I don’t normally respond to comments on my writing. I believe that writers have the first word and should not necessarily have the last word.

But the beauty of the internet and blogs is that no one really has the last word. The blog writer starts a debate that can continue as long as needed.

This is, I think, the idea behind Thought Leader. It provides a forum for various writers to start debates on issues. And with all debates, there are many different ways of looking at any one issue and there is probably merit in every argument.

There are many things that impact on our view of the world: family, upbringing, religion, community, politics and, of course, in South Africa, race.

This was ultimately the reason for my previous blog, “Call a racist a racist”. It had very little to do with a specific incident. It had everything to do with the way we deal with race and racism in our society.

With hindsight, maybe I should have made certain points differently and I thank the readers of my blog for pointing out certain things to me. That is, after all, what a debate is supposed to be about.

But the responses to my blog confirmed what I knew a long time ago: that South Africa is still a very, very divided society. And the divisions are mainly along racial lines, almost 14 years after we became a democracy.

That is what prompted me to write this blog: the sadness that I felt as I read the angry comments from many whites who read only what they wanted to read in my previous blog and refused to see the whole thing in context.

I have spent my entire life trying to bring people together and have found that this is particularly difficult with many white people who refuse to embrace the changes in South Africa. Instead of becoming part of our exciting society, they prefer to retreat into their laager and complain.

Granted, some of their complaints are legitimate, such as about crime and violence. But black people have been living with crime and violence all their lives.

I grew up in one of the poorest townships in the Western Cape where almost everyone ended up belonging to gangs and where I was robbed or I had to run for my life more often than I can remember. I saw my first killing at the age of about 10.

Now that I am much older and no longer living in a township, but in a formerly white area (one of the benefits of our democracy), I am wishing that one day I will also live in a crime-free society.

I’m not saying that all whites are retreating into a laager. There are many whites who are embracing our democracy and trying to make a contribution to society.

The issue of race is not simple. In fact, it is very complex. We have had 50 years of apartheid and more than three centuries of colonialism and other oppression before then. This cannot be undone in 14 years. Yet there are some people who feel that whenever one mentions the effects of race on our society, one is raising an issue that no longer exists.

Well, I have news for those people who think that we have left the past behind. The past is still with us and I see it whenever I go to Hanover Park, Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha or Langa, where black people were dumped in the apartheid years and are still struggling to make ends meet.

The people who live in these townships, many of them unemployed, are still waiting to see the benefits of our “new” South Africa.

I am not trying to promote my book, but I have to refer to it because in it I have dealt with a lot of the issues of race and racism in our society, some of the issues which have surfaced once again in the responses to my blog.

What I am trying to say simply is this: accept that racism exists, accept that most of us (especially those born during the apartheid years) have some racism in us, let’s talk about it and hopefully we will be able to find solutions to this wretched problem.

All of us must read the various responses to my last blog and try to understand why each writer has a certain viewpoint. Better still: try to engage each other on our different viewpoints. But don’t shout people down just because they differ from you.

After reading the responses to my last blog, I feel that maybe I should stop writing about race for a while. Maybe my next blog will be about sex.

Author

  • Ryland Fisher is former editor of the Cape Times and author of the book Race. This is his second book, following on Making the Media Work for You, which was published in 2002. He is executive chairperson of the Cape Town Festival, which he initiated while editor of the Cape Times in 1999 as part of the One City Many Cultures project. He received an international media award for this project in New York in October 2006. His personal motto is "bringing people together", which was the theme of One City Many Cultures. It remains the theme of the Cape Town Festival and is the theme of Race. Ryland has worked in and with government, in the media for more than 25 years, in the corporate sector, in NGOs and in academia. Ultimately, however, he describes himself as "just a souped-up writer".

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Ryland Fisher

Ryland Fisher is former editor of the Cape Times and author of the book Race. This is his second book, following on Making the Media Work for You, which was published in 2002. He is...

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