White men pee on democracy
Of race, class and urine… Professor Tinyiko Maluleke tries to understand what has become of the Rainbow UriNation
to take neither literally nor seriously the alleged words and actions of Arigone on being confronted by his victim – he was drunk wasn’t he?
Apparently, he swore at Nomgcana, calling him stupid, saying words to this effect as reported in the media: “I don’t care if I pee on a black man” and “I’m white, you’re black. I’m rich, you’re poor.”
It is alleged that Arigone also said that he was a foreign national with powerful lawyers on his side. Some may latch on to the alleged foreign nationality of Arigone and seek thereby to classify this incident as non-South African in origin and character.
Unfortunately, mitigation arguments as summarised above and similar will not suffice. Face it, South Africa, you still have a race problem and the Arigone incident is only a symptomatic tip of the iceberg. The Arigone incident must not be isolated from the context of several similar incidents since democracy.
To illustrate our point, let us randomly recall a number of similar incidents over the past 20 years of democracy.
We recall the so-called “Waterkloof Four” – white high school pupils, Reinach Tiedt, Gert van Schalkwyk, Christoff Becker and Frikkie du Preez who beat a homeless (and nameless) black man to death in Pretoria barely 10 years after the advent our democracy.
Why? Because they thought the homeless man was a potential burglar.
We remember the University of the Free State racist video made by four white students, Schalk van der Merwe, Johnny Roberts, R C Malherbe and Dane Grobler, in which at least one of them is seen urinating into the food which is then fed to black workers Emmah Koko, Rebecca Adams, Naomi Phororo, Mittah Ntlatseng and David Molete.
Do you recall how we were later told to relax because the boys were only play-acting, they did not really urinate into the food?
Think also of the case of Mark Scott-Crossley, who literally fed Nelson Chisale, a father of three, to the lions in Phalaborwa. Chisale has been dead ever since.
Reflect on Jewell Crossberg, the white Limpopo farmer who allegedly mistook Zimbabwean, Jealous Dube for a baboon and shot him dead.
How can we forget another homemade video of police dogs feeding on the begging and pleading Mozambican nationals and brothers – Alexander and Gabriel Ntimane. In that video the dogs are under the active and vociferous urging and agitation of six young white policemen – Inspector Chris Koch, Sergeant Nicolaas Loubser, Sergeant Deno Guiotto, Inspector Eugene Truter and Sergeant Robert Henzen. It later emerged that this was part of a police-dog training exercise.
The preceding are random examples of the grisly and grim face of racism in South Africa over the past 20 years. In this face of racism, we see blacks spat on, verbally humiliated, deprived of common human courtesy, sprayed with urine, served food laced with urine, beaten up and even getting killed. As others have noted, what we have in South Africa is a rainbow notion that lives in our heads and not a rainbow nation that lives out there.
And yet South African racism is not fully accounted for by merely looking at the grim and the gruesome.
Racism remains the pervasive logic of South African society. It is racism that has ensured that while blacks are the majority in Parliament, they are not the majority in the boardrooms and shareholder meetings where the big economic decisions are made.
How else should we understand the reality that black professors remain less than 10 percent of the South African professoriate, 20 years after democracy? And yet these very same universities have, over the same period not failed to produce a constant supply of white professors.
The total logic of our racist present prescribes whiteness (especially male whiteness) as innocent, good, clean, safe, fashionable, normal and a standard to be aspired to, preserved, defended, enriched and protected by all and any means necessary.
This is the crucial logic around which present South African society revolves. In basic and higher education this racist logic appears in the guise of “high standards” located in former whites-only suburban, private schools and former whitesonly universities.
In terms of the persisting apartheid spatial arrangements, our racist present manifests in the black desire for a house or flat in the formerly whites-only suburbs, the supposed “prestige” attached thereto as well as continued government neglect of rural and black townships.
In the criminal justice systems the racist logic shows up in the frequent presumed innocence of white males while blacks in general, but black males especially, tend to be presumed guilty. The same logic shows up when BEE becomes a massive fronting sham that fails to disrupt the white economic stranglehold.
In conclusion, what do we say to Nomgcana? Shall we console him by saying, “It is not as if Arigone has murdered you, he has only urinated on you.”
Shall we flippantly urge him to avenge, or promise him some nationalisation strategy that will soon give him his dignity back? We all know that those who stand below the balconies of the rich cannot urinate on those who stand above them – it is both physically and metaphorically impossible.
This time, we shall not urge Nomgcana to wipe the urine off his face, shake the remainder off his hair, raise his chin and march into the future with a spring in his step. What future?
The least we can do for Nomgcana is to be truthful. Being urinated on by another human is one of the worst forms of humiliation any human being can suffer.
We must confirm unequivocally, the doubts he and many located below the balconies of the rich already harbour, namely that in its current state our democracy has little capacity to afford them racial and economic freedom.
The first step towards our healing is to ditch the niceties of diversity, reconciliation and rainbow discourse. Instead, we must acknowledge that we still have a race problem and tackle it accordingly.
In fact, we all, black and white, must go back to the spot below the balcony of the Tiger Tiger Nightclub in Claremont, Cape Town. There to stand with Nomgcana for a moment, until we feel the spray of urine walloping our ears, trickling down our own cheeks, darting around the grooves of our nostrils, racing down to our lips and irrigating our bearded chins.
It is not just Nomgcana, but it is our nation’s dreams, democracy and National Development Plan that are being urinated on.
Tinyiko Maluleke is a professor of African culture and spirituality at the University of Pretoria, Faculty of Theology. He also serves as assistant to the vicechancellor on the University’s continental strategy. He writes in his personal capacity. Twitter handle: @ProfTinyiko