It’s time we really get to know each other across the racial divide
Recognising the positives in our common humanity will enrich our lives
● I grew up in a home where children were exposed to all racial groups. No one ever spoke about race. We saw people as friends, not as belonging to any category. Everyone was treated with the same respect and dignity.
If one looks for differences, one can find them within one’s own family, for no two human beings are the same. But as human beings we have so much in common. If we dwell on the commonalities and the positives, then we enrich our lives. But when we dwell on the differences and negativities, our lives become engulfed in the “me and you” syndrome, with “me” being superior to “you”.
When my eldest child, Kidar, was in Grade 1, he came home one day with an assignment in which he had to identify South Africa’s four race groups and cut out pictures of each from magazines. He was baffled and asked for help. A family friend, Sydney Dunn, happened to be visiting at the time, and he asked Kidar: “So who do you think are coloured people?” Kidar thought for a moment and then said: “Well, they are supposed to be children of a black parent like my dad and a white parent like my mom, so we are coloured.” I am a little fair and my husband was a little dark. That was Kidar’s introduction to racialism.
I believe that we can only understand what is happening in South Africa if we acknowledge our racist history. Racist education and unbridled racial discrimination were entrenched in the various apartheid laws. Today, although most racist laws are rooted out, racist attitudes, prejudices, misconceptions and judgments remain within us.
We still use racial terms to describe South Africans. Almost all official documents require people to indicate their race. I understand the need for this — we still have a highly unequal society based on race, class and gender, and we need to know these demographics in order to bring about the needed changes. But hopefully there will be a day, sooner rather than later, when we can discard all these tags and be proudly South African.
We still have townships which are predominantly occupied by particular race groups, as was designated historically. Even though there is no law that entrenches these divisions, we are left with the separation legacies of apartheid days.
Schools have had to adjust to having children from different race groups, but racism is still encountered in schools, perhaps because not enough conscious effort has been made to train educators and communities to think differently, to recognise and root out the racism within us.
I raise the issue of schools and living arrangements because that is where we make contact with each other and get to know one another. Apartheid kept us apart. Now we need to come together.
Living as neighbours, attending the same schools and working together gives us the opportunity to unlearn past prejudices and begin to appreciate each other. We share common concerns and can work together in addressing common problems.
Those who have been able to cross the racial divide and are building friendships and working relationships across the colour line will tell us how enriching it is.
Besides dividing South Africans into different race groups, apartheid discrimination impoverished black people by denying them occupational opportunities through job reservation policies and pass laws.
The 1913 Land Act and the Group Areas Act dispossessed many black people of their land and livelihood.
We need to acknowledge the injustice and unfairness of apartheid, and we need to engage with the huge economic divide apartheid created between the rich, largely white, and the poor, largely black. A result of no acknowledgement and no sharing is that we have a very large majority of people living in poverty with no facilities while others have excessive wealth and privileged access to resources. Racism is linked to this privilege.
There is a reluctance to rectify the injustices of the past through constructive programmes and voluntary sharing of wealth gained through apartheid privilege. Instead, there is agitation for the protection of individual rights and privileges at the expense of the common.
Academics define racialism as the recognition of cultural differences between race groups, as opposed to racism, which arises when members of one race group believe they are superior to the others and manifest this belief in a way that hurts others.
Perpetrators of racist pranks, utterances, assaults and insults often believe they have done no wrong, because the idea of their superiority is so deeply entrenched in their minds that others are not considered as humans with feelings and importance. With this kind of mindset, they automatically give vent to racist vitriol when irked by some incident. This kind of mindset also leads them to spur each other on to engage in violent group forms of racist behaviour.
Basing criticisms and perceptions about a group on a generalisation can never be justified. Reality has shown that no group is totally homogenous, whether in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class or any other divide. The people within the group are individuals with their own lifestyles, opinions and beliefs.
South Africa needs a process of re-educating everyone to begin to think in terms of a common
South African identity built on humility, not arrogance. We need to actively discard the racist notions many of us grew up with and which continue to dominate our lives.
Educating the next generation may be an easier task, but unless there is a common message from home and school, very little difference can be made. Community engagement to change the national mindset needs to happen at every level. Religious, socio-cultural, sporting, parenting and workers’ organisations can all help by taking on the responsibility to begin the process of change in mindset away from both racialism and racism.
I believe there are more similarities than differences between people across all divides. Our task is to craft that common message.
Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, is an activist and ambassador for Anti-Racism Week (March 14-21). She writes in her personal capacity. It’s because we don’t have strong trade unions. They’re too much focused on wages and not on the issues they should be focused on. Unions must appreciate that defending workers’ rights is not limited to wage negotiations every year or three years. It’s about looking after their health and the health of their . . . communities.
There’s no shortage of legislation to help them do this, is there?
We have every progressive law we need to protect consumer rights.
Why haven’t unions done more to make sure they’re enforced?
We have about 160 labour inspectors, and practically no health inspectors. They’re the responsibility of local government, which is far too disorganised to enforce regulations, especially when it comes to food. And our consumer organisations are too weak. They’re not active in the townships or rural areas.
Are you concerned that the Department of Labour is not taking a lead in these things?
It’s an indictment on them and on all of us.
Our executive is meeting today, and this is likely to be on the agenda.
What will you do to make sure the Department of Labour appoints a section 32 inquiry?
We’ll picket, we’ll demonstrate, we’ll hold sit-ins in their offices. The number of health inspectors needs to be increased, the department must be more proactive instead of waiting for a disaster like this, and it must work with the unions to build their capacity and train shop stewards so that they can be whistleblowers.
More immediately, it must call a section 32 inquiry?
I hope we will come out of this executive committee meeting with guns blazing.
Can there be accountability without a full inquiry?
It’s impossible. Class-action is important but it only takes the cream off from the profits of these companies, it doesn’t address any of the issues.
If there is a section 32 inquiry, will you push for the findings to be made public?
They must be made public so that we educate the public about the importance of a more vigilant consumer, more vigilant Department of Labour, more vigilant Department of Health. We’ve got to bring inspections from local government back to the Department of Health.