government’s habit of forming monopolies in all spheres of the economy. — Christo Thurston

In brief

Your exposé on back-street terminations (March 7) doesn’t adequately highlight the fact that many women are still ignorant of their rights to legal abortions. You provide no information on state services and imply that only private clinics offer the service. You should not only take an interest when the anti-choice brigade is on the offensive. — Laura Pollecutt

Vice-chancellor Ihron Rensburg’s mansion is not just an extravagance; it’s a rather clumsy post-modernist building that contributes nothing to the cultural heritage of Auckland Park. — Flo Bird

I advise aggrieved black UFS students to do what I did after a bout of canings at a Midlands boarding school 30 years ago. Asked to assist in preparing for a common-room meeting, I added some urinal splendor to a jug of orange juice for the brass. I felt much better. — Chris, Knysna

Crime is out control, but that doesn’t mean we should close our eyes at what is happening at UFS. — Maremele Masweneng, Secunda

A big thanks to you coconuts! Without you, we wouldn’t have our functioning parliamentary democracy and our world-renowned liberal democratic Constitution! — Oliver Price, Cape Town

Come on, Lebo M — your diva-like antics at the Naledi awards were too much. If you had concerns about the South African theatre, you should have voiced it before your cast lost out. Otherwise, it looks like sour grapes. — Coenie Kukkuk, Pretoria