Real integration means curing a sickness of soul
For the past month, I had the privilege of lecturing for the Jesuit Institute of South Africa’s annual Winter Living Theology series. This year, the lectureship was sponsored with support from Fordham University of New York’s Department of Theology and the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
The lectures occurred throughout the country — in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Town, in addition to a morning lecture in the diocese of Manzini in eSwatini.
This year’s theme was “Racial Justice and the Demands of Discipleship”. The question arises: Why invite someone from the US to speak about racism in South Africa?
The major reason is that our countries share very similar histories with this social scourge, which remains an ongoing challenge in both nations. Both have had severe legal-racial segregation and exclusion, histories of struggle to overturn these barriers, and halting efforts to deal with the legacies of the past in the present. I was surprised to find that about 90% of what I would present in the US about racism, the workshop participants found to be directly applicable to current situations in South Africa.
As I engaged South African people over the course of my stay, one of my lasting impressions was how isolated the racial groups are from each other. Neighbourhoods are still largely described as either “white”, “black”, or “coloured” — no longer by law, but in reality. When the workshop participants had their tea breaks, they socialised in groups that were almost entirely of one race. Even the churches I attended were, with few exceptions, largely composed of only one racial group.
It is difficult to escape concluding that racial apartheid continues in informal ways and still plagues South African society post1994.
I also observed that racial isolation has a marked class dimension. I noticed that at petrol rest-stations and in restaurants, the patrons and families travelling on winter holidays were almost always white, while those who served as attendants and waitrons were invariably black. I was struck by how sprawling black townships with residents living in abject poverty with oneroom houses made of corrugated steel were within eyesight of manicured white towns with well-constructed homes. I also noted that those who depended on taxis were almost always black.
Anxiety about future
Isolation fuels indifference, ignorance, and fear: fertile soil for ongoing racial turmoil. These tensions are often cloaked by a veneer of civility and decency. But they persist just under the surface of civic life, at times breaking out to cause social havoc and generate anxiety about the country’s future or even the viability of the South African project. I often encountered those who were cynical and disillusioned about the achievements gained by the struggle against apartheid.
South Africa and the US face the task of naming the challenge before them. Martin Luther King provided a helpful insight when he said achieving racial justice had two phases. The first was that of
“desegregation”, that is, eliminating the legalised discrimination that bars persons of colour in public accommodation, education, housing, and employment. This, he noted, could be accomplished through legislation.
But legal desegregation alone results in what King called “a society where elbows are together and hearts are apart”. A community that is only legally desegregated is often marked by suspicion, anger, resentment, tokenism, grudging toleration and wary coexistence. (Attendees throughout South Africa expressed agreement with this description for their country.)
The next phase of racial justice is what King called the challenge of genuine “integration”. More than living together in tolerant coexistence, integration is the welcome embrace of the other as a full participant in social, economic, and political life. He declared that this was not “a romantic mixing of colours”, but “a real sharing in power and responsibility”. Integration requires not only changes in laws, as necessary as these are. It also requires confronting what King called the “nonrational, psychological barriers” to human unity, among which are the “fear of loss of preferred economic privilege; altered social relations, and adjustment to new situations”.
This, then, is the challenge that faces South Africa and the US. The abolition of apartheid was but the first step toward a multiracial, multiethnic democracy. The remaining task is to overcome the undercurrents of racial preference that fuelled the previous social order. Without confronting these deeper anxieties over and commitments to white privilege and advantage, the dynamics of the past will find new expressions in the present.
Need for truth
This requires teaching a more adequate account of South Africa’s past. One of my most moving experiences was an afternoon spent at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. Yet I discovered that many South Africans are only dimly aware of the history narrated there, and many were never taught it at all. I believe that there is an urgent need for a truthful account of the nation’s history, including the realities of colonialism and apartheid and the struggles to overturn them. A nation cannot overcome its past until it has the courage to face it.
There are many ways to understand racism, for example, as a sociological issue or a political reality. But at its deepest level, racism is a “soul sickness”. It is a profound warping of the human spirit that enables human beings to create societies of callous indifference towards those who are different. A colleague put it well: “The real meaning of race comes down largely to this: Is this someone I should care about?”
King declared that his goal in the crusade for racial justice was “to redeem the soul of America”. He realised that without a fundamental “revolution in values”, the nation was bound to repeat its past follies.
This raises some haunting questions: What is the “soul” of South Africa? Which of the presidents of your recent past — FW de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, Jacob Zuma, to name a few — represents your “soul”, that is, the values that inform your way of life? What kind of nation does South Africa aspire to be? Who do you say you are?
Confronting and addressing these “soul” questions is pivotal for the country’s future. Helping the nation address them is an essential contribution that the faith community can make to a more just racial future.
After my final lecture in Cape Town, an 81-year-old white South African said: “Despite our trials, I still believe in my country. I may not live to see it, but I know that we can achieve our promise.” She related this as the nation celebrated the 100th birthday of Nelson Mandela — a visionary who opposed all forms of racial supremacy.
Global peace
As I conclude my visit here, I echo this woman’s hope for this nation. I truly believe that South Africa, with its mixture of cultures, colours, and races, has the key to the world’s future.
Global peace will depend upon people transcending their loyalties to their race, class, tribe and colour. If it embraces Mandela’s vision, South Africa can model for the world what it must become. I pray that this nation will become that beacon. Then South Africa will once again be the “Cradle of Humankind” – the birthplace of a new way of being human, a multiracial and multiethnic humanity of equals.
King declared that his goal in the crusade for racial justice was ‘to redeem the soul of America’. He realised that without a fundamental ‘revolution in values’ the nation was bound to repeat its past follies