Let me first start by saying some of you who visit this blog find it daunting that they have to open accounts with my server to post a comment and opt to send their comments straight to me (my email is posted somewhere here no the blog layout). I cannot your comments individually but have decided to incorporate them as part of my discussions. As much as I'll endeavour to engage every sensible comment others are just silly or even downright racist. Those I'll not dignify with an answer.
I'm one of those who believe biographical gossip is a pauper’s criticism. But, though I don't know why such things should matter I must state, for those who seem interested in such things, that I'm not a product of private education. I was educated in Roman Missionary schools in my earlier years, and Transkie (one of South Africa's Bantustan) public schools for High School. I've personally been greatly influenced in my thinking by the late Chief Albert Luthuli, a Nobel laureate, former president of ANC and a humanist with a Christian bias. I share what he wrote in his autobiography, Let My People Go: My ambitions are, I think, modest—they scarcely go beyond the desire to serve God and my neighbour, both at full stretch. But contact with people is the very breath of life for me.
Hence I say Chief Luthuli was a humanist with a Christian bias. He came into politics at the time when liberation struggle leaders could maintain a relaxed personal independence; when philistinism had not yet engulfed political sphere, and politics came as a result of struggles with one's moral earnestness first. He was more concerned with the ideal of the whole man, as a spiritual being. Chief Luthuli treated his faith with utter sincerity as love and service for God and society. I find myself drawn to such people, which includes the likes of reverend Frank Chikane in our times.
I hasten to add I've very little in common with fundamentalist including those whose fundamentalism is in the name of Christ. I find myself respecting tremendously especially Afrikaners who deliberately go against the culture racism they were inured on, like Max Du Preez and Anjie Krog. Here is how chief Luthuli described one of the fathers of their philosophy Mr. De Villiers who was refused acceptance in the Dutch Reformed Church of the period because of his liberal views: “If you find an Afrikaner who is liberal,” he once told us, and I took it that he referred to himself, “you must recognise that he gets to that point only after a good deal of heartsearching and repentance, because he's been brought up to dislike and look down on natives. We've been taught that natives aren't like you people here.”
Has anything changed? Very little according to president Mbeki in his letter at ANC-Today: Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right. In my last post below, All Africans Now? I tried to engage this point. Some of you, like Deborah Mashibhini in St Louis, Missouri (U.S.A) sent their comments directly to me:
"I enjoyed reading your most recent post... it made me think of this statement from WEB DuBois in 1953: I still think today as yesterday that the color line is a great problem of this century. But today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color, lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their followmen; that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely to be color and race.- WEB DuBois, 1953:
"I do believe that our world - our psyche, beliefs, assumptions, perspectives - are all twisted around race as a major factor determining national and global political, economic, and social directions (at least in Africa and America). We claim otherwise, do anything to deny that it all has to do with race - which in the end equals the dehumanization of "others" and the maintenance of power and control by a select few - but if we don't deal with race and all the historical and contemporary results of our obsession with it in a straighforward manner - finally uncover all that hides beneath those heavy rocks - I don't believe there is potential for us to forge a truly humane world for the majority of human beings."
Deborah
Others who rather we talked only about economics and African dictators feel our discussion of the race issue is tantamount to cheap shots, blunderbuss arrant falsifications and superficial complaints. President Mbeki in his letter says: “those who are determined to avoid confronting the difficult issues we raise in this letter seek to divert attention away from discussing the relationship between racism and perception of crime”. He says this “section of our population have deeply entrenched fears that lies in deeply entrenched racism that Africans are Cushites and Endomites, who have since time immemorial been repudiated by a God who is only a God of the whites”. Is that true?
For those of you who keep asking; I am a black male of thirty-something years. Since the language of human rights has taken the place of socialism among those who seek to transform society for the better I define myself, when labels are necessary, as a Christian humanist. In his recent essay, Putting the Human Back into Humanism, Frank Furedi, a university lecturer in England says: The importance of humanism lies not in what it rejects, but in what it upholds: the importance of human experience as the foundation for knowledge.
In spirit of wishing to learn from human experience, and the fact that I believe South Africa in particular has been chosen by history to attend to the issue of racism in close attention I want this blog to be a platform of discussing it. Since I grew up in the township I know how aggrieved most black people in general in this country feel about the issue. I've been assured that the same is true in the US. Most black people feel not enough has been done to address the wrongs of the past, like economical justice. They feel South Africa is in a stalemate position that prevents much needed redeeming discussions about our past while the wounds are festering. As we know, if rage does not make itself known in words it will make itself known in deeds.
The peculiar thing about our times is the reversal of fortunes I see all around. Many who regard themselves as inheritors of the secular, rational Enlightenment tradition, who call themselves progressives, are not necessarily apologists for ethnic and race separateness, but wish to perpetuate the status quo, which does exactly that under the ostensible banner of respecting diversity. Chief Luthuli lamented against similar thing, of course it was then called “Separate Development” or “developing along their own lines.” The aestheticised versions serves the same shit in silk stocking.
I repeat, this platform is for those who do not care much about flattery and hucksterism. If you have something to say, say it in a civilised manner, this is not a platform to vent racist grudges. If you want to read purveyors of empty aphorisms and feel good moronism there's lot going around, pick your choice and stick your head on their shallow sands. There are some who accuse me of 'preppy angst' that's supposed to be fuelling my racial regret. I'm not sure how one 'can feel good about feeling guilty'. I've also been told I oppress the blog 'with essayistic intelligence'. I had thought we would reserve this space for thoughtful political, cultural, and even spiritual introspection and self-examination; the commitment to the unprettified surface of real experience. To allign intelligence to honesty, a rare thing indeed. I hope I'll not hit a clunker!
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Saturday, 07 April 2007
All Africans Now ?
I remember listening to presedent Mbeki's I am an African speech, given at the occasion of the adoption of the Constitutional Assembly of the new South African Constitution, and thinking in excitement, we'll all be Africans now. My reaction was confirmed by the chattering class when in dissecting praised the speech to the mountains. But a few years down the line the South African rainbow African dream seem to be buckling on its structural faults.
What got me wary later on when I thought about Mbeki's speech is the way he tried to minimise South African racial complexities by mythylogising his identity, and thus of all Africans. Subsequently the myth overwhelmed reality; it became fashionable to identify oneself with previously ignored people. Everyone suddenly became aware of the Khoi-San blood running in their veins, even those in the past who identified themselves more with Europe or black tribal imperialism.
For instance the Afrikaner journalist, Max Du Preez, in his book Pale Native described himself thus: "I am a native of this land, but unlike most other natives, I am pale. The tongue of my
heart and my soul is a tongue born in Africa and called after Africa, but after many
decades of abuse it is now resented by many as the tongue of alien invaders." I still believe that this emphasis on our African roots a good thing; better late than never, but it must be based on facts not noble lies.
Mbeki and Du Preez, in different ways, wanted us to acknowledge the fundamental truth of our mixed blood. Scientific studies, especially genetics, tell us that “The idea that we constitute 'races' is now unquestionably a myth. . . (Prof Wilmot James; Cape Times, Thursday, March 22, 2007). But if recent reports of rising Right Wing sects and radical left tendencies among blacks is anything to go by things are not as cosy in real South Africa. Mbeki too is being accused of having made a volte-face.
Recently, in his Letter at ANC Today, (http://www.anc.org.za/) Mbeki raised the need for frank discussion of “whether we have the courage to engage in a truth and reconciliation process even with regard to the challenge of openly confronting the cancer of deeply dehumanising racist stereotypes that developed over many centuries.” This letter, titled, Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right, used what most white people in our country see as a harsh tone than the call to live up to something shaped by Hesiodean myth of his I am an African speech. He was no longer the Mbeki who fashioned his identity in the mead of underdog heroic deeds and immemorial customs, from sacred rites and solemn traditions.
Needless to say Mbeki found more accommodation in black communities to an extent that Achille Mbembe, a senior researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, writing in the Sunday Times (01 April 2007) threw down the gauntlet in his very competent article tittled “Culture of Mutual Resentment Precludes Nonracial Future” (www.sundaytimes.co.za).
Most white people, even the likes of Du Preez, believe Mbeki has made a volte-face from his wish of a multicultural community of common loyalty, and a shared history in South Africa. Hence you find Du Preez asking towards the end of his book; “There's just one big unaswered question: What on earth happened to the charming, smiling, generous, warm, straightforward Thabo Mbeki we got to know in Dakar?” Is this founded in reality or just shades of white fears Mbeki is talking about in his letter?
I'm one of those who believed that Mbeki's perceived harsh tone is not the results of a change of mind in wanting to fix our sights on the vision of a South African future that's reinvented by our collective identity. In fact I truly believe he wants to deepen this call to go beyond our ancestral commonality into addressing our psychological fears also. Hence he asks in the letter; “why are the Whites so determined to frighten themselves! The answer of course is that they have taken no such decision. Rather, the problem is that entrenched racism dictates that justification must be found for the persisting white fears of 'die swart gevaar'”.
It is no secret that under the spell of relativist postmodernist theory, and despairing failures of the Socialist experiments of the twentieth century, erstwhile progressive people tended to seek intellectual refuge in identity politics, something that makes them resemble the old conservatives of old. Indeed Mbeki and Du Pleeze make strange bedfellows in that they fall in this category. Both say are struggling against embedded prejudices, and that their perpetual struggle has always been against the negative role played by the media in sidelining and covering, if not altogether eliminating undesirable news. Yet they find themselves shouting at each other from opposite banks. Does this denotes the failure of multiculturalism in our country?
Most black South Africans feel the majority of our whites have not been too accommodating of the new South Africa. Let us take the example of building a stadium for the 2000 World Cup here in Cape Town. Greenpoint has been chosen as a designated area for the stadium as the result there has been a lot of hullabaloo, from the residents of the area, who are white mostly white, that the stadium will increase crime and what have you in the area. They even argue Judas' ignoble concern that the money could have been of better use in building houses for the poor—preferable somewhere else far from Greenpoint I presume.
Multiculturalism, it seems, in recent years has acted only to divide the population into factions of competing ethnicities who feel they have nothing in common with each other. The chaos of the twenty first century is largely based on this division. As nice sounding the phrase 'unity in diversity' might be it requires the kind of tolerance most of us just seem not to posses. Multiculturalism presupposes diversity, and diversity demands solidarity of values, chief of which is tolerance. The question then is not whether we're all Africans, but that as diverse Africans we can learn to live in respect of each other?
Sharing a geographical sphere and political inheritance does not make us a nation. Neither does sharing same ancestors because few Boers and Xhosas had Khoisan wives or chattels. I'm sure the president's intentions of wanting to inject common energy in our collective identity was based on noble motives but it was conscious myth creation.
Myth is not an entirely bad bases for nation building. But conscious myths are a different thing altogether from the myths that emerge from the unconscious history (fears and longings) of a people. Unconscious myths convey truth because they are a residue of life and the after-image of suffering. Conscious myths, however, are instruments of human purpose, of spin-doctoring.
Plato believed that truth is the business of philosophy, but knew also that it is rhetoric, not philosophy, that moves the crowds. Mbeki's I am an African speech was chiefly poetic rhetoric. Among the rhetorical devices of politicians we must distinguish noble lies. The speech, with all its intents, was a noble lie whose real sentiments are betrayed by the brass angst of Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right letter. Perhaps this letter should have preceded the speech not the other way around.
In the Mbeki is irritated by the manner those who are ostensible inheritors of progressive rational Englitement tradition smugle racism under the banner of preserving cultural values and standards. This is the common thing in South Africa. South Africans are in urgent need of true integration so as to cease existing in different poles of same geographical area.
Steve Biko, in his book, I Write What I Like, said, “If by integration you understand breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms and codes of behaviour by whites, then yes I am against it.” Integration and multiculturalism has to mean much more than blacks acting white if it has to have true meaning. It is time also for the white community to understand and learn to accept black culture if our country has any hope of forging a real nation.
What got me wary later on when I thought about Mbeki's speech is the way he tried to minimise South African racial complexities by mythylogising his identity, and thus of all Africans. Subsequently the myth overwhelmed reality; it became fashionable to identify oneself with previously ignored people. Everyone suddenly became aware of the Khoi-San blood running in their veins, even those in the past who identified themselves more with Europe or black tribal imperialism.
For instance the Afrikaner journalist, Max Du Preez, in his book Pale Native described himself thus: "I am a native of this land, but unlike most other natives, I am pale. The tongue of my
heart and my soul is a tongue born in Africa and called after Africa, but after many
decades of abuse it is now resented by many as the tongue of alien invaders." I still believe that this emphasis on our African roots a good thing; better late than never, but it must be based on facts not noble lies.
Mbeki and Du Preez, in different ways, wanted us to acknowledge the fundamental truth of our mixed blood. Scientific studies, especially genetics, tell us that “The idea that we constitute 'races' is now unquestionably a myth. . . (Prof Wilmot James; Cape Times, Thursday, March 22, 2007). But if recent reports of rising Right Wing sects and radical left tendencies among blacks is anything to go by things are not as cosy in real South Africa. Mbeki too is being accused of having made a volte-face.
Recently, in his Letter at ANC Today, (http://www.anc.org.za/) Mbeki raised the need for frank discussion of “whether we have the courage to engage in a truth and reconciliation process even with regard to the challenge of openly confronting the cancer of deeply dehumanising racist stereotypes that developed over many centuries.” This letter, titled, Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right, used what most white people in our country see as a harsh tone than the call to live up to something shaped by Hesiodean myth of his I am an African speech. He was no longer the Mbeki who fashioned his identity in the mead of underdog heroic deeds and immemorial customs, from sacred rites and solemn traditions.
Needless to say Mbeki found more accommodation in black communities to an extent that Achille Mbembe, a senior researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, writing in the Sunday Times (01 April 2007) threw down the gauntlet in his very competent article tittled “Culture of Mutual Resentment Precludes Nonracial Future” (www.sundaytimes.co.za).
Most white people, even the likes of Du Preez, believe Mbeki has made a volte-face from his wish of a multicultural community of common loyalty, and a shared history in South Africa. Hence you find Du Preez asking towards the end of his book; “There's just one big unaswered question: What on earth happened to the charming, smiling, generous, warm, straightforward Thabo Mbeki we got to know in Dakar?” Is this founded in reality or just shades of white fears Mbeki is talking about in his letter?
I'm one of those who believed that Mbeki's perceived harsh tone is not the results of a change of mind in wanting to fix our sights on the vision of a South African future that's reinvented by our collective identity. In fact I truly believe he wants to deepen this call to go beyond our ancestral commonality into addressing our psychological fears also. Hence he asks in the letter; “why are the Whites so determined to frighten themselves! The answer of course is that they have taken no such decision. Rather, the problem is that entrenched racism dictates that justification must be found for the persisting white fears of 'die swart gevaar'”.
It is no secret that under the spell of relativist postmodernist theory, and despairing failures of the Socialist experiments of the twentieth century, erstwhile progressive people tended to seek intellectual refuge in identity politics, something that makes them resemble the old conservatives of old. Indeed Mbeki and Du Pleeze make strange bedfellows in that they fall in this category. Both say are struggling against embedded prejudices, and that their perpetual struggle has always been against the negative role played by the media in sidelining and covering, if not altogether eliminating undesirable news. Yet they find themselves shouting at each other from opposite banks. Does this denotes the failure of multiculturalism in our country?
Most black South Africans feel the majority of our whites have not been too accommodating of the new South Africa. Let us take the example of building a stadium for the 2000 World Cup here in Cape Town. Greenpoint has been chosen as a designated area for the stadium as the result there has been a lot of hullabaloo, from the residents of the area, who are white mostly white, that the stadium will increase crime and what have you in the area. They even argue Judas' ignoble concern that the money could have been of better use in building houses for the poor—preferable somewhere else far from Greenpoint I presume.
Multiculturalism, it seems, in recent years has acted only to divide the population into factions of competing ethnicities who feel they have nothing in common with each other. The chaos of the twenty first century is largely based on this division. As nice sounding the phrase 'unity in diversity' might be it requires the kind of tolerance most of us just seem not to posses. Multiculturalism presupposes diversity, and diversity demands solidarity of values, chief of which is tolerance. The question then is not whether we're all Africans, but that as diverse Africans we can learn to live in respect of each other?
Sharing a geographical sphere and political inheritance does not make us a nation. Neither does sharing same ancestors because few Boers and Xhosas had Khoisan wives or chattels. I'm sure the president's intentions of wanting to inject common energy in our collective identity was based on noble motives but it was conscious myth creation.
Myth is not an entirely bad bases for nation building. But conscious myths are a different thing altogether from the myths that emerge from the unconscious history (fears and longings) of a people. Unconscious myths convey truth because they are a residue of life and the after-image of suffering. Conscious myths, however, are instruments of human purpose, of spin-doctoring.
Plato believed that truth is the business of philosophy, but knew also that it is rhetoric, not philosophy, that moves the crowds. Mbeki's I am an African speech was chiefly poetic rhetoric. Among the rhetorical devices of politicians we must distinguish noble lies. The speech, with all its intents, was a noble lie whose real sentiments are betrayed by the brass angst of Freedom from racism – a fundamental human right letter. Perhaps this letter should have preceded the speech not the other way around.
In the Mbeki is irritated by the manner those who are ostensible inheritors of progressive rational Englitement tradition smugle racism under the banner of preserving cultural values and standards. This is the common thing in South Africa. South Africans are in urgent need of true integration so as to cease existing in different poles of same geographical area.
Steve Biko, in his book, I Write What I Like, said, “If by integration you understand breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance of blacks into an already established set of norms and codes of behaviour by whites, then yes I am against it.” Integration and multiculturalism has to mean much more than blacks acting white if it has to have true meaning. It is time also for the white community to understand and learn to accept black culture if our country has any hope of forging a real nation.
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