Healing apartheid wounds

Why are we being urged to bury the past by people who are seemingly not willing to do likewise?

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 21 September 2009

The massive reaction to the News24 article by one Wayne G, "Our own Animal Farm" (16 September 2009), indicate two things to me: that South Africans not only want to debate the current state of race relations in the country, but also that they have a desire to know and understand each other.

Wayne speaks from the perspective of a frustrated white youth, and he raises a lot of questions and concerns that should not be ignored.

Amongst other things, Wayne blames the media for perpetuating racist stereotypes against whites, arguing that newspapers aggravate race relations “through their constant focus on the loud mouths of our country [such as Julius Malema, who exploit] our differences to sell papers.”

As a black youth myself, there are a number of factors that I wish the likes of Wayne took into consideration when analysing the state of racial integration (or lack thereof) in post-apartheid South Africa; and here’s what I wish we all start realising:

1. Trying to understand black people whilst constantly bashing the ANC is not a good start. After all, the ANC is credited within the black community for having liberated black people from the shackles of apartheid.

2. Needless to say, not all black South Africans support the ANC. In fact, the success of the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, is in part due to the massive support that the party received from a substantial pool of black voters across the country.

3. Many of us black South Africans see the reluctance by our white fellow citizens to learn our cultures (or at least to learn how to say “hello” in Sepedi, for example) as an emphatic rejection of our way of life. I know the argument against learning black languages. “They are not business languages, etc.”

Since when has the language of your fellow citizens been about business imperatives? It should be about curiosity and a desire to relate to your fellow South Africans in the language that they understand. You can come up with all reasons why you’re not going to learn to say “hi” in Sepedi, but my reading of such reasons can be summed up simply as belittling my culture.

4. As a black young South African, I also do not understand why I am constantly urged by my white fellow citizens to bury the apartheid past and move on. What do I have to do with apartheid? And why am I urged to forget the past by people who are seemingly not ready to do the same?

If I cannot date a white girl for no reason other than that I am black (and that, because I am black, I am presumed to be an idiot), why am I being urged to pretend that my white fellow citizens accept me for who I am and not what my skin pigmentation looks like?

5. Trying to demonise corrective interventions such as Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment with sweeping generalisations about the quality of black leadership in top positions also implants in me a sense of quilt. You assume that I am in the position that I am in solely because I am black.

In essence, you assume that, had it not been for AA and BEE, I would be holding up plackards at the traffic intersections, begging. I see this as a grave insult and a blatant undermining of my intellect and my potential.

Everything that does not work in government is because “skilled workers” (an indirect reference to whites) are being excluded through AA and BEE! Can’t there be other reasons? How did the apartheid government fare in its delivery of public services with all these “skilled” workers at its disposal?

NB: See Wayne G's article on the following link: http://www.news24.com/Content/MyNews24/YourStory/1162/2ec7164e9ae64a498ff14b2f7f4d5ad6/16-09-2009-02-08/Our_own_Animal_farm