Constitutional Hill

Race

Reading Manuel’s letter like eating a koeksister

Mar 8th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
161 comments

I am sure there are some readers who are hoping that I will have a go at a certain fugitive from justice (and currently a special advisor to the Minister of Defence) who, in his familiar ad hominem style (he even cribbed from me and used the word “gangster!), launched an attack on Minister Trevor Manuel in an open letter published in several Sunday newspapers this weekend. But engaging logically and reasonably with Mr Paul Ngobeni is like trying to discuss the finer points of Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of “The Will to Power”  with someone blowing a Vuvuzela at the top of his or her lungs.

So I will give it a pass – apart, perhaps, from noting that people like Trevor Manuel must now regret their lack of courage and principle in not standing up to Ngobeni and others when they launched their vitriolic attacks on those of us who insisted that the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) investigate the serious allegations of gross misconduct against Judge President John Hlophe - speaking of chickens coming home to roost! I am tempted to ask Manuel: “Where were you during the war about the possible impeachment of John Hlophe, Trevor?”   

I would like to take a slightly broader view, as it seems that the truth has been the first casualty of this “debate” sparked by the proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act and the year old utterances of chief government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi.

The African National Congress (ANC) distanced itself from views expressed by Manyi. It issued a statement which made the following claim: 

We want to categorically put on record that the remarks made by Manyi neither represent ANC nor Government policy. Based on the Freedom Charter, which espouses non-racialism as a guiding principle the ANC, together with all our people, including the coloured community, has fought for the liberation of all South Africans to live freely wherever they desire in the country. Any narrow view that coloured people are in “over supply in the Western Cape” and should, therefore, move to other parts of the country to realise their dreams of a better life, is not in keeping with the rights of all South Africans, including coloured people.

This statement does not seem to conform to the facts. At present several government departments (including the South African Police Service and the Department of Correctional Services) use national demographics in its employment equity plans. This means that Manyi’s statement – while framed in a particularly obnoxious manner - represents the policy on employment equity used by the government itself.

If one is a middle-ranked officer in the Police or in the Department of Correctional Services and if one is assumed to be “coloured” and live and work in the Western Cape, one will probably not be promoted unless one is prepared to go and work in a province where there is ”not an oversupply of coloureds”. This is a fact that is not addressed by either the ANC or by Trevor Manuel.

Now, an honest response from the ANC would have required it to say that while Manyi had spoken in a rather crude and racially provocative manner and had therefore hampered the electoral chances of the ANC in the Western Cape, his statement, in essence, did reflect the ANC government policy on employment equity. It would have required the ANC to defend the existing employment equity policy of government departments, which is aimed – at least partly – at correcting the  “employment imbalances” in favour of “coloureds’” and “whites” in the Western Cape and is also designed to target the continued discrimination against “africans” in the Western Cape labour market.

Such an honest response from the ANC would have allowed for a serious debate about the aims of employment equity and the use of apartheid era race categories in achieving those aims. It would also have opened up the space to discuss the ethical, economic and political calculations behind the specific view of employment equity embraced by the ANC government.

It would have allowed some of us to ask whether people like Manyi and Malema are not merely parasites of transformation (as Nic Boraine argues) who are “emphasising and nurturing an exclusive African racial identity because it benefits their imperative to extract a rent out of the economy”. This might have allowed for a deeper reflection on how we can address the very real need for racial redress without empowering the opportunistic “parasites of transformation” who are abusing the concept for personal enrichment and advancement. 

Unfortunately the ANC was too cowardly and dishonest to defend its policy or to admit that it is open to abuse by unscrupulous and greedy racial nationalists. One understands why the ANC has shied away from such a debate. While it is on the moral high ground when it argues for the absolute necessity of racial redress in employment and other contexts, it might have been difficult for the ANC to have to admit that other factors – apart from the very real and important need for racial redress – play a role in its stance on employment equity. It would have had to argue that it was essential for the ANC to embrace the particular manifestation of affirmative action in order to ensure its continued electoral dominance and the support of the emerging black middle class. 

Now they are running away from the argument, ceding the ground to those who do not only oppose the “parasites of transformation”, but also to those who oppose any kind of transformation whatsoever. This, it seems to me, represents a moral failure on the part of the ANC. The ANC needs to defend the imperatives of transformation and needs to put forward cogent and reasoned arguments for why its particular brand of employment equity is a moral and practical necessity. If it fails to do so, the likes of Solidarity and Afriforum will win the argument by default. If one believes that affirmative action is a moral necessity (as I happen to do), then one needs to say so and provide reasons for that view.

Which brings me to the open letter written by Minister Trevor Manuel. Although it was satisfying to read the attack by Manuel on Manyi, the satisfaction did not last. Reading that letter was a bit like eating a koeksister (as opposed to a koesister) – it was sweet and delicious at first, but left one with a sickly aftertaste.

The problem is that there is a fundamental dishonesty at the heart of the letter. Manuel has been part of the government since 1994. He has endorsed cabinet decisions – including a decision to use national demographics when enforcing government employment equity targets and a decision to support the amendments to the Employment Equity Act. It is a bit rich that Minister Manuel  is now finally expressing his dismay at Manyi when Manyi was merely articulating government policy approved by the cabinet of which Manuel is a member.

In writing the letter, Manuel has also failed to respect the principle of collective cabinet responsibility. In his letter he wrote:

Now, in the light of the utterances you made when you were the DG of the Department of Labour, and given the fact that the amendments to the Employment Equity Act were drafted during your tenure, I have a sense that your racism has infiltrated the highest echelons of government. Count me among those who, in spite of my position, will ensure that parliament acts in the letter and spirit of our constitution when it adopts amendments to the act.

Well, those amendments were approved by the cabinet of which Manuel is a very senior member. If he had argued against the amendments in cabinet and his arguments were defeated, he had two options open to him. He could either have resigned in protest – which would have made him that rare thing: a principled politician – or he could have chosen to observe the principle of collective cabinet responsibility which would have required him to say nothing in public. 

As a cabinet minister in a Westminster system one cannot pick and choose which policies endorsed by the cabinet one wishes to support and which ones one wishes to oppose in public. Once cabinet has spoken, one has a constitutional duty to abide by the decision of cabinet. If one cannot live with a decision by cabinet – as Manuel suggests is the case regarding the amendments to the Employment Equity Act – one has a duty to resign.

But of course if one resigns one loses much of one’s power and status as well as the perks that go with a cabinet appointment. No wonder Manuel chose the easier but morally less admirable way of dealing with the issue.

A rethink on race?

Mar 2nd, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
104 comments

In the 1980s the Weekly Mail (which later became the Mail & Guardian) every week published a column called “Apartheid Barometer” which catalogued the most absurd and insulting official excesses of the apartheid government. (The unofficial excesses – such as the killing and torturing of apartheid opponents – could, of course, not easily be documented, given the secrecy around these ostensibly illegal acts and given the censorship enforced by the apartheid state.)

This column provided information about which documents and books had been found to be “undesirable” by the rather sinister Censor Board in the previous week. ANC pamphlets, items which contained displays of dagga leaves, books and movies which contained soft and hardcore pornography and items “calculated to stimulate lust” like dildo’s and vibrators all made their appearance on the list.

The most obscene section of the Apartheid Barometer contained information about the racial reclassification of citizens. Every week we read that so many “africans” had been reclassified as “coloured”; so many “coloureds” had been reclassified as “indians”; so many “whites” had been reclassified as “coloureds”. (These terms were amended from time to time: at first “africans” were classified as “bantus”.) Of course, the list hardly ever contained any mention of any “whites” being reclassified as “coloureds”, “indians” or “africans” because “whites” were privileged and no “white” person in his or her right mind would have wanted to stop being a “white” person.

Population_registration_certificate_South_Africa_1988This was all done in terms of the Population Registration Act 30 of 1950. The Act required every South African to be classified in terms of race and these apartheid race categories included “african”, “white”, “coloured”, “other coloured” or “indian”.

The Act was amended often to try and make it more difficult to reclassify anyone as “white”, but the definitions used at one time included the following:

White person is one who is in appearance obviously white — and not generally accepted as Coloured – or who is generally accepted as White – and is not obviously Non-White, provided that a person shall not be classified as a White person if one of his natural parents has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu…”

“A Bantu is a person who is, or is generally accepted as, a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa…”

“A Coloured is a person who is not a White person or a Bantu…”

Although this Act was finally abolished in 1991, the effects of this legally enforced racial system has not disappeared. How could it? After 300 years of racial social engineering, which was aimed at privileging “whites” vis-a-vis “other race groups” and of securing white privilege and social and economic domination, abolishing the legislation on which this racial hierarchy was built would not happen overnight. To some extent we all still suffer from this apartheid racial hangover.

Even if we wish to deny it, race hovers not far from the surface in private or other everyday settings: as an unspoken presence, a (wrongly) perceived absence or as a painful, confusing, liberating or oppressive reality in social, economic or other – more intimate – interactions between individuals or between groups of individuals. In South Africa we (still) cannot escape race.

It will take a concerted legislative, educational and societal effort to dismantle this system of racial hierarchy and race-thinking. That is why the Constitution mandates affirmative action and why legislation like the Employment Equity Act and the Black Economic Empowerment Act was adopted by the ANC government.

Without these legislative measures it would have taken hundreds of years to begin to address the effects of past racial discrimination. Even today, most “white” South Africans are absurdly privileged vis-a-vis most “black” South Africans. However, there is a price to pay for these legislatively mandated corrective programmes and we have to admit that there is a huge irony and a seemingly unsolvable paradox at the heart of this effort to dismantle the effects of apartheid race thinking, which have again been highlighted by the Jimmy Manyi scandal.

While South Africa has emerged from a period in its history in which the race of every individual played a decisive role in determining their life chances, allocating social status and economic benefits on the basis of race in terms of a rigid hierarchical system according to which every person was classified by the apartheid state as either “white”, “indian”, “coloured” or “black” and allocated a social status and economic and political benefits in accordance with this race, in the post apartheid era the potency of race as a factor in the allocation of social status and economic benefit has not fundamentally been diminished in our daily lives — despite a professed commitment to non-racialism contained in the South African Constitution, the founding document of our democracy.

The problem is that when the law deploys race to address the effects of past unfair discrimination and the ongoing dominance of an ideology of white supremacy, how can this be done without merely perpetuating the very apartheid race categories and the positions of privilege and hierarchical dominance of whiteness implied by it?

The problem is complex. On the one hand, the danger is that the deployment of racial categories in the law can have the effect of perpetuating and legitimising racial categories (and the assumed dominance of whiteness inherent in the deployment of such categories). By recognising these categories and by dealing with them as if they are a given — normal, essentialist, unchanging and unchangeable — and by failing to challenge the hierarchical assumptions underlying the deployment of these categories, the law can do immense harm — even in the name of wanting to do good.

Instead of helping us to move away from a hierarchically racialised society in which racial categories continue to exhort a powerful pull on the way in which we perceive and understand the world and how we perceive and understand ourselves and our relationships with those around us, the deployment of apartheid racial categories in law can contribute to the perpetuation of the very race-based hierarchy that is the cause of the “problem of race” in our society.

On the other hand, if racial categories are not deployed in legal discourse and in the legal provisions aimed at addressing the effects of past racial discrimination and the continued dominance of an ideology of white dominance, the law may well fail to address the effects of past racial discrimination and the ongoing problem of racism and racial oppression.

If the law insists that race is (or should be) absolutely irrelevant and superfluous, and that racial categories should therefore not be relied upon by the law (even when the law is aimed addressing the effects of past and ongoing racial discrimination and racism to achieve a society that truly moves beyond race — a society that treats individuals as individual human beings of equal moral worth regardless of any constructed differences), how can the powerful effects of past and ongoing racial discrimination and racism be addressed?

Would it not be true that if we insisted that race was irrelevant and superfluous, we would be endorsing and perpetuating the fiction that the characteristics, cultural beliefs and (often unexamined and silent) norms of the dominant white group are universal and neutral? Would such a “race-blindness” in the law not impose white dominance by erasing awareness of racial identity or cultural distinctiveness, given the fact that many South Africans still experience whiteness and white cultural practices as normative, natural, and universal, and therefore invisible?

Would this not negate any understanding of racial domination in terms of cultural or symbolic practices? And if one insisted on this fiction that race as a lived reality did not exist in South Africa or that it did not matter, would one not be denying the powerful effects of a pervasive racial ideology that continues to oppress and marginalised “black” South Africans? Would such a stance not require one to ignore the lived reality of a majority of South Africans who experience race as real and as oppressive?

We have to try and move away from the crude apartheid era race categories (as my colleague Zimitri Erasmus refers to them) while recognising that the effects of past racial discrimination and the effects of ongoing racism has to be addressed urgently. People like Jimmy Manyi, Kuli Roberts and Steve Hofmeyer seem quite comfortable with using these categories and they often use them as if these categories say something essential and true about the individuals who are categorised in terms of them: “coloureds” don’t have front teeth; “whites” are all racist murderers; “indians” are all devious; “africans” are all lazy farm murderers – you all know these stereotypes.

For me the starting point should be to recognise that these categories are the product of a specific history and that they cannot be used to predict how individuals who are said to slot into these categories will behave, what their attitudes will be, and who they are as individuals. When we use these categories for purposes of redress we should do so ironically and in a contingent manner. (That is why I place inverted commas around the terms when I use them: I wish to signal that I believe these terms are no more than crude and obnoxious descriptors which can never capture the full essence of each individual person supposedly described by them.)

Second, a more nuanced deployment of such categories in our law is required. Apart from these categories (which for the moment we have no choice but to rely on to help effect redress) we may want to add other factors when we decide whether an individual should be the beneficiary of a specific programme of corrective measures. The social and economic status of the individual and his or her parents; whether an individual is part of a first generation who has obtained secondary or tertiary education; whether an individual grew up in a rural area or in the city; whether the individual is monolingual or speaks several South African languages — these factors could all be used by our redress legislation along with race to counter the corrosive effects that the use of apartheid race categories might have on our entrenched racial assumptions and on the perpetuation of the racial hierarchy which is so well known from the apartheid days.

Maybe there are other ways to deal with these issues. Who knows? What I do know is that we need to continue having a conversation about what will work best. When I talk about a conversation I do not mean a shouting match in which individuals retreat into the laager of their own apartheid era racial identities and shout abuse at others who they perceive to belong to a different apartheid race category. In having this conversation it would be helpful if we could agree that it is important to take race and the need for racially-based redress seriously while also acknowledging that in doing so there is a danger that the use of apartheid era race categories will imprison us all in an apartheid of the mind — something that Steve Biko warned us against.

What is needed — to use the dreadful cliche — is “out of the box” thinking. In other words, we need to try not to follow the example of Jimmy Manyi, Kuli Roberts or Steve Hofmeyer. This we can only do if we have a real and open discussion about what race did to all of us in the past (and continues to do to us today) and how we can address the effects of race in the future; if we do not take part in the discussion as perpetual victims (of racism or of so called reverse-racism), but as equal, respectful human beings who believe and act like people who have the pride in themselves and the power to chart a new destiny that is fair and just for all — not just for those who belong to the same racial group we happen to believe that we belong to.

Manyi was just being honest

Feb 24th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
173 comments

I am somewhat surprised by the response to the proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act (EEA) which would allow the Director General to take into account only the national demographic profile of the workforce in determining whether an employer had complied with its affirmative action obligations in terms of the law. The ANC and its alliance partners have at best been disingenuous and at worse have been trying to mislead the public (that is another way of saying that they might have been lying through their teeth) when they commented on this issue.

In response to the somewhat alarmist statements of Solidarity about the proposed amendments to the EEA, ANC Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga said the “so-called research” of Solidarity was a “dangerous political game” and that it was unthinkable that the ANC would seek to disadvantage those it had liberated and sought to empower. Cosatu described the union’s claims as “inflammatory and irresponsible”.

The problem is that these statements are not based on the facts. At present government Departments – including the Police and the Department of Correctional Services – are already using the national racial demographic profile of the country when they devise and implement affirmative action policies. This is despite the fact that the Act proper does not draw a distinction between various black people in South Africa and states that “black people” [who is a designated group who may benefit from affirmative action measures] “is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians”.

Just the other day I had a delegation of senior managers in my office complaining bitterly about the manner in which the government department for whom they work was implementing affirmative action policies in the Western Cape. I was told that coloured people in the Western Cape had little chance of being employed in the Western Cape by this Department and that “coloured” members of middle management had almost no chance of being promoted because in terms of the national racial demographic profile they were overrepresented in that Department in the Western Cape.

When a suitably qualified “african” candidate could not be found to promote in the Western Cape, the post was not filled — despite the fact that many qualified ‘coloured’ applicants had applied for the job. The National Commissioner, so I was told, had instructed that these posts had to remain unfilled until such time as a suitably qualified “african” could be found to fill it. This instruction is clearly unlawful in terms of the jurisprudence developed by our courts.

In other words, instead of implementing the necessary affirmative acton programme in a sensible and context sensitive manner as required by the law, some Departments are in effect demanding that in the Western Cape certain quotas for “africans” be filled in their Departments and are refusing to promote “coloured” applicants until these quotas are met. This is not only unlawful, but it also punishes members of a group who have experienced severe racial discrimination in the past.

It was therefore not surprising to hear what Jimmy Manyi had said a few weeks ago about this issue. He now claims to have been speaking as the head of the Black Management Forum (BMF), but in fact he was articulating the policy that is being implemented by several government departments. Said Manyi:

I think it’s very important for coloured people in this country to understand that South Africa belongs to them in totality not just the Western Cape. So this over-concentration of coloureds in the Western Cape is not working for them. They should spread in the rest of the country… so they must stop this over-concentration situation because they are in over-supply where they are so you must look into the country and see where you can meet the supply. This Employment Equity Act (EEA) is a very good act in this country.

In the interview, Manyi also said the rest of the country should be looked at to see where there was a demand for coloured workers. Now, the ANC and its alliance partners could have responded to the controversy by stating that they had made a mistake and that they would now change the policy. Politically this would have been the smartest move. Or they could have confirmed what we all know, namely that the changes would merely extend a policy already applied by government departments to private employers in order to achieve what is believed by the government to be important objectives. They could then have put forward arguments about what these objectives were and why they were so important.

One justification could be that the EEA was wrong to define black people to include “coloured” South Africans. In other words, the ANC and its alliance partners could have argued that “coloureds” were not really deemed to be black and could therefore not be lumped together with “africans” for purposes of affirmative action. This would lead to the conclusion that an employer who employed a majority of “coloureds” in the Western Cape was not really “transforming” as true transformation could only be effected if the majority of employees at all levels were “african”.

Another justification could be that “coloureds” had been less disadvantaged by apartheid and enjoyed employment preferences in the Western Cape before 1994 and hence, to undo the effects of the social engineering of the apartheid era it was necessary to implement a radical process of reverse social engineering to “normalise” South Africa. (This would be the most plausible argument – although it is not an argument I would feel comfortable making. I support an affirmative action policy that is context sensitive and sensible – not one that is bloody-minded and may be aimed at punishing some, rather than at correcting the effects of past injustice.)

However, both these justifications would have been politically suicidal. As I wrote before, it would have been like begging the majority of Western Cape voters to vote for  the DA. No wonder the ANC and Cosatu chose obfuscation and a less than honest approach to deal with the existing policy applicable to government departments which it now wants to extend to private employers.

These arguments would probably also not convince a court if the current government policy were ever to be challenged in the courts. Given the fact that an affirmative action policy will be unconstitutional if it placed an undue burden on an excluded group, given that section 21 of the Constitution states that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of movement”, and that “[e]very citizen has the right to enter, to remain in and to reside anywhere in the Republic” and, lastly, that section 22 states that every citizen has the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely, a policy that would in effect force large sections of the population of the Western Cape to move to other provinces in order to get employed or to be promoted could hardly be said to be constitutionally valid.

So, it was therefore necessary to pretend that no such policy existed and to embark on the rather adventurous approach to the truth. To try and turn the tables and avoid political fall-out for its policy, the ANC and Cosatu had to blame those who had pointed out the obvious negative effects of these policies on a majority of Western Cape residents by saying the statements were inflammatory. The fact that the policy itself might be inflammatory was either not considered or was deliberately ignored.

Poor Jimmy Manyi. He is now in trouble for having been honest and for having admitted that it was official government policy to get large numbers of “coloured” people in the Western Cape to move elsewhere to get employment or to get promoted. This kind of honesty is always a dangerous thing in an election year. No wonder he had to pretend that when he said these things he was not reflecting government policy but was speaking as the head of the BMF.

Begging voters to vote for the DA

Feb 21st, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
101 comments

First let us get the facts straight: the claim by Solidarity that one million of all economically active “coloured” South Africans in the Western Cape will have to earn a living in another province, while over one million “african” South Africans would have to relocate to the Western Cape province if the proposed amendment to the Employment Equity Act were to be implemented according to the letter of the law, is alarmist and wrong.

The Employment Equity Act, which regulates “affirmative action” (I prefer the term “corrective measures”) in the workplace, does not require employers to fire existing employees in order to achieve employment equity targets. One million economically active “coloured” workers will therefore not be forced to move to other provinces to find work in the near future. Section 15 of the Act states that  designated employers must take affirmative action measures which must include:

  • measures to identify and eliminate  unfair discrimination
  • measures that will make reasonable accommodation for people from designated groups in order to ensure that they enjoy equal opportunities and are equitably represented in the workforce of a designated employer and measures to ensure the equitable representation of suitably qualified people from designated groups in all occupational categories and levels in the workforce.

These measures may include preferential treatment for certain groups and setting numerical goals for the attainment of targets, but cannot include quotas. This means that strict quotas, which guarantee a certain percentage of jobs for a certain race group, is not legally permissible.

In practice designated employers must draw up employment equity plans in which they set out the targets they wish to reach  over a specific period in each of the work levels in the company for each of the designated race groups (which are defined in the regulations in terms of apartheid race categories as being “whites”; “coloureds”; “indians” and “africans”). At present, section 42 of the Act states that in determining whether a designated employer is implementing employment equity in compliance with this Act, the Director-General of Labour must in addition to the factors mentioned above, take into account all other factors mentioned in section 42 which includes the:

(i) demographic profile of the national and regional economically active population;
(ii) pool of suitably qualified people from designated groups from which the employer may reasonably be expected to promote or appoint employees;
(iii) economic and financial factors relevant to the sector in which the employer operates;
(iv) present and anticipated economic and financial circumstances of the employer; and
(v) the number of present and planned vacancies that exist in the various categories and levels, and the employer’s labour turnover.

This means at present the Director General must evaluate an Employment Equity Plan by taking into account all these factors. He or she cannot only take into account the demographic profile of the economically active population in a province. He or she would also have to consider whether there are sufficient numbers of suitably qualified persons of designated race groups in that province to make appointment of such persons possible.

If the Director General is of the view that the Employment Equity Plan is not being implemented in accordance with the law, he or she can then order the employer to take specific steps to ensure implementation. If the employer fails to adhere to these instructions the employer can be referred to the Labour Court who can then make far reaching orders, including the imposition of fines on employers to ensure that they begin to comply.

In practice this means that many employers will try very hard to appoint or promote individuals from groups that are underrepresented. As the Director General must take into account the regional racial demographics when considering whether a company is compliant, this means that in the Western Cape employers will comply with the Act as long as they steadily work towards reaching employment targets that would include about 55% “coloureds”, 30% “africans” and 15% “whites” at all levels of their business. This can be done through promotion and new appointments but practical considerations — such as the availability of suitably qualified employees of under-representative  groups for appointment — will be taken into account and will “excuse” employers who have not managed to reach their targets.

In the public service many departments (including the police and the department of correctional services) do not take into account regional racial demographics. This makes it very difficult for a coloured persons in the Western Cape to be appointed as policemen and prison warders or to be promoted to higher ranks once appointed. It is far from clear that these policies as they are currently implemented comply with the Employment Equity Act. I suspect the proposed amendments are aimed at providing legal cover for this policy which, in effect, discriminates against black South Africans who happen to live in the Western Cape and happen to have been classified as “coloured” by the apartheid state.

The amendments to section 42 say that the Director General may, in addition to the factors stated in section 15, take into account a long list of factors including the “demographic profile of the economically active population” when deciding whether an employer is complying with the obligations udner the Act. There are two very important changes proposed here.

First, instead of having to take into account all the listed factors in section 42, the Director General may take into account one or more of the factors he or she chooses.  He or she may or may not take into account the demographic profile of the economically active population. He or she may or may not take into account the pool of suitably qualified people from designated groups from which the employer may reasonably be expected to promote or appoint employees or the economic and financial factors relevant to the sector in which the employer operates. The discretion provided for the Director General is frightening and gives him or her power to manipulate a finding to target specific employers even when such employers have valid reasons for not employing or promoting more african employees.

Second, when the Director General makes this finding, he or she could focus exclusively on the national demographic profile of economically active population and tell an employer that the employer is not complying with the Act – even if the employer can show that in the Western Cape the pool of suitably qualified “african” employees from whom the employer may reasonably be able to appoint or promote people to bring the employment profile in line with the national demographic profile of the country are not sufficient to reach such goals.

I suspect the current government practice as well as this proposed  amendment will be declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. At the heart of the requirements for a valid affirmative action programme is the following dicta from the Constitutional Court in the case of Minister of Finance v Van Heerden:

However, it is also clear that the long-term goal of our society is a non-racial, non-sexist society in which each person will be recognised and treated as a human being of equal worth and dignity. Central to this vision is the recognition that ours is a diverse society, comprised of people of different races, different language groups, different religions and both sexes. This diversity, and our equality as citizens within it, is something our Constitution celebrates and protects. In assessing therefore whether a measure will in the long-term promote equality, we must bear in mind this constitutional vision. In particular, a measure should not constitute an abuse of power or impose such substantial and undue harm on those excluded from its benefits that our long-term constitutional goal would be threatened.

Although a million “coloured employees will not be fired overnight as claimed by Solidarity, the new amendments, if adopted, will require – at the discretion of the Director General! – a radical and highly disruptive programme of affirmative acton that would make it almost impossible for a “coloured” person to be appointed or promoted in the Western Cape. This will place such a substantial burden on “coloured” South Africans living in the Western Cape that I would be surprised if our Constitutional Court would find this provision to be constitutionally valid.

Of course, regardless of the legal issues, as a political matter this proposal will come as a godsend to the DA in the Western Cape. It is as if the ANC is begging the majority of voters of the Western Cape to rather vote for the DA and not for it. Although the consequences of the amendments are not as dire as reported, they are still potentially pretty radical and the fact that some bright spark could have come up with this proposal without any regard for either its constitutionality or the political effects it might have and that this could then be approved by the cabinet perhaps demonstrate that the Zuma government is more clueless and rudderless than one might have thought.

“How very dare you!”

Feb 17th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
48 comments

Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Nzimande, often pens what appear to be highly learned  critiques of the capitalist system, neo-liberalism, liberals and the evils of imperialism. Ironically, he is also a member of the government who has imposed neo-liberal economic policies on the poor and unemployed of South Africa. 

While he rails against neo-liberalism and the evils of fat-cat capitalists (and goodness knows, we need someone to rail against these selfish, greedy and selfrighteous idiots), the government he belongs to continues to implement “pay-as-you-go” policies for the provision of water and electricity to all South Africans, ensuring that many poor people will be denied access to the basic services they require to live a dignified life. He is also part of the government who yearly evicts thousands of poor people from their homes in inner cities and so called “squatter camps”  – all done in the name of “progress” in an effort to impose a neo-liberal world order on South Africa and to clean up cities so that capitalists can make bigger profits.

He therefore seems like a man who knows how to deal with contradictions. Or perhaps he is just a man who has managed to ignore the contradictions around him to ensure that he retains his vast privileges as a cabinet minister – the R1.2 million cars, the VIP body guards, the fawning underlings, the free trips to Cuba.

In many ways, Minister Nzimande is a living contradictions. He is a highly learned man with a PhD who has the ability to write articles containing sophisticated (if slightly hackneyed) Marxist jargon, but he is incapable of launching even a remotely intelligent defence of the policies and performance of his Department and that of his co-Minister of basic education. Thus, confronted with serious criticism of the failing schooling system and with persistent questions about the integrity of the matric results for 2010, he did not pen an intelligent and articulate rebuttal to answer his critics and to demonstrate why their criticism was wrongheaded or illogical (as some of it might well be).

Instead, like a wounded dog, he shrieked and howled in outrage. He reminded me of Derek, a character in the hilarious Catherine Tate Show, who is clearly gay but becomes extremely offended and defensive when people assume he is gay, often exclaiming: “How very dare you!” or “The impertinence.” or  ”What? Gay, dear? Who, dear? Me dear? No, dear”.

In Parliament Minister Nzimande defended the government’s education policies in the now infamous statement below:

If the Matric results are bad, this is taken as proof that this government of darkies is incapable. If the Matric pass rate goes up, it means the results have been manipulated by these darkies. The arrogant, sneering tone of this discourse, which is often racist, frankly, is aimed at undermining the confidence of our people in both our education system and government.

This statement has made the news because Nzimande used the term “darkies”. But it should have made the news because the statement was so shockingly vacuous and stupid. Does the Minister disrespect the electorate - both those who voted for the ANC and those who voted for other parties – so utterly that he could not even bother to conjure up one or two good arguments to explain why there are still serious problems with our education system? Is this really the best our Minister of Higher Education could come up with?

Oh dear, we must really be in big trouble. Where was the intellectual engagement? The lucid explanations and justifications? The plausible answers?

Now, if he had come up with a clever put down of any of his critics, one might have forgiven him for not dealing with the issues. The British are rather good at this sort of clever put down. And in politics a clever put down has its time and place.

Minister Nzimande could have emulated F. E. Smith who said about Sir Winston Churchill: “Winston had devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.” Or Winston Churchill saying about prime minister Clement Attlee: “A sheep in sheep’s clothing.” Or Jonathan Aitken who, making the point that Margaret Thatcher was rather uninformed about world affairs said of her: “She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus.” And my favourite put down of all times is that of Denis Healey, talking about facing a verbal attack from Geoffrey Howe: “It’s like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

Oh, if only our Ministers could show half the wit and one tenth of the intelligence of those who thought up the insults produced in the previous paragraphs. (One might argue that English is not his home language and that he could not be expected to be witty in a language other than his mother tongue, but his put downs – in Zulu – of the DA’s Lindiwe Mazibuko was even more embecilic, bemoaning the fact that she had not grown up in a township and hinting that she was a coconut.) Instead our Minister of Higher Education produced the bizarre claim that anyone who expresses concern about the low matric pass rate is a racist and that anyone questioning the dramatic rise in the matric pass rate last year is also a racist. One would have expected such “logic” from one of the pupils who had failed matric last year, not from the Minister of Higher Education.

Of course, we all know what the Minister was really saying. Like Derek in the Catherine Tate skits, his denials contained in it an admission: he was admitting that the critics had unanswerable points and that he had no intelligent or thoughtful way to defend the government’s education policies and the way these have been implemented and that he had no other way of responding to the often valid criticism (being incapable of admitting mistakes and problems) and was therefore forced to embarrass himself with this completely illogical rant. 

Anyone with two brain cells knows that in South Africa in 2011 we do not have a fair education system and that the system is failing the majority of our children. If one is poor and is forced to go to a township school, one’s chances of obtaining a decent education are rather slim. If one happens to be middle or upper middle class and one’s parents can send one to a private school (as some cabinet Ministers sometimes do) or to one of the good government schools, one has a decent chance to get ahead in the world.

In effect, the system of Bantu Education is alive and well in South Africa and is being overseen by the ANC government who claims to have freed us from apartheid. Maybe that is one contradiction that is so painful and shocking that even Blade Nzimande is finding it difficult to live with it – hence the racial outburst.

Guilt and self-hate masquerading as self-righteous indignation, perhaps?

“Do as we say not as we do”?

Feb 10th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
160 comments

When Julius Malema chased BBC journalist Jonathan Fisher out of an ANC Youth League press conference after taking offence at Fisher’s cheeky comments, Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille (rightly) stated that such behaviour “can produce no winners” in South Africa. What was needed was not the racially inspired rants of Mr Malema but the building of a society where “everyone protects each other’s rights”. She decried Mr Malema’s “sinister tantrum, and resort to racial insults.”

Ms Zille contrasted the outburst of Mr Malema to the policies of the DA and stated that the DA wanted to bring about a realignment of politics to bring together all South Africans “into one powerful political force that crosses racial boundaries and offers the alternative to racial nationalism”.

Of course, to provide such an alternative the DA has to convince a majority of South Africans that it takes racism seriously and that it would not tolerate behaviour of its own representatives if such behaviour demonstrated a shocking disregard for the dignity and even the lives of black South Africans.

Unfortunately the DA does not always practice what it preaches. Nothing illustrates this more starkly than the manner in which it has dealt with Ms Anna Majavu, a journalist of The Sowetan newspaper who wrote an article in which she reported that a DA member of Parliament and “Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises”, Pieter van Dalen and two metro police officers “without any cause or warning, started firing rubber bullets” at two black boys aged 6 and 7. The report also stated that the boys then fled prompting Mr Van Dalen and the police officers to laugh.

The story was based on findings of Adv. Pierre van Tonder, a commissioner in the South African Local Government Bargaining Council, who adjudicated in the matter of an appeal by a metro police officer against his alleged unfair dismissal by the City of Cape Town.

The DA approached the Press Ombudsman to complain about the report of Ms Majavu. The party claimed that the news report was based on untested allegations of a witness and that one could not possibly tell whether the boys were black or white (presumably because many white 6 year olds hang around in Khayelitsha). It also took exception to an allegation in the report that Adv. Van Tonder had recommended that Van Dalen be disciplined. The party also complained about the headline of the report (not written by Ms Majavu) which stated that Van Dalen was “up for” shooting two kids on the basis that he had not (yet) been charged.

Apart from the last two question, the Press Ombudsman rejected the DA’s arguments. In other words, the Press Ombudsman ruled that it was perfectly fair for The Sowetan to have reported that Van Dalen “without any cause or warning, started firing rubber bullets” at two black boys aged 6 and 7 and that the boys fled and the group then laughed. The headline was found to be misleading. And the statement that Adv. Van Tonder had recommended that disciplinary action be take against Van Dalen was not correct as Van Tonder did not have jurisdiction over Van Dalen. The Sowetan then published the requisite correction pointing  out that it was essentially vindicated but that the Press Ombudsman had found that the paper had erred on two minor points.

Obviously, this report in The Sowetan and the finding by the Ombudsman that the paper was justified to report that Van Dalen had been found to have fired at small black children, suggested that a DA MP was a racist bigot who shot at small black children for fun. This outcome was therefore pretty damning for the DA.

As a party who professes to uphold the rule of law, to abhor racism and — unlike the ANC – not to protect its members when shocking findings of inappropriate or even criminal behaviour was made against them, one would have imagined that the DA would immediately have suspended Van Dalen and would have demanded that the police investigate the matter fully and that the NPA prosecute Van Dalen for attempted murder  if the findings of Adv. Van Tonder proved plausible.

However, Van Dalen, who had been involved in at least one other shooting incident, was not suspended. As far as I can tell no action was taken against him. This lack of action by the DA and its refusal to act on a credible report of racist criminal activity by a DA MP was, to say the least, surprising and shocking. It is unclear on what basis it decided that a finding by an arbiter that a DA MP has shot at black children warranted no further action.

For an outsider it suggests that the DA is not serious about racism and criminality amongst its members. It also suggests that the DA had one set of rules for Julius Malema and members of the ANC and another set of rules for its own leaders. While the DA was ready to accept that allegations of corruption against ANC leaders were always credible (because most ANC leaders are black?) actual findings by a lawyer against a DA leader was not credible because DA leaders could never-ever be guilty of any wrongdoing (because most DA leaders are white?).

Even more astonishing, the DA moved to punish Anna Majavu for reporting on something in a manner that was found by the Ombudsman to be correct in all essential respects and decided to boycott her in future. It thus decided to punish the reporter whose reporting was in essence found to be correct in all material respects. This is not the behaviour of a party that believes the free flow of ideas and information (even information that suggests that one of one’s MP’s is a racist bigot) is essential for the effective functioning of our democracy.

Gareth van Onselen, the DA’s Executive Director of Communication, responded to The Sowetan report on the “blacklisting” by claiming that the Press “Ombudsman found in the DA’s favour”. Anyone who has read the original report and the Press Ombudsman’s response to the DA complaint would be surprised by this statement. In fact the Ombudsman found in favour of The Sowetan – with the exception of two minor points which did not go to the heart of the matter relating to the alleged racially inspired criminal conduct of a DA MP.

At best this statement by Mr Van Onselen is therefore flagrantly misleading.

But even if the story had been completely wrong, the decision of the DA to punish the reporter for writing it would have been problematic. (The debate about whether the DA had “blacklisted” Majavu or not is a complete red-herring as journalists deal in information and by trying to cut Ms Majavu out of the information loop the DA was clearly intending to send a signal that journalists who report on shocking aspects of the DA will be kept out of the information loop.) Imagine what the DA would have said if the ANC had decided to punish a reporter for publishing damaging stories on the ANC. One set of rules for the DA, another set of rules for the ANC?

And of course, the DA claims to be a great supporter of media freedom. It regularly lambasts the ANC for its attitude towards the media. But like the ANC, the DA now argues that when a particular journalist reports on matters in ways that displeases the DA it will punish that journalist. Just like the ANC the DA now claims that a journalist is biased against it (a rather subjective assessment) and on that basis has decided to withold information from her. Information is the lifeblood of a journalist, so this step cannot be seen as anything but an intended punishment of that journalist. 

In other words, the DA’s principles state that: “We are all for freedom of the media, as long as the media does not report something that suggests — with rather good reason — that one of our MP’s is a trigger happy racist bigot.

Unless the DA changes the manner in which it operates, unless it begins to apply to itself the same principles it holds the ANC to, unless it demonstrates that it is serious about rooting out the racism in its midst, the stirring words of Helen Zille about the DA’s goal of building a non-racial South Africa will ring hollow. Unless, of course, the DA means by non-racialism that it wants to build a movement in which white racists must remain welcome but black racists have no place.

On “Spud”, laughter and “political correctness”

Jan 13th, 2011
by Pierre De Vos.
91 comments

Imagine the following scenario. Two decades from now an author writes a book taking an affectionate look at life during the wonderful but crazy days of farm invasions in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The book, set at a boys boarding school, is then made into a movie and many people — especially supporters of Robert Mugabe and those who yearn for the good old days when whites who stole the land were put in their place — find the movie hilarious. The main character — a young sensitive black pupil entering puberty — is a bit timid, but he gets the (black) girl in the end and everyone can cheer.

There is a scene in the movie where a kind hearted Zanu-PF supporting teacher (played perhaps by an older, slightly washed up, Denzel Washington) chuckles fondly about these crazy whites who cling on to their farms so stubbornly. Why did they not all go back to Britain or Somerset West where they come from? Then he states that he has absolutely nothing against white farm owners or their wives. In fact, he says, he would like to give all those farmer’s wives a good “rogering”. The vast majority of the people in the Harare cinema laughs hysterically at this “joke”.

Let us assume in two decades Zimbabwe is a slightly more sane country, yet the few white farmers and their wives who remain in the country live in fear because every year a few white farmers are killed and a few of their wives are raped by Zanu-PF supporters who yearn for the days when land invasions were officially supported and when good people could still laugh at the stupid whites without the politically correct thought police making a fuss about it.

Of course, neither the book nor the movie would make similar jokes about MDC supporters who used to be tortured and murdered, because now twenty years later the MDC is the majority party in the government.

The same scenario could be imagined about a book and a movie fondly recalling the nineteen seventies in apartheid South Africa, but only, of course, with the white schoolmaster making jokes about “rogering” black domestic workers.

Now I wonder how many of the people who have dismissed the letter of Justice Edwin Cameron in which he objects to the casual homophobia in the movie “Spud”, would have argued that white Zimbabweans (or black South Africans in the other scenario) should get over themselves? How many would have argued that this complaint about the racism in the movie was “politically correctness gone mad”? Maybe there are many principled people out there who would have exactly the same reaction.

But I suspect not.

And why would those who might have complained abut the racism in the movie scenario sketched above be more upset about the racism in my imaginary movies than about the homophobia in “Spud”? One answer would be that they would not find the scenes in my movie funny because they would argue that the movie is racist, that instead of leaving open the possibility of us laughing at racism, the movie actually depicts and endorses that racism by laughing with the racists at the victims of the racism.

But why would they then be perfectly happy to laugh at the homophobia in “Spud”?

In other words, why are so many South Africans prepared to laugh at depictions of homophobia in which the “joke” consists of merely repeating long held and tired beliefs, prejudices and assumptions about the group who forms the but of the “joke” in question? Could it be because the joke is funny to them, not because it is daring, surprising or subversive, but because it is comforting. It reaffirms that their world view — in which lesbians can be “rogered” to make them straight and effeminate gay men can be ridiculed — is still alive and well and that this world view is the dominant one. It comforts them and assures them that they are ok and that they are not prejudiced. It is a kind of comforting and nostalgic laugh about how some things in the world have at least not changed. At least we can still laugh at the moffies.

Does this knee-jerk rejection to Justice Cameron’s letter not reflect an attempt at protecting and safeguarding the prejudices and hatreds of the majority from the so called “politically correct” thought police? And is this reaction to “political correctness” not an attempt to avoid being reminded that being cruel and demeaning to people whom one have always been cruel and demeaning to and who are still raped and murdered in South Africa because they are gay or lesbian is only funny if one endorses the hatred and prejudice which is the cause of so much of the suffering of gays and lesbians who are not as lucky as somebody like myself who are relatively safe from attack and of sufficient status to be mostly left alone?

Now some would argue that this is ridiculous because if we cannot make jokes about someone who happens to be gay or straight, a man or a woman, black or white, what would we laugh about. This is not a good argument. Of course one can make very funny jokes about a gay man or a lesbian. But such a joke will have to surprise or shock or challenge our preconceived ideas or prejudices. Such a joke will at least allow the possibility that we are not merely laughing at the gay man or lesbian, but also, perhaps, at the absurdity of the whole discourse of sexual orientation or the absurdity of the stereotypes that are still so deeply entrenched in our society. Such a joke need not be “kind” to the gay man or lesbian, but it cannot merely describe and endorse the prejudices which every year still lead to the assault, rape and murder of gay men and lesbians.

Now, does this mean that we should ban such jokes? Personally, I would be vehemently opposed to such an approach. This is also not what Justice Cameron had in mind. He did not request that the movie be censored or banned. Unlike a certain City of Cape Town councillor who requested me to delete certain sections of my Blog because it hurt his ego, neither Justice Cameron in his letter, nor myself has ever advocated censorship — even when the feelings or ego’s of a whole group of marginalised and vilified people are deeply affected. If someone wants to make a movie with racist, homophobic or sexist jokes, let them do that.

But let us have a conversation about it. Let those of use who bear the brunt of the racism and homophobia perpetuated in such movies point out our discomfort. Let us hear how the writer of the book or the producer of the movie justifies these scenes. Let us debate the issue and let us not dismiss concerns with heartless and bullying phrases like: “Get over it!” (It is a bit like someone telling a Holocaust survivor reflecting on anti-semitism to: “Just to get over it”. It might shut the other person up but it is not honest and it does not embrace the principle of free speech and robust debate.)

Let us reflect on our own knee-jerk reactions which dismiss as ridiculous any objection to a scene in a book or a movie that makes others uncomfortable or upset them – which we do in an attempt to delegitimise the person and the views he or she is expressing so as never having to confront the easy certainty of your own world view and whatever prejudices might lurk there. And let us — if we feel strongly about it — engage each other and have a real debate.

Why not have a discussion about what makes something funny and what not? Why not ask questions about when a joke can be funny even if it relies on some kind of hurtful or even dangerous stereotype? Why is “The Producers” — a play about a Jewish mogul putting on a musical about Hitler (Springtime for Hitler and Germany / U-boats are sailing once more) — funny, but why would a movie depicting life in Germany during the second World War in which we are invited to laugh at the Jews in Auschwitz who are terrorised by their German guards probably not be funny?

Why do many white and black people laugh at Leon Schuster movies, while they would probably not laugh at a movie in which Nelson Mandela is depicted at a gardener in the household of a rich Afrikaner family?

Laughter can be healing and cathartic. Sometimes it is just mindless fun. Sometimes we squirm with laughter because we are uncomfortable at how shocking or subversive the joke is. But sometimes laughter is dangerously soothing and reassuring (boring mother in law jokes; jokes about how men hate their wives who nag them all day long to mow the lawn; jokes about effeminate gay men) because it tells us that all our prejudices, fears and hatreds are justified and fine, that we are ok, that we never have to reflect on the way we live, what kind of people we are and what our sad and sorry lives have come to.

Giving credit where credit is due

Dec 8th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
85 comments

DA MP, Annelie Lotriet, seems to be a brave woman, risking alienating some of those who voted for her party “merely” to take a principled but necessary stand. I see she issued the following statement. As someone who as goaded the DA for not taking a stand on issues of racism, I have to give credit where it is due. So here is the statement in full.

Hofmeyr comments: DA deplores prejudiced views

The Democratic Alliance (DA) deplores the deeply racialist comments published by musician Steve Hofmeyr.

Hofmeyr’s statement that black South Africans “suck up the propaganda of entitlement” in order to “justify their brutality” is profoundly repugnant. It demonstrates deep-seated prejudiced views that are completely inconsistent with the values that inform our constitutional state, it lowers the standard of constructive political and social debate, and it sets back efforts to build a truly nonracial, compassionate South African society.

Regrettably, this statement shows there are still South Africans who are severely detached from the values of modern South African society, and who hold prejudicial views about their fellow citizens.

Every South African who is committed to building a compassionate society should reject Hofmeyr’s comments. They are more reminiscent of a bygone era of racial domination under Apartheid than the kind of conversation one expects to hear in a multiracial democracy in 2010.

Statement issued by Annelie Lotriet, MP, Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister of Arts and Culture, December 7 2010

On the legalisation of public debate

Nov 30th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
17 comments

Sometimes the law and our Constitution appear to be rather similar to a very sharp knife. That knife can be used by a surgeon to perform life-saving open heart surgery. But the same knife can also be used to stab somebody in the heart and kill him or her. (In this regard, the law is not unlike religion which can sooth and comfort, but can also help to spread hatred and violence.)

In a constitutional state the law can help to protect the marginalised and oppressed and can ensure a semblance of ordered fairness and — sometimes — even a semblance of justice. Although the law and the Constitution is not perfect in this regard, it does help to create a framework that prevents some of the worst abuses of power and protects some people who would otherwise not have been protected at all. But in South Africa, the law and our Constitution have also become rather dangerous tools that are used to stifle debate and prevent serious engagement with important issues of the day.

When a Minister buys two official cars for more than R1.2 million each, this is defended because “the Ministerial Handbook allows it”. When A Minister stays in a top class Hotel for several months because there was a crack in the wall at his official residence or because he did not like the bed he was required to sleep on, this is similarly justified with reference to that scary and immoral Ministerial Handbook.

When the President’s former financial advisor is convicted of bribing the President, his defenders argue that one may not ask questions about the President’s commitment to eradicate corruption “because he is innocent until proven guilty”. And when an Afrikaans author and newspaper columnist makes blatantly racist statements in an interview and is then fired by the newspaper and criticised by some, her defenders argue that her freedom of expression is being infringed and that those who criticise her are not showing sufficient tolerance of her racism.

Instead of dealing with the substance of an issue, defenders of the above people hide behind the law and the Constitution to try and stop any kind of meaningful engagement about what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and worthy of our support and what unethical, deeply offensive, or just plane callous. Implicit in this view is the assumption that as long as something is not illegal or unconstitutional, it is perfectly acceptable and hence may never be criticised.

Take the case of the Afrikaans author, for example. She stated that she does not like black people and suggested that this was because many (or perhaps most) black people are rapists and murderers. This is probably not illegal. There is no general law in South Africa prohibiting anyone from exposing themselves as a blatant racist. Unless a statement amounts to hate speech, it is legally permissible to say racist things.

This does not make her statements acceptable or right. Pointing this out is not intransigent or illiberal — it is being principled and displays a willingness to engage in substantive debate about important issues of the day, something that is required from all citizens to allow a democracy to thrive. If we cannot express opinions about what we believe is right and wrong, we might as well go and live in Saudi-Arabia.

It is usually not illegal to cheat on your wife or to lie to a friend about it. It  will usually not be illegal to make irresponsible political statements that will ruin the country’s economy. It is not illegal to express admiration for HF Verwoerd or Sarah Palin or to listen to the records of Britney Spears. But how can one possibly be an intelligent, engaged and reflective citizen in a functioning democracy if one is not allowed to form opinions about at least some of these issues and if one does not express these opinions in public?

By equating what is legal with what is right and what we believe is acceptable, public representatives and private citizens who deploy this strategy help to limit the scope for any serious public debate and rob us all of the agency to help form the world we live in. It is a deeply anti-democratic as democracy can only flourish where the space for debate and contestation is not closed down by this narrow, legalistic, approach to the world.

It is time that South African citizens learn that there is often a huge gap between what is legally permissible (or what has not been proven — yet — to have been illegal) on the one hand, and the opinions we are allowed to form as citizens of a democratic country about what we believe is right and wrong, acceptable or despicable on the other.

Given the facts which emerged at the trial of Schabir Shaik, we are completely within our rights to ask whether our President — not unlike former US President Richard Nixon, who had to resign in disgrace — might not be a crook (despite the fact that he has not yet been tried or convicted by any court). Given our ethical commitments about racism and discrimination, we are perfectly within our rights to criticise the Afrikaans author who made racist comments, despite the fact that what she said was probably not illegal and that she has not been convicted of any crime.

Now, defenders of the President are of course entitled to argue that taking a million Rand from a convicted fraudster and then doing favours for that crook is perfectly acceptable and that this is the kind of public morality that we expect and admire in our leaders. We can then have a debate on whether it is a good thing to have a President that takes money from a crook.

Defenders of the racist author may argue that it is perfectly acceptable to make racist statements and that such racism should be endorsed and admired. We can then have a real debate about these issues and, hopefully,  in time move in the direction of a shared vision of what is right and wrong in a constitutional democracy based on open and transparent government and human dignity, equality and freedom.

Given the vast differences in the world views of South Africans, we will probably not reach that utopian point in the near future (or perhaps ever). But as long as we embrace this legalisation of public debate and hide behind formalistic platitudes about what is legal and illegal, we are not going to have a serious debate on the important issues.

And without such debate our democracy cannot flourish.

Hiding in a cave

Nov 29th, 2010
by Pierre De Vos.
102 comments

When that well known Afrikaans “singer” Sunette Bridges made blatantly racist comments and I posted a Blog on it, several readers of this Blog argued either that racism was justified or that it was an aberration. They hardly knew any racist white people and there were hardly any racists left in South Africa, many readers claimed. (Some argued that Sunette Bridges was not well known, but they obviously know little about Afrikaans music and have not suffered through one and a half hours of hell – for anthropological reasons, you see – by watching the smash hit movie Liefling like I did last week.)

I suspect the same readers would not have heard of Annelie Botes (pictured below – no comments about her lack of dress sense allowed), one of the best selling (if not one of the most highly regarded) Afrikaans novelists that sells tens of thousands of books every year. She has now created a storm by making the most blatantly racist comments in an interview with Rapport newspaper.

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In an interview she said she did not like black people.

I don’t understand them!…. I know they are people just like me. I know they have the same rights as me. But I do not understand them. And then I do not like them. I avoid them because I am scared of them…. My neighbour was brutally murdered. For what? When black people are hungry, why don’t they just break in like in the old days and steal food from the fridge and leave? I know where this anger comes from. It has fuck-all to do with apartheid. They are angry because of their own ineptitude.

We all know now that this is not an aberration. These sentiments are rife and are supported either tacitly or more loudly by many white South Africans. Yesterday in the Sunday Times it was reported that Ezanne Jacobs, SIU member in Durban made a racist slur against, Bongani Mpungose in October. Jacobs is alleged to have compared Mpungose to a monkey during a team-building exercise at Giba Gorge, an adventure park near Pietermaritzburg, on October 6. Mpungose was seated with colleagues when Jacobs walked past him with a white consultant and “unexpectedly called me by my name, asking whether I saw my brother and I must go chase him”, a letter says.

These are not isolated incidents and they do not represent the views of a small minority of whites. They represent the world view of large numbers of white people. Today I am not going to rail against these people. Merely calling them idiots and racists will not change anything.

What I am wondering about is this: how do such people live in a country in which they fear, hate or find disgusting the large majority of people who live here? Don’t they know any people who are not members of their own race? Do they ever socialise with black people? If not, why not? Do they know how warped their lives are?

I mean really, it seems to me far too many people are prisoners of the apartheid past. They live in their own private worlds and avoid those who are not like them. How can a writer, for goodness sake, someone who is supposed to know about the human heart and the human condition, have lived such a narrow and sheltered life that after 50 years of living in a country where 90% of people are black, she has never made one black friend, never once had a black lover or a black colleague? What lack of imagination and inability to live a full life lead to such a barren existence? How does one wake up in the morning and face the day if one is so scared and ignorant and so lacking in understanding of those around you?

What is sad is that many white South Africans harbour these kinds of thoughts (although only some are stupid enough actually to say it out loud) and when they do encounter people of another race, they might think they are hiding their racism, but they are not. Don’t they have friends of a different race than themselves? Or at least colleagues which they respect and talk to? What kind of narrow, diminished, lives do such people live? It’s like living like Osama bin Laden in a cave of one’s own making, a prison which cannot but make one bitter and fearful. What sad lives such people must lead.

This reminds me of the words of justice Laurie Ackermann in the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice who said in a slightly different context:

The desire for equality is not a hope for the elimination of all differences. The experience of subordination – of personal subordination, above all – lies behind the vision of equality. To understand “the other” one must try, as far as is humanly possible, to place oneself in the position of “the other”.

It is easy to say that everyone who is just like ‘us’ is entitled to equality. Everyone finds it more difficult to say that those who are ‘different’ from us in some way should have the same equality rights that we enjoy. Yet so soon as we say any . . . group is less deserving and unworthy of equal protection and benefit of the law all minorities and all of . . . society are demeaned. It is so deceptively simple and so devastatingly injurious to say that those who are handicapped or of a different race, or religion, or colour or sexual orientation are less worthy.

It is this inability of so many South Africans to put themselves in the shoes of others who happen not to share their language, their race, their beliefs, their sexual orientation, their gender, that seems to lie at the root cause of all the hate and anger and prejudice in our society. (This kind of self-imposed fear and ignorance cross the racial, sexual orientation, language and gender divide.)

What I cannot understand is why many white people – who are a small minority who, according to its own mythology – has become the “other” cannot see the “other” in fellow South Africans who happen to be black. What lack of humanity and lack of basic decency make it impossible for them to deal with “the other” in their midst?

Is it the structural inequality, the attitudes about racial superiority, the arrogance that comes with 100 years of world domination, that is so deeply embedded in Western culture that still allows white people to believe in their own intellectual and moral superiority and in the basic goodness of their own kind – despite all the revelations at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of what they and their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters did during apartheid?

Or does Annelie Botes have a point, sort of, in that many white South Africans are angry, perhaps not at their own ineptitude, but because of the knowledge of their own turpitude and moral corruption and their lack of basic decency and humanity which was so vividly exposed at the TRC hearings?

What people like Annelie Botes do not realise is that one can be liberated from the fear and the hate by opening oneself up to the other – in its many forms. Hiding in one’s cave makes one just nasty and bitter and unhappy. It leads to discrimination and prejudice and long dark nights of the soul. What a waste of human life.

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