I’m an anthropologist and I study humans and in particular am fascinated by how they see themselves and create often strange and even contradictory things called “identity”. Most of us, and I would argue all of us, actually have multiple identities. And the answer is yes; this does create a rather schizophrenic species of great ape.
At base we are simply a type of ape that comes in a variety of colours and sizes. The differences we see and often mistakenly think are important are merely arbitrary expressions of a complex set of genes we all carry. The concept so viciously used to subjugate, oppress and categorise people has no meaning, biologically speaking.
It is clear from the online debates that these categories are given special salience in South Africa; hardly unexpected considering the apartheid past. What I find particularly troubling by the current debates is the constant use of apartheid’s categories as if they are still real matter-of-fact groups of people that share something in common. Most often these people actually do not share that much in common beyond a vaguely defined colour of skin.
The “white race”
The so-called “white” people of South Africa come from a wide variety of backgrounds and are descendents of various population groups from all across Europe. For example, I met a Croatian girl in South Africa a few years ago while she was visiting her relatives in Johannesburg. They had moved here in the early 1990s to escape civil war in the former Yugoslavia. They had never benefited from apartheid and come from an area that has seen some horrific suffering of its own. Should her family be included in the broad categories so used and defended with such vehemence? Her family was not part of Europe that benefited from colonialism and yet claims are often made that all “white” people have benefited from the subjugation of the rest of the world.
The “black race”
I have a San friend from Botswana who once spoke to me about the way “black” people treat the San. He is by all external appearances “black”. He does not fit into any stereotype about the San being short, yellow come-the-gods-must-be-crazy fame. How does he then fit into these crude blocks? And for the record he was not complaining about the way he is treated but discussing how they share their poverty in remote locations in the Kalahari. What he was highlighting was an ethnic distinction in language/custom etc.
What we have here are examples that contradict notions of race as meaningful groupings. South Africa needs to move beyond the race debate and begin to set race aside as a meaningful way to organise society.
Affirmative action
Affirmative action may be justified in the Constitution, but that does not mean it is right or needs to be defended in practice. If I applied for a job and the other candidate was equally qualified with the same experience, a PhD etc, and they were also “black” I would not mind that being the final deciding factor. In practice universities in South Africa hire the so-called previously disadvantaged when they only have a master’s degree; a “white” man with a PhD is bumped in the name of affirmative action. Is this affirmative?
This ensures that that department has reduced its capacity to supervise and train people to the level of a PhD. That means less students in the system can now get PhDs. The University of KwaZulu-Natal has less than 40% of academic staff with PhDs. Whole departments are incapable of generating new PhDs of any race group. How does this benefit transformation?
At a professional level affirmative action is a little ridiculous. People that have obtained high levels of qualifications have already benefited from the transformation of society and should not require an additional edge in order to compete. Some of the loudest voices I know defending affirmative action come from middle-class professionals who hardly need more advantages in life.
Even scholarships and bursaries for study should not be based on race. If these were based on need through a means test then the majority would still benefit and no scholarship would be wasted on anyone who has already benefited from transformation. This would see more poor people rising beyond their entrenched poverty and help in transforming society — even racially!
For those who say that the wealth is still disproportionately held by the minority white population; you are stating a fact, but not one changed by AA. What you will actually be defending is that wealth should be held in the hands of a new black elite and black middle class. I find this position often held by so-called communists who believe Blade should drive a luxury sedan and that ANC ministers deserve their fat pay cheques and car and housing allowances. I find a base hypocrisy at work where people are actually jostling for room at the trough as opposed to uplifting the poor.
Another common group I find in the race debates is the “white” middle-class person, who is gainfully employed, and defends AA with a righteousness usually reserved for ministers at the pulpit. They are secretly Stalinists who fight for redistribution of others wealth but never their own. Michael Sutcliffe of Durban infamy comes to mind. Are these people vacating positions to make way for racial transformation? The logical next step in AA would be the removal of “white” people from posts to make room for more “blacks”; is this feasible or fair? Or should AA only be at the hiring process and not for those currently entrenched?
Real transformation of South African society will come when people unify as one, not in triumphalist nationalism, but when they see each other as truly equal.
So ask yourself as you write a response below, are you defending the rights of the majority or merely being a self-righteous schizophrenic great ape? It is time to move beyond race and accept differences as a bonus in society.
South Africa is not unique in experiencing racism. It can be shown to exist in every country to varying degrees and with a vast range of effects. I am not arguing that racism is not a real problem that needs to be addressed. It clearly does need to be challenged, but reaffirming the categories as real does no good and no justice to those suffering discrimination. It is far more logical and a far better strategy to challenge the very notion of race as real and meaningful.
To put it another way a man should be uplifted because he is poor and not because he is a particular shade of colour. It may very well be that that colour of skin was what assigned him to degrading poverty and oppression, but to make his skin colour worth more than the next mans can only recreate the very thing people supposedly fought for in South Africa.
Michael I am not sure where I fit in your categories of for or against AA.
I am white and middle class. I can’t come up with a better alternative to AA. How can we make it so that children of the previously advantaged have no advantage over children of the previously disadvantaged? Ok that is terribly worded!
I was very young when Apartheid ended, but my parents were wealthy enough to send me to an excellent government school, I had a lifestyle that supported me getting the best education I could. I have a huge advantage over a poor person living in poor stressful conditions, going to an ill-equipped school. My children will have similar advantages over theirs. How do we address this? AA appears to be the only way.
IF we as a nation can come up with a better way, then that is good. But we have to do something and for now as far as I can see, AA is the only way.
I do believe AA should be controlled so as not to actively sabotage companies, and give loads of training to less experienced staff. But until there is a better level of economic equality, I do not see how meritorious employment could work in SA.
Can you?
The current race debate is driven largely by the fact that blacks resent the manner in which whites complain about the way this country is being governed. For the benefit of Dave Harris, Kitty Cat, Bravo, Tlanch, and others I will try and explain my position unambiguously as possible. I probably speak for quite a few white South Africans.
1. In 1994 most whites were a willing part of a process which handed the levers of state over to blacks
2. Almost immediately blacks mounted a concerted campaign to oust whites from all spheres of government and all linked associations such as ASA, ESKOM,etc. Fair enough
3. As a direct consequence government and associated organisations are now in total dissarray.There are no exceptions.
4. Whites (who are significant tax payers) complain about government in the context of declining standards, collapsing infrastructure, wasteful expenditure, corruption, dishonesty, incompetence, cronyism and anti white rhetoric.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the past but it has everything to do with the paradigm created post 1994 by the ANC and its supporters. When all South Africans start to realise that the current state of government is unacceptable by any normal standard then the racial debate will simply fizzle out.
In most of the G20 countries (of which South Africa is a member)the government would fall if they performed as poorly as the ANC. I find it quite remarkable that ANC supporters are happy with the status quo.
Leave a reply?
Not on your Nelly, Michael you’ll do without me from now on.
If you don’t agree with me, without defending your side –fine
Delete half of my two-part text –less fine
But saying then things like: “Some of them are the regular trolls that deserve no comment as well”?
Bit too quick with your keyboard there to my liking; that was the last straw.
(I dare you to post this + my original second text, not alone!)
So, good luck with the “transformation” thing. (And if by some miracle I will be proven wrong, I’ll admit that gladly.)
Bye
Twannie
Last one I promise, even if you delete this I cannot resist now that I am done here, I give you a sample of what a real troll would write:
“Real transformation of South African society will come when people unify as one, not in triumphalist nationalism, but when they see each other as truly equal”
Do you really think that ever such a condition will be even remotely met? Here in SA? The Israelis and the Palestinians will sooner be best chums. Nothing wrong with a bit of idealism, but please don’t write waste-of-time codswallop like that.
You don’t REALLY expect that to ever happen, do you now?
Trollie
Sorry, ‘can’t help my self. Now that you managed to raise my hackles, I see you for what you truly are -not just a waste of time, far worse: a dishonest bullshitter.
That is to me a lower form of life.
Dre got you on an anomaly (“Your statement then becomes a kind of redundancy saying that we will have transformation after we have transformation.”) –fair and square.
But instead of ignoring that comment or admitting that Dre has a point, you to try to talk yourself out of it by adding a context that makes no sense or is in any way evident from what you wrote before –or after.
Truly goodbye.
Hi,
Your argument misses the point that AA and BBE is about transformation, and power. There is a struggle going on for economic power, this is simply the continuation of the struggle which achieved its first aim, namely political power.
Reasoning which reveals the problems with AA & BEE does not recognize the point that in order to make an omelet, you have to break eggs. There are many aspects of these policies which are demonstrably ineffective, but overall they turn the boat. The alternative to this is simple an asset grab such as nationalization or land grabs.
Accordingly analyzing the specific failings is missing the point, which is a political tool to effect economic power.
@anton kleinschmidt
Just like Michael Francis, your BS is full of inaccuracies and bias.
1. “willing part of a process which handed the levers of state over to blacks”
LOL, hardly, the the white regime was THREATHENED by the international community to change NOW or face a civil war. If they could keep the white gravy train going for another 50 year they surely would!
2. “oust whites from all spheres of government”
Whites still REFUSE to accept AA. just look at the stance of the DA. Most white-owned business still don’t adhere to AA and don’t really care about anything but the bottom line.
3. “As a direct consequence government and associated organisations are now in total dissarray”
Actually, its more the white incompetence in government from centuries of white AA has resulted in where we are today. They never thought of black rule, so they created systems that simply could not grow or expand to serve the entire SA population! ESKOM is a prime example of planning that should have taken place decades years ago!
continued… @anton kleinschmidt
4. “Whites (who are significant tax payers)”
Another white myth! Do you have the statistics to back this up. Only SARS can tell us which racial group pays the most in taxes. btw. What about all those CENTURIES of taxation without representation when the blacks had to pay their taxes for the benefit of the white gravy train? How about calculating the present day value of the blacks taxes that they did not derive ANY benefit from.
Isn’t SA part of the G20? Unlike a banana republic or the rotten-to-the-core corrupt apartheid government, SA have great economic and cultural relations with ALL the other G20 member countries? Didn’t you see how warmly SA (Jacob Zuma) is received by other countries now?
@Twannie & Po
I glad you saw through the BS. Good observations!
Twannie I do not delete posts so do repost your second half. TL sometimes deletes posts if to many are sent in a row from one address.
Twannie – I never delete posts. wordpress (the software used by TL) sometimes does not allow too many posts in sequence as it assumes you are double posting. Try reposting it and grow up a little.
FYI a troll is someone who ‘trolls’ the internet under an avatar (fake identity) posting rubbish to elicit responses. I was referring to those anonymous commentators who do not use their real name and spout vitriol and rubbish. If people have things to say they should have the confidence to say them openly or maybe they should double check their opinions if they themselves are so uncertain of them to say them publicly.
Po – There is no easy solution to the inequalities of South Africa. It is a sad reality that much of this will be with South Africa for a very long time. I do not believe that AA will not hasten or lessen the inequalities that have been historically transmitted. I think that only better education and economic growth overall will do so.
One idea: All scholarships and bursaries should be class-based to benefit the poor. The poor are disproportionately ‘black’ so racial transformation will be sped up. If rich blacks with access to resources and good schools are given scholarships then of course the poor that have access to rubbish schools cannot compete. Current programmes benefit a black elite and middle class who do not need transformation.
Professional jobs are sought by people that have advanced qualifications – they have already benefited from transformation and social/political change.
@Sunshine – You have stated some things correctly about the massification of higher education that compounds problems and ensures many of those working at universities while studying for a PhD are unable to find the time to do so. They are too busy working overtime to keep up with course loads. But that is another issue for another blog perhaps?
You had stated that I need to “Acknowledge privilege”. I think that is what I am doing. I do not see the need to have the rich continue to benefit. Lets acknowledge privilege and agree that any man with a PhD/MA/other professional qualification should be able to compete on their own merits. The fact that they have such qualifications shows they have experienced post 1994 transformation.
And as for trivializing Apartheid, I am not certain how one reads that into my blog. I never said anything about what life under Apartheid was like. I am arguing that to overcome that past cannot be achieved by reconstituting the racial groups as having salience.
Michael, I’m delighted that you include the indefatigable Dave Harris in the ‘not worth responding to’ category. He truly is a pompous man and his comments are so full of self certainty and delusion as to be only deserving of ignoring.
anton kleinschmidt on September 26th, 2009 at 7:15 am
1. In 1994 most whites were a willing part of a process which handed the levers of state over to blacks
- This right here is what I was talking about earlier. Dude! Get it into your head. You were not willingly doing this; it was pressure from the international community that made you do this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the results were changed by your leaders in order to make the change happen and lessen international pressure.
4. Whites (who are significant tax payers)
- I just love this part, remember whites are significant tax payers because of the privileges they had previously? Now imagine a South Africa where everyone can part take in the building of the country and blacks who are at least 80% of the population can pay tax. Imagine how prosperous our country will be. So how do we get to this situation when there is institutional racism in corporate SA that keeps making sure that blacks can only grow up to a certain extend?
And maybe to a certain extent you are right we blacks might be accepting some mediocre services from our government and you need to understand that based on our past that is understandable as we never used to have the opportunities to complain. Those my friends are “Some of the dilemma’s we have in transforming this country”.
My point was really that there is simply a changing of the guard at the top of what I think can be legitimately called Apartheid capitalism (characterised by the use of land and particularly the subordination of extra market means of subsistence to subsidize the reproductive costs of labour and thereby maximise the extraction of profit). In this regard I think we are in agreement – a new elite is benefiting off an old structure. The situation as i see it is that the extra market means of subsistence that were engineered as the crux of our labour market and its remuneration are intimately bound to the manufactured racial/cultural identities of South Africans (face and culture are regularly conflated in our society – culture is often a new euphemism for race). My feeling is that we thus occupy a field in which these categories and this conflation are being aggressively reproduced by an already in place capitalist order and its propaganda apparatus (the news media still perpetuates age old versions of tribalism through journalists and political analysts alike, the tourism industry celebrates ‘cultural’ heritage unreflexively and university students claim appeal to cultural differences and rights to keep residences homogenous). We need to confront the way in which identity has been entrenched in a natural productive order, and attack the new incarnations of an age old mythology of entitlement and destiny in order to decouple this from the production of class. for this I am sure we need to engage publically with race.
The constitution of self-identity is negatively expressed through exclusion: We are so, they are other. Race is a mode of self-identification which in SA also includes entitlement. One cannot see AA as compensation, although many beneficiaries do, nor can one see it as punitive, as harsh reality dictate we should see it as a market correction which should be aimed at the most marginal elements of society. While we talk of using the past to justify racial policies, we should remember that this has consequences. One of these days we will burn books, then we will burn bodies because so many believe the lies of politicians who cater to bigotry. We have never stopped to ask what percentage of violent crime is racially based or what attitudes on race really mean to the future. We are different, genetically, culturally, physiologically and cognitively. We need to acknowledge difference in order to redefine how we construct identity but so long as race buys a free lunch with other people’s money, race will be here to stay as an expedient convenience of bigots and avaricious megalomaniacs.
Anton Kleinschmidt-you are spewing venom and utter rubbish when you speak of white organisations employing mostly blacks-whom of course they would employ in large numbers so as to continue exploiting them as providers of cheap labour.
For you to claim that many blacks have been elevated to middle and senior management is false as I suggested before try and conduct research into the Banking and Insurance sectors, you will be shocked by not only promotions but by the huge salary disparities between blacks and their white,Indian and coloured conterparts doing the same job,of course with blacks having professional qualifications longer experience being subordinates to unqualified and less experienced whites.Of course this can only happen in Africa not in Europe,you will never find a blackman in charge of Europeans/whites.
Dre – I think we agree on many points but perhaps have talked past each other. As you have noticed I am engaging in the race debate even as I think it must be moved past and can only ever be a dead end of entitlement and exclusion. You are correct in stating that race and culture are conflated or act as euphemisms. How to move forward from a past of racial-capitalism without destroying the middle class (Kenya is not a good model) is a real issue.
You stated “We need to confront the way in which identity has been entrenched in a natural productive order, and attack the new incarnations of an age old mythology of entitlement and destiny in order to decouple this from the production of class”.
I agree, but it is also two way in that class is being conflated with race through the identity referent of ‘previously disadvantaged’, which is used to justify gross excesses and conspicuous consumption by the new (black) elite.
That is why I say help someone who is poor because they are poor not because they are of particular hue or group. The defense of the new racial order smacks of elite transition whereby capital continues unchecked and unhindered with new pigs at the trough.
@Tlanch Tau,
Actually whites agreed a long time before 1994 to hand the country over to black rule. There was a referendum of whites giving the OK to de Klerk to go ahead and negotiate for an election. Many overseas media at the time stating that it was equivalent to “turkeys voting for Christmas”.
The results of the referendum were overwhelming in supporting de Klerk, even in right wing Afrikaner areas.
Both sides realised that black rule was inevitable. That whites were possibly just being pragmatic is unprovable and beside the point. A civil war would have benefitted no-one, and I can assure you many more blacks than whites would have suffered.
Furthermore if you think the international community would have supported such a situation you are grossly mistaken.
The Cold War was over, the ANC’s powerful international allies were no longer a factor. MK was always a rag-tag army. Anyway the debate is fruitless.
@Tlanch Tau
“Now imagine a South Africa where everyone can part take in the building of the country and blacks who are at least 80% of the population can pay tax”.
Again rabbiting on about the past iniquities will get you nowhere.
Fact is it will take an educated workforce to reach such a situation. Only hard work and dedication to educationwill get us to that place.
I think we can all agree about the horrific treatment of blacks under apartheid, Bantu education being not least of it. However the present way of doing BEE and AA is not going to work either. It’s a long haul, and education is the answer. No easy answers Tlanch!
Bravo – Nobody can win with your attitude! By your reckoning if an organisation employs lots of ‘blacks’ they are exploited? Perhaps you should be more careful with your language?
Just imagine if England put in place policies that said AA for whites as England is predominantly white. What global outcry would there be; and such a policy would never get put into law because it is crude and unfair.
It is clear that you have not traveled beyond South Africa or know anything about Europe. There may be racism in Europe but not of the kind you suppose or to the extent implied.
To discuss how race correlates with poverty/etc is one thing but to simply decry ‘white’ people do this or that as you do is a racist attitude. Your use of race is crude and ignorant and the kind I deplore.
Even if there are problems in banking and insurance your use of race in such absolutes will never help. Also to assume blacks are overlooked seems presumptuous as you do keep asking people to do research on the topic so it is clear you do not actually know. I know a black banker and he doesn’t suffer nor need a handout/up. Your screams for immediate transformation smacks of personal vendetta and desire and not institutionalized racism.
@Jeff
“Actually whites agreed a long time before 1994 to hand the country over to black rule.”
It must be that Durban ganja kicking in again.
“However the present way of doing BEE and AA is not going to work either.”
BEE needs to be overhauled.
AA has been remarkably successful in uplifting previously disadvantaged communities in US, India, UK, Australia, New Zealand…
@Michael Francis
“I know a black banker and he doesn’t suffer nor need a handout/up.”
A black banker in Canada! My goodness, I’m sure the Canadian Government must have declared him to be a tourist attraction. btw. I trust your latest “SA white refugee” Brandon Huntley is settling in bracing himself for the looong Canadian winter ahead!
My Dear Doctor
Even though I have not been to Europe I have relatives who live and work there only as nurses and teachers- the jobs that are not desired by the natives of Europe,especially nursing whose are usually confined to old people’s homes cleaning and washing their linen and their bottoms.
By the way you well-travelled doctor may you give us an example of a black person(African) that heads a big company in Europe or Canada.
@Bravo – please do actually read blogs you comment on. I am against the unconditional support of privilege that is currently supported by AA/BEE. To reiterate, a focus on poverty instead of race would hasten racial transformation. Your crude casting of race in absolutes is of no help to anyone. Your statements are themselves racist as you keep stating ‘white’ do this and that/etc. These crude categories need to be moved beyond as defining categories or South Africa will remain mired in racial mistrust, violence and poverty for the majority.
@Bravo – when I travel I am usually found in the pub, museum or up the side of a mountain I rarely hobnob with CEOs of major companies. Tidjane Thiam would not meet with me last time I was in the UK. I guess he was too busy on the FTSE.
And I am horrified that you think being a teacher or a nurse is a bad profession. All work is noble and caring for the ill should be especially respected. I proudly tell people my mother is a nurse and she worked as a janitor to pay for university when she was into her 40s.
@ Michael….after a break of a week since my last post I have now come to the conclusion that this debate (and many more like it) is quite pointless in the face of such willful ignorance on the part of the Bravo’s and Dave Harris’s of the world.
Let history be the judge
Hi Michael, I think this discussion may be dead now but I only just saw your response.
The black middle class did not really exist before AA. They benefited from transformation. It is unrealistic to imagine that every single person will be equal in this new democracy, unfortunately. It is better that more rather than few benefit, but some is better than none.
The problem I have with your idea of scholarships is that it ignores entire generations of people too old to benefit from scholarships. If we wait for the benefits of those on scholarships to elevate the poor out of poverty, we will be waiting many years before their advantages are passed down to their kids. What about adults who missed the scholarship boat? Is it just tough takkie for them? People want change now, they do not want to have to wait. AA at least reaches some people who would not have benefited before. In an ideal world I would agree with your method, but people want results now, and why should they not? The black middle class has swelled considerably as a result of AA, and this is at least something.
@Po on October 3rd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Very true indeed. That is the issue with these people. It’s funny how they are quick to talk about 14 year or so having gone by and that it’s time to get rid of AA and BEE but they come up with ideas that will take forever for implement or for them to start making transformation happen.
On one of his responses Michael(The Aurthor) mentioned that AA should include everyone poor including whites, but he forgets that when that happens the so called poor whites will be the focus and blacks will not be participants anymore. He should have heard that by now white women are the most beneficiaries of EE. Why is that? One of the most touching photos from the struggle days was of a middle aged man in the 60′s with a placard that read “Freedom in our Lifetime” I always asked myself if it ever happened or if he died before 1994. Hope that he made it, but I don’t believe we should now just sit and say that the next generation will be the beneficiaries of our democracy. Some of us have burdens of the past and at age 28 we not just ourselves to look after but we have families and extended families that we need to look after due to the past injustices.
@Po and Tlanch Tau,
My father was a coalminer in the UK in the Great Depression of the 1930′s. My mother was a domestic worker for the local doctor. My two sisters, who were older than me, both worked in factories.
We Were poor. No indoor toilet, no bathroom, no phone, no car, a lean-to kitchen.
Then I got lucky. The Labour Party came into power after the war. My father said to me: “It’s too late for the rest of the family, but you can get an education. Neithet of parents could read or write properly. My father’s health was ruined in the mines, at 35 he could hardly breathe.
In short, yes it is too late for the older black generation. That’s just the way the world works. The best they can hope for is to get their children educated and get into the middle-class. My family lived and died in a little miner’s cottage, but were grateful that I could be educated and enter the middle-class, and get out of the cycle of poverty. Why would you think anything different would be possible here. It takes time to build up a middle-class.
Get over your victim attitude and read some social history of what conditions were like in Europe for the working classes. Who do you think did all the menial and dangerous jobs in Europe. It was white people. Exploitation is exploitation.
Mike francis
I don’t believe anybody has given a example to make you understand that its not just about scrapping AA and BEE and focusing on the poor masses…your meritocratic ideals and classist perspective is credible however neglects certain truths…
Let Tokyo sexwale (rich black BEE beneficiary) go for a late night stroll around or through one of those gated (white) communities in Jo burg or one of the few in cape town. Regardless of the fact that his a billionaire, his black ass will get checked by the patrolling ADT car or the (black) security at at the gate (hopefully his well dressed and didn’t get outa bed looking “too black”)..He is rich, stinking rich…However still very much vulnerable to RACISM…Does that make sense to you…Scrap BEE those black elites who are the worst of all i agree, however white racism is ever enduring…like yourself many people are adopting a classist perspective on the whole thing which deflects from the truth that whites are consciously or unconsciously still rotten towards many blacks…Thats why an otherwise well thought piece as you one you delivered here can quite easily be discredited due to the very fact that Sexwale will get asked by the ADT guard, ‘can i help you’….
Well – tell that to Eugene Terrablanche and his now reviving AWB. Their recent infamous statements:
“As the meeting wore on, speakers grew increasingly blunt. “I’m not speaking emotionally, I’m speaking scientifically,” Strauss said.
“The African person is genetically programmed for destruction. Everything he touches, he destroys.”
Another speaker, a former director of the Medical University of South Africa Dr Lem Theron, said South Africa’s blacks had never seen a wheel before the Voortrekkers pushed into the interior with their wagons.
“The first paper they saw was the Bibles they took from the wagons after they killed the Voortrekkers,” Theron said. “The closest they came to brain surgery was beating the Voortrekkers’ heads in with knobkerries. Their only engineering achievement was to hitch a plough onto an ox. They have just celebrated Heritage Day – the only heritage their ancestors left them was a couple of clay pots.”
It really makes one not know whether to laugh or cry. One just wonders whether some of these white people really care about their future and that of their children’s in Africa.
I mean, it is the whites who have far much more to lose than the blacks in the event of a race war. The majority of blacks are not propertied. They are poor, and far outnumber whites tenfold. Poverty and sufferring is not new to them and yet it will indeed be new to many whites, should they not be careful or mind what they are asking for. Mugabe?
Jeff: some of my ancestors were working class English too, I get it, don’t worry. The point is specifically trying to redress the wrongs of Apartheid in this case. You try telling the majority of South Africans that “it is too late for them”. The government relies on those people for votes, so they have to do something about the problem. Surely the ANC is “for the people”, including the older generations?
Unfortunately Apartheid created an unusual situation which needs to be repaired. Therefore AA is part of the way the world works. The Part of the crime problem in SA is that people get tired of waiting for wealth that sits in their faces every day. The situation in SA calls for something to be done. Would you prefer more violent forms of redistribution than those already going on?
There are many instances of victim mentality in SA but I would argue that the support of AA is not one of them. AA does not advocate that a miner suddenly become the CEO of a company. If applied correctly it advocates that amongst people qualified for the job, a previously disadvantaged person is favoured.
By the way Britain is this very year in the process of deciding on a policy of AA, aimed partly at redressing class inequalities.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30438609/
@Po,
This redress is way to late for my family, they are now all dead. Only I remain. Just like my father told me. Thing is my father never expected redress and restitution. He accepted the fact that the world is unfair for most people, usually the poor. All he wanted is a fair chance for me. I took it and ended up with a good university degree.
I actually have little problem with AA the way it is supposed to work. However the ANC promise the poor the world, then positions are given to loyal members, and not on any form of merit.
I would like to see free education and affordable health care for those who need it. Unfortunately I don’t think SA is in a position to provide this on a sustainable basis. It has proved to be hugely problematic in many countries who are better off than SA in many ways. The road will be long and hard. That is the way it was for the exploited worker in the UK and it is likely to be even longer here, owing to the country’s past.
I don’t see there is anything to be gained by these promises. Peoples’ expectations will be unfulfilled and they get a sense that everything will be provided free. The system will fail them because it is an impossible dream.
@ Jeff on October 7th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I agree with some of the stuff you say about the ANC and the empty promised. But I don’t get why you had to mention them just after talking about AA when you are supposed to be either talking about way of improving it’s implementation if you really do believe it’s needed.
And like I said, AA is needed not just to level the playing field but to make sure that exploitation doesn’t happen going forward. We know that a lot of people in SA are narrow minded and the moment you get rid of it you will find that blacks are now exploited again and the very poor whites that Michael is talking about end up benefiting more than the blacks. All we are asking for is a non racist SA where people will be given equal opportunities.
@Tlanch Tau,
From 1989-1999 I worked in for the Western Cape Education Dept. I used to upset some of my colleagues, when I pointed out that AA was no different to what the NP had done for Afrikaners after 1948. I suppose one could say similar about the English speakers before 1948, but I am not conversant with that period.
You and I could probably agree on a number of things about exploitation, be it based on class or skin colour. Again if you have a different culture to the exploiter you are likely to suffer more.
The point I was trying to make is that my father’s generation of workers was never promised any sort of restitution for being exploited, and he never expected it. They knew they couldn’t get jobs just because they had been exploited. I feel the ANC takes advantage of people who, through no fault of their own have very little, and get made ridiculous promises about houses, education, healthcare, whatever. They then get a sense of entitlement, and I think it is amoral to give people these expectations, because I suspect the ANC know they cannot deliver on these promises. I believe education is the long term answer, as people will then become employable. There is no quick fix.