October 2 to 8 2009

Can we get past race?

Isn’t it time we dropped the concept of race altogether and used colour, ethnicity and class instead?

Homo sapiens originated in Africa 100000 years or so ago. Expanding around the world, members of the species developed different physical, cultural and other traits while continuing to interact and intermarry.

We remain one species, one race. The trajectories of this global expansion are complex but contemporary ­science has made its direction clear: from tiny bands of hunter-gatherers to villages, towns, ethnic fiefdoms, cities, nation-states and conglomerates of capital and power.

Many South Africans have oscillating loyalties between the small-scale societies of their culture, kith and kin, and the large-scale, less intimate and radically diverse society of a post-industrial democracy. What differentiates us significantly is to what extent we behave as small or large-scale-society people. Added to this are different behaviour patterns related, among other things, to education, class, ethnicity, colour, culture, religion, age and gender.

Does this mean ‘racism” does not exist? Not at all. Many people still believe, wrongly, that Homo sapiens is divided into different race groups. Racists attach stereotypes to such imagined groups and bestow biological permanence on them. Rebuking someone for being ‘racist” does not go far enough. The rebuke resembles ARVs that deal with the symptoms but do not remove a disease.

The disease comprises the socio-psychological infections of prejudice, fear and bigotry. These are also at the root of gender, ethnic and other discriminatory attitudes. ‘Racism” is better rebuked as ‘colour prejudice” or ‘colour bigotry”.

When we privilege dated terms such as ‘race” and ‘racism” within the national discourse, we obscure far more complex realities of intolerant behaviour, evident at both the small and large-scale levels of social organisation.

We also imprison our thoughts in the language of 19th-century imperialism and science. Apartheid thus continues its secret triumph in our minds. — Chris Mann, honorary poetry professor, Rhodes University

Your ‘Race Issue” (September 24) was on the whole apt. You informed us about the signifying practices of race and the habits of thought of your contributors. Yet I found wanting a deeper discussion on how to understand race as a model even though everyone can tell what racism is and possibly is not.

Njabulo Ndebele’s contribution went some distance to delicately tabulate an experiential definition of race. His piece was poised to look at ‘the collective anguish of a nation trying to find the way past race and into leadership”. The question remains: is it possible to ‘find the way past race”? As the London Institute of Race Relations’ Ambalavaner Sivanandan said in 1981: ‘You cannot do away with racism by rejecting the concept of race.” For him, ‘changing the description does not change the practice — but the practice can taint the description till that ceases to be neutral”.

This debate reveals one thing about our binding obsession with race as South Africans.

To quote Ndebele writing elsewhere: ‘Welcome to the problems of who we are.” — Jeffrey Sehume, KwaThema

Even for racially disfigured readers and writers such as ourselves, there must surely be a limit to the privileged delusions of abelungu participants in any supposed ‘race debate”.

Alex Dodd is all for under­statement, modesty and nuance. While the colonial project continues in all its democratic drag, she can go on worrying about the bond while shopping at Hyde Park. With ebucks, nogal, and in a nuanced way. The self-effacement with which she outlines her Yeoville toyi-toying days and then plugs her social work is endearing. Social responsibility is the new black.

The embrace of her European cultural imprint is just as touching. No one denies that it involves the Bard as much as pacifying the natives and other colonial and neo-colonial gangbangs.

As for the still-white-in-Canada Richard Poplak, thanks for outlining the superior mindset and psyche of all you ex-whiteys in fabled emigration destinations. The antics of your fellow refugee, Brandon Huntley, must indeed be amusing to someone already firmly ensconced.

And then there’s dear Pearlie Joubert’s pearls of wisdom. With great daring this woman-who’s-got-to-do-it blurs the line between private and public for our edification. Praise be. It’s not like it hasn’t been standard fare in Postmodernia for some time.

We only hope that your sommer-so food was vegetarian. Else you’re going to lie awake at night thinking about the diertjies.

Last but not least are the conceptual convulsions of that faux-brainy blogger Chris Roper who, obviously well-read in the Western canon, starts off by reminding us that ‘God is dead” was a 1960s thing. And we thought it was a Nietzsche and Dostoevsky thing.

He next sets his sights on that easiest of targets, the ANC Youth League. You go, brother — it must take a lot of intellectual courage to rubbish Julius Malema.

In between, let it be said, there are very useful first-year philosophy-of-language jewels — race is language and vice versa. If only we’d known! All’s fair in the fun-and-language game. But are we at least allowed to disengage before this playfulness circumscribes us?

But wait, there’s a new low in tastelessness in the darkest corner of our funpot’s conceptual dungeon. Rape victims gather round and roll in the aisles: ‘The traditional South African way to determine gender is whether you can rape it.” Sjoe and ha ha.

Note also the hilarious assumption that past leftiehood is incorruptible and lives on in platonic serenity in the pale head as it consumes, analyses and ridicules in the present. But hey, aren’t we all supposed to be fashionably ignorant of history, systemic dysfunction, and the empirical preconditions of all this garrulous breast-beating and navel-gazing? – Vincent Solo, Johannesburg

What would have happened to Robert Mugabe if he were white? Would South Africa have supported him? If Julius Malema were white, would he have kept his position?

If John Hlophe were white, would he have been tolerated? If Leonard Chuene were white, would he still have his job?

How should we whites feel about the rulers of our country? Don’t you think we feel left out, unimportant, unwanted, unsupported, as Mmanaledi Mataboge does in her place of work? — Benjamin Audie

I refer to Mmanaledi Mataboge’s article ‘My dear white colleagues —” (September 24). I appreciate that this is obviously an issue for her, and possibly for many black employees in South Africa, but it strikes me as strange that she assumes that her feelings are as a result of racial neglect on behalf of her colleagues at the M&G.

Generally, employees in any company feel insecure about their work, their relationships and their colleagues, and don’t ascribe it to racial politics in the workplace. (Additionally, I was speaking to a white member of the M&G staff, who, after reading the article, asked, ‘So what should I do now — not smile at her?”) — James Farringdon

Hey, Julius, make us proud

Julius Malema, I have been defending you in my mind for a long time, because you seemed so sincere and bright as you mapped out your plans and ideals for the ANC Youth League.

Now, I am wondering what your followers feel every time you appear in the newspapers fatter than before. There seem to be a great many photos of you eating, seemingly confident that you are a revolutionary leader with a right to act like a 14-year-old rude boy who thinks he is in that position for life.

If I was an ANCYL member, I would feel angry that you are acting as if you think I am too stupid to complain about the money you are squandering while my situation stays the same. I would be angry that you seem to think that you can do whatever you want instead of what I want.

You are wasting time being rude, thinking you are cool and have arrived, instead of being truly revolutionary. This kind of behaviour shows a leader too lazy to think for himself and too narrow-minded to explore new ways of doing things better suited to our unique country.

I am wondering how long it will be before your followers complain. I feel it won’t be too long before the young, bright people of South Africa demand that you treat them with respect. We need truly revolutionary leaders who are willing to work, not get piggishly fat and arrogant.

I have no doubt that you have it in you to be such a revolutionary leader but I think you need to take stock of what and how you are doing things — really fast. Your followers are much brighter than you seem to think.

Don’t you want to be noted in history books as someone who made a positive difference? Come on, make us proud. — Lungile Mbali

The BMF supports Manyi’

As a paid-up member of the Black Management Forum (BMF), Sandton, I find your portrayal of Jimmy Manyi in the ­article ‘Moves to oust Manyi from business forum” (September 24) without substance. Mmanaledi Mataboge’s sources, it seems, are conservative with the facts. At the BMF Gauteng’s annual general meeting on August 31, BMF Gauteng nominated Manyi unanimously as candidate for president.

Manyi is respected and admired by BMF members like myself. He must continue with the work of transforming corporate South Africa — he has never been afraid to address the failures of corporate South Africa. He rightfully demanded greater black representation on JSE-listed companies and remains uncompromising on the need to implement employment equity.

BMF North West provincial chairperson Fani Xaba clearly speaks in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the collective BMF ­family. Xaba and a few of his associates have a personal problem with BMF’s endorsement of the ANC, the irony being that Xaba has been a major beneficiary of the ANC’s programme to uplift emerging contractors such as Africon (now Aurecon). Does the board of directors at Africon/Aurecon share Xaba’s anti-ANC sentiments? — Enver Buys, BMF Sandton

Minister speaks on women abuse

The Ministry of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities condemns the reported abuse of Mavivi Myakayaka-Manzini (‘There’s a kind of hush —”, September 24). The reported justification for the abuse is chauvinistic and totally unacceptable. House duties are a collective responsibility of the whole family. No woman should be abused for not cooking or ironing clothes.

Mayakayaka-Manzini is at the forefront of the struggle for gender equality and women’s emancipation. The ministry will support her in whatever manner possible.

The ministry is concerned about incidents of abuse of women in our country and we urge all women who fall victim to report these incidents. No form of violence against women will be tolerated. — Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya, Minister of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities

In brief

Sello S Alcock (‘Now it’s up to Zuma”, September 24) says the Judicial Service Commission’s questioning of black candidates was friendly but ‘white candidates received some harsh treatment”. This implies that the black candidates do not deserve to be shortlisted for the Constitutional Court at the expense of white candidates — a direct intellectual insult to these excellent judges who have proved their competence beyond any doubt. — Sibusiso, Johannesburg.

John Hlophe seemed to have access to confidential notes circulated between judges of the Constitutional Court, the JSC heard last week. Hlophe also boasted to Justice Bess Nkabinde about having a list of people implicated in the arms deal from the National Intelligence Agency, she said. No smoke without fire? — TM Doran, Pretoria

Trevor Manuel has become the target of the left (September 18) and, sadly, no one is defending him. Jacob Zuma’s political career was resuscitated by Cosatu and the South African Communist Party and that seems to have given them a licence to dictate to the ruling party. The masses entrusted the ANC with their votes, not the left. It’s time the ruling party reclaims its power and takes control. — Thabile Mange