Why SA cannot address racism
Guinea is fighting the virus with a vaccine used in the DRC, while their neighbours Sierra Leone and Liberia increase border surveillance
Since the beginning of this year, Dr Joel Modiri is the youngest professor at the University of Pretoria’s law faculty — at age 29. Modiri, who is also the acting head of the university’s department of jurisprudence, is a member of the South African Human Rights Commission’s committee on equality, and was featured in the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young
South Africans in 2018. He talks to Nicolene de Wee about racism and hate speech, youth empowerment, and his love of good wine and Afro-cuban jazz
You’re the youngest person to hold the title of professor at the faculty of law at the University of Pretoria (UP). Who are your role models?
I was born in Pretoria, grew up in Atteridgeville and later moved to Centurion, where I attended Sutherland high school. My mother, who passed away at the end of 2006, was very much a crucial role model in my life, because she instilled the idea that it’s our responsibility to educate ourselves and become who we want to be. In 2010 when I started, there wasn’t a huge number of senior, black academics — maybe about three.
One of my mentors was my doctoral supervisor, Professor Karin van Marle, who taught me the seriousness of academic scholarship and the power of ideas. My second mentor was Professor Tshepo Madlingozi. They both played a pivotal role in shifting my interest from the legal profession to legal academia. But my real role models were people I’ve never met: scholars, philosophers, theorists and activists from different periods. If you walk into my office, you’ll find a portrait of Malcolm X,
who modelled the idea of an uncompromising commitment to the question of black liberation.
Why did you decide to pursue a career in law?
At school, I studied history, economics and business. Law was just a general path that people with my profile (debating and public speaking) followed. From a young age, my general orientation has been that acts of injustice and unfairness should be openly challenged. Those in positions of authority and power should be accountable and subjected to more democratic structures limiting how they exercise power.
You have had an academic career at a very young age in an institution some people see as untransformed. What have the biggest challenges been thus far?
When I started, the department of jurisprudence at UP was on the radical left of the legal academy. It was like a safe haven in the otherwise untransformed environment of the university.
Of course, there were conflicts and challenges, and we had to take up institutional battles at different points in the past 10 years. Some of them were linked to the Fees Must Fall issue, and we were a department that supported the student protest in principle. I have not had a particularly “traumatic” encounter with UP’S historical whiteness. I guess that is one of the unique aspects of the department of jurisprudence: it continues to be a space in which perspectives and approaches that are not taken seriously in the rest of the faculty can actually be deepened.
My personal challenges were similar to those of any young academic, for example, the four years of writing a doctorate and producing a thesis.
Your PHD thesis, titled ‘The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A study in Race, Law and Power in the Afterlife of colonial-apartheid’, has a strong focus on human rights, nation-building and reconciliation. What motivated this research?
My study’s overall aim has been to develop and outline black consciousness as a critical social theory of race. I did that by suggesting that we can understand black consciousness as a theory and philosophy of race only if we place Steve Biko’s thinking in the narrative of the Africanist tradition.
I was arguing that the thinking of the black consciousness tradition cannot be reconciled with the new political dispensation of South Africa. In fact, Biko presents a radical critique of post-1994 constitutional democracy, and the Anc-led project of nation-building and human rights ultimately functioned to sustain rather than undo historical structures of racial power and racial domination. In other words, race and racism remain fundamentally central to the country’s political and social landscape because the liberal nonracialism of the ANC, and of constitutional democracy, failed to undo the colonial and apartheid history of this country. Particularly in law and jurisprudence, we have failed to take seriously the Africanist and black radical tradition in how we understand the problem of justice.
What is your view on the government’s legal stance on racism and hate speech? Is slapping a fine or a jail term on convicted racists a solution to the problem?
South Africa, in part, cannot address racism because it is a racist polity. By this, I mean a society that’s ordered, governed and materially exists on the basis of the principle of white supremacy.
It’s not simply that we are still struggling with the legacy of the past. We are stuck in the material structure of white supremacy: economically, politically, culturally and socially. We live in a society in which black lives are still devalued and dehumanised under unresolved structures of white power in South Africa.
What makes this theoretically interesting is that we live in a white supremacist society under black rule. That’s the betrayal of the promise of liberation that my study was trying to resolve. So any attempt to criminalise racism or create new policies on racism and combating racism will fail unless and until South Africa confronts its foundational problem of white supremacy and colonialism.
What advice would you give to the youth of South Africa?
The country’s future, the world, and human existence on the planet depend on us becoming more thoughtful, literate, more engaged, and aware of our surroundings. To arrive at a richer sense of ourselves in the world, we have to take reading more seriously as a way of life.
So I can’t emphasise enough how important it is for young people to read and educate themselves.
What do you do to relax amid your busy academic schedule?
I have never said ‘no’ to a good party, and I’ve never missed out on a lovely bottle of wine. I’m also an avid hiker and appreciate good music. Due to Covid-19, I haven’t travelled a lot, but I do make a point of seeing the world. I have dinners with my partner and friends all the time. I don’t want to create the impression that I’m a workaholic, because I work hard and play harder [laughs].
I like African-american blues artists like Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, and I’ve also been listening to the Afro-cuban pianist Omar Sosa. I lead quite a rich and active physical and social life, which is crucial for young academics. I’ve been lucky to do what I love, which is researching black intellectuals, so I don’t consider that work.
At least five people are known to have died of Ebola in Guinea. As the World Health Organisation rolls out a vaccination, neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia are preparing for the disease to cross the borders.
About 225 people have been vaccinated in Guinea, since the virus broke out on 14 February in the N’zerekore region, the United Nations says.
This is the first time in five years that Ebola has been detected in West Africa. The last outbreak, which lasted from 2014 to 2016, devastated Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing more than 11 000 people.
Health workers are hoping it will be different this time. They have a new weapon in their arsenal — a vaccine that was released in late 2019. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already sent 11000 doses of the RVSVZEBOV Ebola vaccine, to Guinea, with an additional 8 500 expected to arrive soon.
The initial vaccination drive is targeted at people in high risk areas, especially health workers and those who have been in direct contact with a patient. About 65 WHO professionals are on the ground to help the Guinean government respond to the outbreak.
The Ebola vaccine has proved its effectiveness — it was instrumental in bringing the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) under control.
In Guinea, the WHO is supporting health officials to identify contacts, set up a treatment system, enhance surveillance and involve citizens in containing the virus. So far, 276 contacts are under surveillance, Guinea’s National Agency for Health says. It is also ramping up infection prevention and control of health facilities and reaching out to residents to improve response.
Standing by
There has been no confirmation of cases in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but the two countries are on high alert because they share very porous borders with Guinea.
In Sierra Leone, regular preparedness risk coordination meetings are taking place. Authorities use these sessions to talk about logistics, funds, training for the frontline personnel with emphasis on communication and the involvement of citizens.
“From 2014 to now, we know a lot. But, there is still a lot more to learn, says Harold Thomas, the risk communication lead in the directorate of health security and emergency at Sierra Leone’s ministry of health and sanitation. “That is why we’re counting on other relevant partners for help.”
He says Sierra Leone has already placed an order for the Ebola vaccine through the WHO on compassionate grounds. The country plans to use the ring method of inoculation — vaccinating and monitoring the people around each infected individual — as done in Guinea, in the event of an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever.
There is strong regional collaboration between the three Mano River Union nations to help fight the outbreak in Guinea .“We support Guinea to help it contain the virus and this requires data sharing, increased surveillance of border-crossing areas and a robust search for active cases,” Thomas points out.
Similar efforts are under way in Liberia, where President George Weah has tightened security along the borders with Guinea. The president has also mandated the ministry of health to increase surveillance and preparedness and placed health workers on high alert to avert any potential threats, reported Alloycious David, an investigative journalist from the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
Better prepared
Even though Sierra Leone and Liberia are well advanced with planning and preparedness, threats of cross-border contamination remain real. Yusuf Kabba survived the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. As president of the Sierra Leone Ebola Survivors Association, he knows that improvements in planning can be made.
“I do not think the border surveillance is appropriate enough at this point to prevent a possible spillover,” Kabba says. He adds that the situation in Guinea is scary for countries in the Mano River Union at a time when they are also battling the coronavirus pandemic. “We are facing a lot of threats from the outbreak in Guinea, considering the numbers of porous border crossing points. Traders are moving to and from Guinea. This represents a great threat to Sierra Leone’s fragile health system, food security and the erratic economy,” he warns.
Thomas is aware of the gaps in planning and the challenges that lie ahead. “With outbreaks, no country can ever prepare enough,” he says.
When the first outbreak was recorded in 2014, Sierra Leone had only one laboratory, in the eastern city of Kenema, for testing Ebola samples. Now there are up to six laboratories and more beds in isolation and treatment centres plus an improved ambulance system, Thomas points out.
But Kabbah also wants effective involvement with citizens, who, he say, played a critical role in ending transmission of the last outbreak. “The government should prioritise effective community engagement, especially with paramount chiefs, traditional healers and inter-religious council.”
When it comes to regional preparedness, the WHO has given $1.25-million in support of Guinea’s response and to ramp up efforts in readiness for possible outbreaks in six countries at risk of cross-border contamination
— Côte d’ivoire Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guineabissau, Mali and Senegal.
“We’ve learned the hard lessons of history and we know … preparedness works,” the WHO’S Africa regional director, Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement. She emphasises that systematic surveillance, comprehensive preparations and strong, cross-border coordination are crucial to detecting cases and ensuring quicker isolating and treatment.
An additional $15-million has been released by the UN Central Response Fund to help Guinea and the DRC respond to the re-emergence of Ebola. The DRC has recorded eight Ebola cases, with four deaths in the North Kivu province since early February this year.
The Ebola virus spreads through contact with bodily fluids, including the blood, vomit and faeces of an infected person. The virus can also spread from contact with contaminated surfaces, including bedding and clothes. A rare, but fatal disease, the Ebola virus has an average death rate of about 50%, with rates having varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks, the WHO says.