Resurgent racial prejudices continue to polarise our country
IF SOUTH Africans were to look back at the summit on social cohesion in July last year in Kliptown and listen carefully to what they had to say between themselves, including the president about, their hopes, fears and dreams, they would be convinced that such a gathering was more than a decade overdue.
It was a convergence of desperate ideas, frantically seeking to heal a divided and highly unequal society, eager to avert a self-fulfilling prophecy of a life of despair.
The inescapable historical fact is that the core and genesis of the deep psychological and spiritual affliction of black people is anchored firmly in the evil roots of colonialism and racism. This demon is bound to surface and, until exorcised from the South African polity, social inco- herence is going to persist until the country is overtaken by political anarchy.
For instance, after the Brett Murray painting of President Jacob Zuma came to the full glare of the public in both the wrath and the praises of various communities, I realised to what an extent the African soul was shaken. It cried out for justice from what seemed to be an equally helpless government, powerless in the face of the bitter fruits of some of its own non-transformist but appeasement public policies.
At the same time, a wave of false liberalism surged forward to defend an intrin- sically offensive painting, claiming it was freedom of expression. This chorus conveniently ignored the right to dignity also enshrined in the constitution.
Optimists wished true liberals and democrats would unreservedly condemn this naked racism, masquerading as art.
On the other hand, black South Africans who found nothing offensive in the painting lacked the social and political consciousness necessary to discern the real and sinister motive in producing such racially demeaning paintings.
Presently, there is an element of South African citizenry arguing that the country made a fundamental mistake allowing Nelson Mandela to serve only one five-year term, particularly after initiating the national reconciliation and nationbuilding programme that to date remains vital for internal peace and political stability. Unfortunately, even more than one term of a Mandela administration would not have reversed the resurgent racial stereotypes and racial prejudices polarising our country.
Bantu education waged devastating psychological war
His noble efforts at reconciliation did not become the priority with his successors. South Africa remains the country of more than one nation and at odds with itself.
Racism is in action at places of employment, in shopping centres, in business corporations, schools and universities and media.
The black images in white minds are not because of apartheid, but are the historical, intellectual and philosophical myths and racial stereotypes of Western culture and consciousness.
Handing the matter of Murray ’ s painting over to the courts for judgment amounted to the abdication of moral responsibility.
South African courts come with a history steeped in the roots of the evil racist system.
Bantu education waged the most devastating psychological war on blacks.
For decades they were subjected to a system diabolically designed to take away their God-given humanity, dignity and erode their African cultural practices, while it prepared them for subservient existence. Tragic, but hardly surprising is that blacks display disturbing tendencies of self-hate. How else does one explain parents who prevent children attending school for months, using their children as a political battering ram in their fight with local authorities? Even the most brutal side of xenophobia and Afrophobia is largely the projection of self-hate.
To compound the problem there is a delusion of a make-believe world that racism and apartheid are things of the past and should be forgotten.
All forms of racism exist in South Africa, individual, group and institutional.
Only a paradigm shift on the part of the state to review the methodology of producing educators will result in equal, quality education for all.
Skosana is an IFP member and House Chair of the National Assembly