As a youngster, before I even knew who Jacob Zuma was, we used to sing that USlovo noTambo amacommander (Slovo and Tambo are commanders).
Without knowing who they were, I regarded Joe Slovo and Oliver Tambo as the heroes of our liberation struggle, the commanders of Umkhonto weSizwe. Other than Nelson Mandela, those were some of the first names mentioned during umrabulo (political discussion) sessions.
Growing up in an apartheid society, it was a bit of a shocker later to discover that this struggle hero, Slovo, was a white man. But the kind of political education we went through ensured that, cynical as we were, in the end we embraced non-racialism.
We even had our own comrade in my street, nicknamed Slovo, who was later murdered by police vigilantes for his activism.
I recall this history after ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe’s response to a friend last week, who complained about the appointment of Gill Marcus to head the Reserve Bank because she was white, that she was probably more black than he was.
This was part of an ongoing race debate that started when the ANC Youth League complained it was disappointed that there were no Africans heading the economics ministries.
Julius Malema said they were led by minorities, referring to Marcus, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies and Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan.
Malema asked why Africans were not competent enough to lead them, demanding to know why Africans were ”reduced” to security portfolios.
I agree with the ANC response, which reminded him that most of these people sacrificed their lives and went into exile for the liberation of all South Africans. So how do we justify suddenly reminding them that, when it comes to occupying certain positions, they are not quite like us?
Many in the black consciousness movement would say that, however hard they try to compensate, whites could never quite understand what black South Africans went through and therefore only blacks should be responsible for their liberation.
The Pan Africanists say only those whites who internalised African values and traditions could be regarded as Africans, essentially saying that it is not enough to have been born in Africa and that whites need to walk the extra mile to ”qualify” to be African.
These are ideologies largely embraced by the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania and black consciousness parties like Azapo and it would have made sense if they had articulated Malema’s views.
The reality, though, is that these parties have become spectators in events shaping this country’s future. But it is strange that these sentiments have come from someone like Malema who was raised within ”charterist” traditions.
If we condemn Malema for his recklessness, however, we should sometimes be grateful to him for bringing to the fore attitudes that many harbour privately but lack the courage to articulate in public.
In this case it has since been disclosed that in fact it was senior ANC leaders who had discussed the issue at a national working committee meeting.
The issue of whether Gill Marcus is black enough is one that occupies some great minds in the ruling party as they decide who to deploy to govern us.
But I am also of the view that we can’t sweep the race issue under the carpet. We in the media have been accused of racism for welcoming the appointments of the likes of Marcus, Hogan and Mary Metcalfe, while casting aspersions without reason on other appointments, such as that of Aaron Motsoaledi, simply because we don’t know them. Or refusing to credit the Springbok coach Peter de Villiers for his success with the national rugby team by saying he had ”inherited” a good squad.
Racism will be with us for a long time and the sooner we accept that, and openly acknowledge it as a factor in our daily lives, the better. South Africans like to say we should not harp on race, but we would be living in a fool’s paradise if we did not.