None of us is born a racist.
Early accounts make it clear that when our forefathers first met they were
bright-eyed and curious, even admiring.
Look at what Father Guy
Tachard wrote of Khoikhoi in 1685: “They
are faithful, and the Dutch give them free access to their houses without fear
of being robbed by them. They are charitable and helpful, although they possess
scarcely anything. When given something that can be divided, they share it with
the first of their fellows they meet: they even seek out their companions with
this intention, and they usually keep the smallest portion for themselves.”
And de la Loubère in 1698: “They are so
nimble that many of them can outrun a horse. They are good shots with bows and
arrows, and courageous almost to recklessness. At times they even overcome a
lion, provided they have enough skins or old clothing to protect their left
arm; this they thrust into the animal’s jaws, and stab him with a spear or
knife held in the right hand.”
And then the first
encounters with Xhosa: John Barrow in 1797, “There is perhaps no nation on earth that produces so fine a race of men
as the Kaffers: they are tall, stout, muscular, well made, elegant figures,”
John Shipp in 1799, “The Caffres are
certainly a most formidable enemy. They are such expert marksmen with their
darts [assegais] that they can be certain of their aim at sixty, or seventy,
paces distant,” William Holden in 1866, “They have outwitted our ablest governors, our most astute diplomatists,
and our very acute officers and magistrates. They are equal to any English
lawyers in discussing questions which relate to their own laws and customs.”
We become racist. It is only
with time that we absorb ignorant prejudice, or learn informed tolerance, and
these can become cultural norms. By adulthood, we are all touched by racism,
and we need to accept that we are all racists to a degree. We all have
prejudice no matter how hard we try. Admit it. I do.
Whether you are black,
white, asian, polynesian or anyone else, you have prejudice, and no one is
innocent. Racism is a characteristic of our species and it will never go away. In
some societies, prejudice determines the national outlook. In others, racial tolerance
is developed to such a high degree that differences can be ascribed to cultural
and economic disparities, and that respect, dignity and opportunity are
accorded to all people, in law and socially. Informed racial tolerance as
opposed to ignorant prejudice, and not an absence of racism, is the skill that will
bring peace - even in a historically racist society.
Racism is usually
manufactured. During that most racist of centuries, the Twentieth, two
ethnically almost identical European neighbours fought a war of annihilation
over a manufactured ethnic principle - which scientifically was complete
bullshit.
I want to talk about manufactured
South African bullshit.
First of all I want to say
to blacks – strangers, those I know, and my friends: you are racist too, and
are part of the problem. A big part… sorry if I hurt your feelings. Of course, white
ideological racism was originally to blame, based on ill-informed
pseudo-science and pseudo-history floating around in the Nineteenth Century, and
it should not have survived so long or become institutionalised. Our
forefathers’ wars were essentially territorial and not racial. That came later.
While racial prejudice certainly existed, many people chose to overcome it (and
were free to do so) and there were alliances and intermarriage - even mutual
admiration.
Ideologies however are dangerous
and powerful things and become deeply rooted “truths”. The biggest tragedy of white
racist ideology in South Africa
is that its victims came to believe it, and now are unable to let it go. This
is the crux of the matter, and our biggest challenge - black acceptance and belief
in racist ideas. Today, to be sure, some white South Africans cling to a bitter
and dangerous ideological intolerance, and probably some always will. Its
embarrassing to other whites. But they will always be near, and I guess the
best thing is to ignore them and watch them hopefully diminish. But we must
never let the intolerance of others determine our own generalisations.
Most whites have worked hard
on their tolerance in this country, truly. During the Mandela years harmony
seemed feasible. Unfortunately blacks were content to be the recipients of this
gesture without realising that their own resentments were unrestrained. Today
these resentments are seething and they provoke and feed a growing, brand new white
racism. Unscrupulous politicians are using it to great effect, like Julius
Malema who has done this country terrible, terrible harm.
The older ANC generation is
fixated on the past. They copy the extinct Soviet dinosaurs at whose feet they
once sat. We see this in many of their actions – their reckless brinkmanship;
the idea that the struggle never ends; the creation of a spiritual figurehead
(Mandela) for the ideology; the noisy spin that hides inaction; the compulsion
to centralise government; the non-representational party list system; the
raising of Party above State and their drive towards a one party state; their
isolated elitism; the piecemeal erosion of the constitution; and their
high-speed motorcades. It is all so very Soviet – and so passé!
In 2012 the ANC is still
blaming Apartheid and racism for everything, like a stuck record! Well, I think
its time now that they accept responsibility for the recent past, the present
and future. How convenient it must be though, to govern and never have to be
accountable! But the truth is that the ANC has for nearly 20 years signally failed
to satisfy its electorate or establish a healthy economy let alone state. To
hide its failure and shame, it has begun loudly reviving racism in a campaign
to scapegoat whites, as if they are actively working to make black lives
miserable.
This is wrong! We whites bought
into the idea of a collective sacrifice as reparation to redress the past, and
bowed willingly to BEE and Affirmative Action. It was a free choice. But we did
assume our contribution would be used with the greatest good faith and wisdom.
That was the spirit of that time, and it was, in effect, a wonderful and
inspiring agreement between those whites present who were responsible for
Apartheid, and those blacks who suffered from it. But so far, it seems, a whole
generation’s worth of compensation for Apartheid has been wasted, and I ask:
how much damn longer? If the contribution is not being used as agreed, it
amounts to a breach of contract and I see no reason to continue. Remember this
was never a pile of ready cash. It is the result of hard work by millions of
people for nearly twenty years. Its starting to look as if good money is to be
cast after bad in perpetuity – or until something breaks. Isn’t it time to
change tack?
I’m just an ordinary man. I’m
in my forties and have lived in two kinds of South Africa . I am no longer sure
which has been worse; they are starting to look the same. My family opposed
Apartheid actively, but we were not the only ones, and we also had relatives
who supported it. This is the reality of this land. I have been in opposition
much of my life and I don’t expect anything else. Being on the winning side is
not as important as being on the correct side – in a democracy, balance is more
important than victory. I went to the army as a young unwilling conscript, and
I fought against foreign enemies. I never despised the ANC. I always regarded
them as South Africans with whom we would hopefully one day make peace, and
actually, some of their high ideals could have been mine. I just never imagined
that they would themselves turn out to be racists.
It is noteworthy that one of
the first actions of the ANC on assuming power was to keep racial
classification in documentation (Nice Mr. Mandela was president). If you
thought that official racism was put to bed in 1994, take a good hard look. It
is still with us. The aim is that through BEE and Affirmative Action, whites are
to be made to work for blacks, forever – or if you have you noticed a time
limit to these programs, please tell me. To make this morally feasible, and happen,
the accusation of racism needs to be renewed and kept alive in peoples’ minds.
The ANC spares no effort keeping racism alive, thereby nurturing white guilt.
If something can be turned into a race issue it will be, in the grand theatre
of the media.
I am starting to think that
without racism the ANC is nothing; and that mobilising the majority against a
minority is decidedly fascist. It reminds me of the Nazis and the Jews. Racism
is to the ANC what The Total Onslaught was to the Nationalists in the 1980s, a
call to arms and an election winner. And yet all the while, millions of South
Africans just want to live out their ordinary lives in reasonable comfort and without
drama. In a world where economic stability is all that really counts.
I reject utterly the idea of
collective guilt.
Apartheid is history and
everyone under the age of 40 was a child or unborn during Apartheid. It may no
longer be used as an excuse for the government’s failures. Every day fewer
whites are to blame, and most already are not. Sins of the fathers? Spare me. The
ANC have had a good chance to improve South Africa for nearly twenty
years now, and honestly? They have wasted it in a welter of chaos and corruption.
But my first position is that I will never emigrate. I am of this land and feel
this deeply and spiritually, and this is what motivates me now to say things as
they are. I want to help bring clarity and fairness to this circus that South
African politics has become. The government, in the name of democracy and
non-racialism, have damaged them badly, concentrating the land’s wealth among a
smaller group of billionaires than even during Apartheid (but black billionaires
this time), while the poor have become worse off with all services failing.
They have damaged democracy and brought South Africa to the threshold of
being a failed state. Indeed some say it already is a failed state; it survives
on diminishing reserves and natural resources, and the final uphill battle of
private enterprise. Be absolutely clear
that we are following the path of Zimbabwe, our government’s ally.
If we wipe away the splatter
of wrong perceptions we should be able to see that the country’s ills are to be
blamed largely on racism’s products: not whites, or blacks, but on a black
victim complex, black moral entitlement, and an aid mentality, for the white
economic windfall is exactly like foreign aid. We have a culture of dependency,
because blacks do not really need to be self-accountable. Instead you expect
support from the state, and school education results seem to prove this. It
seems black school kids lack the ambition to seize the huge potential rewards
the economy offers and that are available to absolutely anyone who tries. Thus,
except as passive labour, you are taking little part in developing the economy.
The ANC seems not to give a fig for education, because of two apparently inexhaustible
and reliable sources of wealth that are available to those in power: natural resources,
and the white goose that lays the golden eggs.
This short-sighted state of
mind is rather like not worrying about having a car accident because insurance
and hospitals will make things right again. Good in theory but in reality we
get hurt. And to use another silly analogy, to dispel what I see as a common black
perception of capital as an inexhaustible lake: capital is like a herd of
cattle. If you do not look after them, or slaughter them too quickly, they will
cease to exist. And if you prevent the herdsmen from enjoying milk and meat,
they will lose interest and wander off into the hills, and you will have to spend
all day looking after the cattle yourselves. Do you know how? Learn fast.
I had a relative living in Bali , not a typical expat long term vacationer, but
rather more embedded, in a small
peasant village. An odd situation, but nevertheless… I went there a couple of
times, and sank into the hospitality of these traditional good people. I ate
pig skin stew and durian stew. I went to tooth-filing and scary god-invoking
ceremonies. I had wounded, living, yet decomposing dogs strolling into my
bedroom at night, and spent my days in the company of Wayan and his brother
Nyoman and their friends. And I worked out that these aesthetic people subsist
on about R1.20 a day.
And yet, poverty is not
apparent. Though each family member of almost any age works a long day carving
wooden figurines for tourists, or weaving, or tending rice, or washing
restaurant dishes, to gather in the R1.20 needed for each member, there is still
time for dwelling compounds to be tidy and embellished with homemade artwork
and fresh religious offerings. Their clothes though old are always immaculately
presented, and they spend hours turning the many religious occasions into social
events of bright colour, music and happiness. They have pit latrines and wash
in rivers. They make an effort of life, knowing that if they don’t, no one else
ever will or even give a damn.
This, after centuries of Dutch colonisation. So please, please, don’t let me hear
you blame colonialism. Its so tired already.
The rewards of the Balinese
people’s efforts are a learning amazement to foreign visitors. Its worth going
there, just to experience the robust positivity. That is all they possess… what
is the meaning of life, anyway? When I cast my mind once from that island across
to dusty, squalid, demanding Africa , it seemed,
perhaps simplistically, that I understood. Poverty is a state of mind. Poverty
is helplessness. Poverty is blaming someone
else. Poverty is sitting on your arse when you should get up and do
something. I admit there are many other important aspects to this argument not
presented here, but years of experience, new ideas and thought have not moved
me very far from this basic position. Poverty can end quickly when a state does
something large and effective about it, and this usually means enabling people
to unleash and focus their constructive energies.
On this dusty continent we whites
seem willing to continue to sacrifice more and more effort and reserves to a diverging,
sinking, demanding majority, while all the time our own returns and living
standards shrink. At what point will the goose become so thin that the golden
eggs just stop? You blacks, in your dependency, will in the end only harm yourselves.
Many whites, till 20 years ago, were responsible for Apartheid (and I say till
20 years ago because they have been redressing it ever since and I feel the
debt is just about paid). Today some still cling to economic advantages inherited
from Apartheid, but taking these away will bring no advantage to anyone else.
Finger-pointing and blaming is ultimately counterproductive, as only the future
now matters.
ALL South Africans of ALL
races are today jointly responsible for our future. Even if you still believe
that all whites will always owe all blacks something, so what? In the end its
not do-able. In the end, white capital and effort will fail, whites will either
join the desperate poor or wander off into those foreign hills, and South Africa
will be a basket case, flung back to the stone age, or rather, to something
like an overpopulated, pre-colonial famine. Is the motive for squeezing whites
merely revenge? Or do you want some of the cattle? In that case, breed your own,
for this is the gift of freedom. Its what whites are doing. Do you want
something good to come from it all? We whites thought something good was going
to come from it, but its just not happening!
Whatever you believe, one
solid truth is that all South Africans need to start pulling on the same rope.
Blacks, you need to take a sober look at the world economy and strive to join
it. Drop the fake smiles and begging hands. Demand, and get, not aid but a good
education, do well in school and stop being victims. You are free people in a
free country in the Free World, and like everyone else in it you have none to
blame but yourselves. Stand up and be accountable. Make yourselves wealthy. You
can.
And whites? You are in a
democracy now, so let your voice be heard. Stop apologising, like Max du Preez!
Be loudly oppositional – not to blacks, but to racism, and false accusations of
racism, and bad policy. Refuse to feel guilty anymore, especially all of you
under 40. Its fucking over already. Your guilt only makes you democratically
ineffective, unable to be creative, unsettled in your own country. Resist
racist classification and legislation; resist unfair property rates, taxation
and land redistribution. Man up. It’s the democratic way.
I often daydream
frustratedly about a fair and moderately prosperous democratic society, not
what our ANC has given us, nor even what it promised. All they do is talk. My
daydream sees no reference to race in the workplace, nor in taxation, nor
socially. In it, democracy is representational and MPs live in their small
constituencies and speak out for them in parliament. In it, politicians are not
allowed links to business. In it, merit counts. To make this work, the poor
would be identified not in terms of their colour, but in terms of their
capacity to earn and the opportunities that their physical communities provide.
They would be assisted by work-finding agencies in a flexible, enabling labour
economy.
To defeat poverty, excellent
education really would become the central concern, to instil a culture of
confidence, accountability and capability. This is the true cure for poverty.
You should be proud of whoever you are, and I take that away
from no one.