How about we revisit the race question? Can we really talk about a history blind to race?
It is probably clear to everyone that the race question is a difficult subject for South Africans, we think a lot about it, yet not willing to engage in it.
About a week ago, at a political debate, I sat next to an EFF Member; where Dali Mpofu of EFF mentioned a few things around the EFF's favorite issue; you guessed right, the nationalization of mines. We got onto our own discussion on this very intense subject. He said something that resonated well with me; his problem with our political party (AgangSA) like with most opposition parties in this country is the fact that we tip toe around the issue of race.
He went on to say he gets disappointed when Black People my age group do not put their weight on this topic. In a country where industrialized racism is rampant; a fact that I agree with him on, even though I do not support the EFF's political stance. As a young South African I have experienced bigotry in the workplace like many young ambitious black people.
When I related AgangSA's belief on education as a weapon against any form of disadvantage that citizens might come across especially at the work place, he said; no amount of education will be able to penetrate industrialized racism; the only thing that will happen is we would continue for generations to hit the glass ceiling that has been placed above us for centuries unless industrialized racism is confronted and dealt with, we will never be able to achieve true success.
As we continued, I began to reminisce about my unfortunate experiences (in the work place) which were strongly influenced by my skin colour. I remember working for an Afrikaans company where all white people of my age group or younger moved their way to the top faster than the Gautrain can reach OR Tambo.
I remembered how like most young black people, I would just pat myself on the shoulder and move on. Sadly that's not what the struggle icons who helped us get out of slavery fought for and it's certainly not what Stephen Bantu Biko, Tsietsi Mashinini and Christopher Thembisile Hani fought and died for. Their efforts contributed to us being where we are today. We have to however continue fighting a different kind of battle.
As Fanon stated in his famous quote about the challenges pertinent to every generation, our struggle is not only to strive for education but to further affirm ourselves in the economy and to be a true rainbow nation that celebrates our differences with an understanding of social justice above and beyond the moral obligation that is usually linked to the Rainbow Nation.
The race issue has picked up momentum with the establishment of more left wing movements such as First Nations, a political party that claims that the colored (what the US refers to as mixed race) people are true indigenous people of this land as they can trace their roots to khoi-San people.
It's fair enough that there is a group of people who have traced their roots to the Khoi San People, but then again that can be said of a number of black South Africans and in fact a number of white people too. I do think that these race driven parties do have a point in that we do need to talk about race, it's the only way through which we can truly move beyond this intense topic.
It took segregation to build a wall between us, from that point on; the apartheid government went on to distort our history. Before apartheid, people of this land lived their lives as South Africans and were not worried about petty issues of race, and then laws were introduced to separate us and make us view ourselves as distinct. I long for a day when we can live as a people of this land beyond what the Apartheid laws imposed on us.
Still on segregation let's travel back to history on how the wall of Jericho was implemented.
Apartheid; an Afrikaans word meaning "the State of being apart" was a system of racial segregation in South Africa, enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) government. The ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights of the majority of black inhabitants were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained.
Apartheid was put in place after World War II by the Afrikaner-dominated National party and Broederbond organizations. The system was also implemented in South West Africa (what is now Namibia), which was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandated (and revoked in 1966 via United Nations Resolution 2145), until South West Africa gained independence and identified herself as Namibia in 1990.
Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under Dutch rule; there are different arguments about who contributed the most between the British and the Dutch on this question. As an official policy, Apartheid was introduced following the general election of 1948. The legislation that followed classified inhabitants into four racial groups; "black", "white", "colored", and" Indian", with the Indians and coloreds further divided into several sub-classifications.
The Colored group included people regarded as being of mixed descent, including those of Bantu, Khoi-San, European and Malay ancestry. Many were descendants of people brought to South Africa from other parts of the world. With the introduction of this law, came residential segregation.
From 1960 to 1983, 3.5 million non-White South Africans were removed from their homes, and forced into segregated neighbourhoods, in what to date has been described as the largest mass removals in modern history. Non- White (A term that Steve Biko detested in favour of the more affirmative "Black") political representation was abolished in 1970, and from that year on, black people were essentially deprived of their citizenship.
They legally became citizens of one of the ten tribally based self-governing homelands called Bantustans, which became nominally independent States. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches and other public services which were not only different but inferior for black people (current legislation includes coloured and Indians in the Black category).
The Apartheid system inevitably failed in the 1980s in the face of mounting opposition until 1990 when the then President Frederik Willem de Klerk began negotiations to end apartheid. This culminated in the multi-racial democratic elections in 1994 where the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela won overwhelmingly.
In the year 2014, the vestiges of apartheid still shape South African Politics and Society, a point that led to my writing this article. Although the official abolishing of apartheid occurred in 1991 with repeal of the last of the remaining apartheid laws, the end of apartheid is widely regarded having arisen from the 1994 democratic general elections.
To prevent a further neglect of our history I propose that the government; particular the Ministry of Education look into establishing a history month which is to be included in the school curriculum. I see this as one of the few ways in which we will value where we come from and hope to become as a country.
If this is not taken care of, we run the risk of taking the structural racism that is a usual result of laws which are embedded in the social structure of a country. Even when some black people work the same jobs as white people, their disposable income still remains very less as compared to their white counterparts.
One does not need to go into further detail about the amount of money that is spent supporting the extended families, transport and buying everything from a car to a house. It is a well-known fact that it is also easier for the privileged to start businesses and bounce back during hard times due to the well-established capital in the families.
A lot of black people do not have this privilege and to think of them in the same way as we do our white counter parts would be detrimental to the redress project. As Cornel West stated in his book; Race Matters, it does matter.
Thato Moloi is a volunteer at AgangSA.
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