'Blacks' or whites do not exist and the racist notion should have been dropped in 1994

Not long ago, a colleague of mine who spent over 30 years in exile said to me that seeing people as blacks, white, Indian or coloured is the antithesis of nation-building and non-racism.

Using these outdated labels, he insisted, means that you are psychologically burdened with old and tired apartheid baggage. If we want to build a non-racial society, we must not define each other and fellow citizens with these words.

I did not want to argue with this short, learned man. He is one of the best creative intellectuals to come out of the struggle history. But, above all, he is a wonderful human being. In fact, he is a world renowned figure except that he is so self-effacing and humble that you can dismiss him for a guy next door.

It is a serious indictment, particularly on so-called black people who gave so much for a new non-racial society, to give meaning to apartheid thinking and political vocabulary.
Worse, the very idea of seeing ourselves as blacks and others as white, Indian or coloured threatens national unity and guarantees that Hendrik Verwoerd’s apartheid vision remains supreme above that of Nelson Mandela.

After all, it has been a dozen years since the new Constitution that enshrines non-racism has been adopted and 14 years since the dawn of free and democratic society. The short, learned man did not have to remind me that we need to fight against anyone who sees and defines other people in terms of skin colour. As for me, I have been aware of the professor’s non-racial argument for over two decades.

Ironically, much of my non-racial consciousness was shaped at Stellenbosch University in 1986 where I suffered my first and last nervous breakdown because of racism itself.
Being one of a handful of so-called black students in a sea of so-called whites, the whole Steve Biko “black is proud” philosophy came tumbling down. And progressively, over the last two decades, more and more aspects of my so-called “black identity and culture” have no rational justification or resonance in my heart, mind and soul.

If you think about it, race or blackness has no basis in the new age or the society that has seen both Mandela and Thabo Mbeki emerge as presidents elected by the majority. The biggest mistake of post-1994 society was for the government, corporate world and civic society to perpetuate racist nomenclature. Or look at our lives in terms of career, romance, cuisine, language, money, values, and even styles of talking, walking, dressing and even sleeping. What is “black” or “white” about this human experience?

I think we need to listen to the voices of cosmopolitan men and global figures like the short, learned man. There is no doubt that he is an oracular source of new non-racial reasoning.

Unfortunately, there are far too few men and women with a struggle history who are exponents of non-racialism. Everywhere you go you find the likes of Robert Mugabe or Thabo Mbeki who consider it chic to spout pseudo African nationalism or renaissance that belongs to the 1950s.

We should consider ourselves blessed that we still have men like the short, learned man and Mandela, especially, who are die-hard believers in non-racialism. Even the founding father of local Pan-Africanism Robert Sobukwe said, “There is only one race, that is the human race.”

The non-racial society that we sacrificed for so much shall only dawn when we stop seeing ourselves as black and others as whites, coloureds and Indians or Chinese.

Believe it or not, I too say: we all are simple HUMAN BEINGS! In fact, we are all children of the same family under one African heaven. Let’s say no to apartheid vocabulary that divides our nation.