Black Racists!

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.