Othering is economic
In his article “Look at the k w e r e k w e r e i n t h e mi r r o r ” (June 10), Tinyiko Maluleke discusses the term “kwerekwere”, a derogatory word referring to African foreigners or migrants whose languages are not understood. A historical echo is found in the term “hottentot”, an onomatopoeic echo of the click-driven, halting-sounding language of the Khoi the Dutch encountered in the Cape in 1652. Not understood, therefore inferior — then as now.
Maluleke argues that the huge variety in skin colour in this country gives rise to many, often erroneous, instances of labelling with the term “kwerekwere”. Indeed, everyone looking into a mirror should see a kwerekwere. I always did.
What Maluleke does not discuss are the basic economic and power relationships underpinning this.
From before colonial times, the Nguni herders who had initially occupied the eastern lowlands drove the San into the Kalahari.
The San, perhaps, are uniquely justified in not seeing a kwerekwere when they look into a rare pool of water.
The Dutch term “hottentot” persisted in the Cape, contracted to “hotnot” for a coloured person, possibly actionable these days. Yet some coloured people were able to “pass for white”, which provided enhanced social and economic status — and power. The apartheid system went to absurd lengths to ferret out these cases to ensure “racial purity”.
With the advent of democracy there was the promise of an end to this racial pigeonholing, by means of bottom-up, people-driven develop- ment. The return to “trickle-down” macroeconomics and the “two nations” paradigm ensured that between 1996 and 2005 there was already a 123% increase in those, mainly black, living on less than $1 a day. Unemployment grew relentlessly and 2008 saw the first major outbreak of xenophobia.
A general and steady increase in the wellbeing of all groups since 1994 might well have made people increasingly tolerant of each other, plus providing room — and employment — for African migrants, the most powerless of all. Yet the smallest differences between people have now become a source of rivalry, resentment and envy. Some reference to these harsh underlying drivers could have much enriched Maluleke’s analysis. —