Stop blaming apartheid – let’s liberate ourselves
It’s too easy to indict ‘monopoly white capital’ for growing black poverty
IT HAS become simple to predict the trend of public conversations about Human Rights Day. The dominant public discourses on human rights will rightfully begin with some reflection on our painful past, then an analysis of the difficult struggle that we as a nation waged against colonialism and apartheid, and then how through negotiations and universal suffrage we ushered in a non-racial democracy.
The public conversations on human rights would not be complete without expressing strong appreciation for our constitution as one of the best among free nations of the world. Yet such conversations underplay the socio-economic realities which make us the most unequal society in the world.
After fervent human rights speeches by politicians and spirited Human Rights Day celebrations, at the end of the day we will all go back to the relative comfort of our homes.
When a few of us find comfort and security in our suburban homes, the majority of poor South Africans will have to make do with the roof of their RDP houses and the historic four-roomed houses provided by the apartheid regime.
Twenty-two years after democracy, not much has changed for those who live in the townships and the ever-mushrooming informal settlements which start just after Cape Town Airport and end at the northern-most town of Musina on the border with Zimbabwe.
The dominant public narratives on human rights will blame the slow pace of socio-economic transformation on the legacy of apartheid, and as usual white South Africans will be reminded of their position ofprivilege.
These conversations will remind the people of South Africa that the “real enemy of the people” is white monopoly capital and those who in many ways work to protect white monopoly capital.
I often wonder how come politicians and commentators find it so easy to blame history and so-called monopoly white capital for the growing poverty among black South Africans.
That the legacy of apartheid has resulted in unequal distribution of wealth in South Africa cannot be denied. But those who insist on promoting a mentality that blames white people for all South Africa’s challenges are not only misdirecting the struggle for economic freedom, but compromising collective endeavours aimed at attaining a South Africa which offers opportunity, growth and development to all its children, irrespective of race, colour, class and religion.
The dominant narratives on human rights have shied away from interrogating a mentality among black people that perpetuates and institutionalises poverty. Some black people have come to accept that being trapped in a circle of poverty is a fait accompli and that no human endeavour, however well intentioned, can take black people out of the misery of poverty.
This kind of “poverty mentality” has created all sorts of subcultures in black communities, which perpetuate the myth that black people are inferior to their white counterparts.
The macro-economic policy of the governing party has contributed to the creation of a new generation of black elites who openly display their newly-acquired symbols of wealth, such as luxury German cars in the dusty township streets of our country.
Such a situation has created a dog-eat-dog kind of environment in black communities, where black people who are perceived to be materially successful become targets of common criminals in the townships. If they are favoured they are respectfully called
(township slang for a rich white person). Most so-called acquired their new money through government tenders.
There is nothing wrong with acquiring government tenders, but there is everything wrong when such tender processes are manipulated so as to benefit those who are close to the governing party.
But worse is when the tender system is used to steal money that was meant for the poor. This often happens when goods and services are overpriced by greedy so-called tenderpreneurs. The rapid emergence of tenderpreneurs with their instant millions has killed the ability of black people to be innovative entrepreneurs.
Some township youth have become so discouraged by the display of wealth by some tenderpreneurs that they have given up on life and resorted to laziness and being idle in the ghettos of the
(slang for townships). A mindset of helplessness takes root which kills the simple human spirit of wanting to achieve and become somebody in society.
The poverty of the mind is further illustrated by the tendency of young schoolgirls to have a number of children so as to earn a reasonable child-support grant. I am told that some of the young mothers use most of their money to buy alcohol from local drinking holes.
The new black elite does not only enjoy the rare privilege of being called but even in their own homes their children speak English with an accent. They might be materially wealthy, but having thrown out of the windows of their homes their own mother tongues, they have become culturally impoverished.
It’s undeniably a subculture, that promotes inferiority of African languages and embraces English as the dominant language even in African homes. It’s no more “the system” that imposes a particular language on black people – it’s black people who choose to be in a state of enslavement(as insinuated by Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo) by choosing English as the only medium of communication in their homes.
It seems that some poor black communities are struggling to shake off a culture characterised by mental poverty, and that those who have new money use it to access the English way of life and accent.
An honest reflection on human rights should compel us to ask serious questions about our present and future as a people. Questions such as: What have we become as black people 22 years after democracy? What happened to a South Africa which would provide hope and opportunity, especially to young black women and men who had high expectations after the 1994 elections?
An esteemed former deputy president of the Constitutional Court offers sound advice on these soul-searching questions about our socio-economic condition as black people, and he says: “After all is done and dusted, each young person is her or his own liberator in the personal space but so, too, together with others, in the public and social enterprise.
“No young person, and indeed no nation, may outsource to others the task of achieving meaningful and inclusive freedom, least still to those who willed political or other public power. Each is her or his own liberator.”
The era of blaming apartheid for lack of socio-economic progress of black people is done and over – we need to take responsibility as our own liberators.