No looming race war in South Africa

Posted by Madibeng Kgwete: 26 April 2010

Attempts to link Terre’blanche’s death to a looming “machete war” were part of a scare-mongering campaign aimed at discrediting South Africa ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Fears that a race war would erupt in South Africa following the death in April of South Africa’s notorious white supremacist, Eugene Terre’blanche, sought to sow mistrust amongst the country’s various racial groupings whilst at the same scaring off visitors coming for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which takes place from 11 June to 11 July 2010.

Following Terre’blanche’s murder, various media houses concluded, prematurely and with little familiarity regarding contemporary politics in post-apartheid South Africa, that there would be a violent backlash from the white South African farming community. The warnings were far-fetched, of course.

The United Kingdom’s Daily Star tabloid led the charge with a false story, warning England football fans not to travel to South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup – the first to be hosted in Africa – because of a looming “machete war” expected to be sparked by Terre’blanche’s death.

An opinion article in The Guardian said Terre’blanche’s murder signaled the death of “the era of Nelson Mandela”, adding that South Africa’s constitution – described as “arguably the most liberal document in the world” – allowed “political space for dissidents and dinosaurs” alike.

What the newspapers omitted to mention, though, is the unity of South Africans across all racial groupings in their condemnation of crime, irrespective of who the perpetrators are. It is therefore not surprising that various attempts to link Terre’blanche’s death to racial tensions were unsuccessful.

What many people outside South Africa do not realise is the speed with which the country has moved in overcoming racial tensions of the apartheid era. Political efforts to bury the apartheid ghost have been followed up, concretely, by the crafting and implementation of various pieces of progressive legislations aimed at consolidating South Africa’s democratic dispensation.

South Africa’s legal establishment has matured considerably over the last 16 years of freedom. And political maturity and tolerance, even in the midst of the most divisive of topics, has been the hallmark of the country’s new democratic order. It’s not all perfect, but general adherence to (and equality before) the law cuts across race, politics and class.

South Africa is a nation, as former President Nelson Mandela put it, “at peace within itself”. There are no fundamental disagreements amongst the various racial groupings. We face common challenges: crime, unemployment, corruption, poverty, the spread of diseases and many other social ills. And we share common aspirations as well: peace, justice and prosperity.

The insistence by many critics in the West that South Africans, particularly the black majority, should keep to Mandela’s reconciliatory tone is divorced from the realities under which the previously oppressed population still lives. Demands for faster and genuine economic transformation are often wrongly and unfairly dismissed as attempts to dispossess whites of their material assets.

The critics in the West are amplifying the fears of some white South Africans in what is unmistakably more a case of racial solidarity than a demand for social justice and equality for all. They keep reminding the black population not to deviate from Mandela’s dream of racial unity only for selfish reasons – to keep the status quo in as far as the economy is concerned.

Racial harmony is good for peaceful coexistence, yes; but you can’t eat reconciliation. Even after you’ve forgiven and forgotten, you still need to survive – to feed yourself and your family. The media-driven scare-mongering that followed Terre’blanche’s murder does not reflect fairly the feelings of black and white South Africans towards each other.

It’s all just a campaign to discredit South Africa ahead of its historic hosting of the first FIFA World Cup on the African continent. There are continuing attempts to perpetuate the myth that nothing good can ever come out of Africa. It’s a colonial-era mentality that all Africans, at home and in the diaspora, must unite to dismiss.