Is this actual fresh air, or did someone turn on an airconditioner? (See note at foot of post)

A little rant from time to time is rarely a bad thing …

I have never been apocalyptic about the possibility of a Jacob Zuma presidency. Setting aside any actual or purported crimes and misdemeanors, the red mist that descends over some people from time to time, or Zuma’s actual ideas about HIV/Aids; the idea of another black person, who does not pander to (South African) white middle class values about society, as president of South Africa has never bothered me. I am fully away, for instance, that there was significant panic about who would govern India “after Gandhi” mutatis mutandis “South Africa after Mandela”. As it goes, Zuma’s appointment of Kgalema Motlanthe was a stroke of genius. Nonetheless, what I have found very interesting in the latest reshuffle is the retention/inclusion of Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Barbara Hogan, Trevor Manuel and Enver Surty … Don’t get me wrong, I believe this to be a good thing.

However, my basic instincts have always suggested that the Mandela-Mbeki axis would be the last time we would see “non-black” people in leadership positions. This is not because I think that “coloured” “indian” or “white” people don’t have anything to contribute to society. What I sensed during the Mandela years and from discussions with one or two Mbeki people was a distinct refusal to consider non-indigenous South Africans as African. It does not help, of course, that many people from these communities have tended to distance themselves from indigenous Africans, or that they saw themselves as “more European”. It does not help either, that any attempts to consider oneself as African tends to be considered as spurious — even ridiculous. For example, when, many years ago, I referred to myself as being “black” (my political affiliation was with Azapo) people in the “coloured” community had a laugh. When I described myself as “African” my former colleagues in the newsroom (those who were indigenous Africans) thought I was deluded. So, what was it that helped shape my most basic instinct (which, I accept was quite wrong)? Things are rarely simple.

First, I should make a few points. The conversations I refer to below actually took place; I have nothing to gain from making them up — the people involved have something to gain from denying them. To save them from embarrassment, I will not use their names. The fact that that I kept it to myself all these years was because a) I usually refuse to generalise from personal experience b) both the government officers have now left office c) discussing these issues in public provide fodder to racists, crypto-fascists and other reactionary types who hanker after the days of white dominance. One needs to only read the views of a select few commentators on Thought Leader …

Anyway, in a conversation with one of Thabo Mbeki’s advisers, and on a separate occasion with a (Deputy) Cabinet Minister in 1996, I was told in no uncertain terms that people of “non-African heritage” should not expect any benefits from the new, post-apartheid order. While in the case of the Mbeki adviser the conversation was quite intelligent (but no less misguided or chauvinistic), what I found most astounding at the time, however, was that the example of a “true African” was Washington’s former terrorist in Angola, Jonas Savimbi — as opposed to the president of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos (and even Augustinho Neto).

The second conversation was with a Deputy Minister on the day that she spoke of creating “a million thousandaires” in South Africa. Later in the day, in the Minister’s office and in the context of her “million thousandaires”, I asked if the Deputy Minister had had any interaction with “poor, unemployed women in Mitchell’s Plain”. Her reply was: “I don’t care about the women in Mitchell’s Plain. I care only about the women in Transkei.” The general drift of both conversations was screw the “coloured” or “indian” people — we care only about “real Africans”. I should make the point that in some important ways I agree with them. Except, I believe (less narrowly) that in as much as the continent “belongs” to anyone, it belongs to all who live in it and that dismissing some who live in Africa as less important based on the colour of their skin is quite chauvinistic. I hasten to add that this is not to say we ought to forget about the ways in which whites in South Africa have dominated, controlled, disciplined and punished black people; and this memory does not make us racists! They are, in general, the historical aggressors and oppressors and have, by and large, gotten away with it! My name is not Nelson Mandela …

So … that the new regime has included “whites” and “Indians” shows that I was wrong; that my basic instincts ought not to be trusted. After all, my most toxic view is that the xenophobia we saw earlier this year was essentially an economic issue; that most “indigenous Africans” are still worse off than “coloured” and/or “indian” and “white” people; that “indigenous Africans” have been very patient and that we have not seen the last of the economic protest against the growth of inequality in South Africa that is attributed to “market forces” when, in fact, legal forces (apartheid laws and institutions) established the basis of the country’s social organisation over decades …

In part, then, I will accept that I may have been wrong; that the new regime may well not reproduce the narrow, inward-looking approach of the old, but I do remember my favourite passage in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s wonderful book on Sicily, The Leopard: “… for things to stay the same, everything must change …”.

Two points of note: in this post I use racial categories in quotation marks for emphasis only. So if the reader is sensitive about such things, stop reading. Second, the crypto-fascists, racist and reactionaries who usually grab onto any intelligent discussion and twist it their own way — forgedaboudit!