“Behold, they are one people, and they all spoke the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” Genesis 11:6 NASB
The formation and development of nation states is a long, bitter and usually bloody process. Scour the annals of any country and there you will find tales of war, bitter divisions, some of which continue to cast a distressing shadow over their contemporary social realities. Our young democracy is no different.
America was born of revolution, nursed by the hands of slaves upon fields stained by the blood of natives. It was purified through the furnace of a bitter civil war that finally compelled the country to reckon with its founding principle that “all men are created equal”. It lives now through debilitating political divisions that add to the subterranean angst that its days of global leadership may yet be numbered.
Modern France is the progeny of the idealistic French revolution and a subsequent Reign of terror. From this emerged the great Napoleon, whose continental conquests were to prove the greatest days of a country for which greatness became since then a claim rooted in nostalgia rather than contemporary experience.
Germany was built on the foundation of the bloody Thirty years war that culminated in the epochal Peace of Westphalia of 1648. It was later chastened by the might of Napoleon and two ferocious world wars. It walks now with a limp that tames its enormous potential for both good and evil.
South African socio-politico-economic realities are sometimes distressingly complex but they are hardly a novelty in human history.
All of this reminds us that the trajectory of prosperous societies at peace with themselves and the world is never linear but is marked by frustrating detours and bitter conflicts. Indeed, even among the more well-adjusted societies, none can claim to have fully arrived at the illusive foot of this rainbow.
The difficulty of our task is compounded by the attempt to engraft together not merely multiple ethnic identities but two distinct civilisations into a single cohesive social formation. One, African in its orientation and historical character, diverse but united by largely common values and outlook. The other Eurocentric in its disposition, shaped by the history of its antecedents such as the Great Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
The initial confrontation of these two civilisations led to 300 years of strife, where one, owing to its technological advancement and imagined sense of superiority subjugated the other.
It is a tragic reality of human history that an enduring peace is usually built on the foundation of an unambiguous military triumph of one of the feuding parties. The fact that this path was avoided was a historic achievement that nevertheless accounts for some of the difficulties that the new South Africa has confronted since inception.
War is a dreadful thing and those who harbour romantic notions about it have simply not reflected enough on the subject. Its dark clouds gathered ominously during the twilight years of Apartheid. Both sides understood its costs and were eager to avoid them. The overwhelming priority became arriving at a peaceful settlement that could spare countless lives and preserve wealth accumulated over centuries.
The capacity to arrive at a peaceful settlement reflected a maturity uncommon in the colourful and bloody catalogue of human history. Nevertheless a sustainable peace must fulfil a fundamental condition. Either the resolution of the major points of conflict for the parties involved or the unconditional surrender of one of groups. None of which was the case in the South African negotiated settlement.
The major grievance for the African population had been the violent dispossession of its land that rendered it practical slaves and vagrants in the land of its forefathers. Those who say land is of no consequence must remember that capital is ultimately acquired on the basis of the accumulated fruit of labour and ingenuity, previously applied on natural agents, of which land is primary.
Without the dispossessed land, along with its fertility and minerals, ingenuity alone was insufficient to accumulate the capital amassed by South Africans of European descent. This is even without reference to the cheap labour enabled by the deliberate economic impoverishment of South Africans of African descent that was pursued precisely for that purpose.
A postponed resolution of the land question would have surely ensured an uneasy peace. Mindful of this, the founders of the new dispensation conceived of an ingenious way of resolving the dilemma. Mindful that this could undermine the entire foundation of the nascent social order.
The plan was the rapid assimilation of the African population into the existing white-owned economic structure as a means of advancing the cause of restitution, which alone could underwrite a harmonious start to the new South Africa. The scheme involved corporate equity transfers at favourable terms, as well as the creation of preferential career paths for those whose ethnic identity had precluded them from gainful economic participation.
It was understood that there would be a cost to the incumbent controllers of the economy but the cost was thought justified by the demands of restorative justice. Time would however betray the simplicity of the solution.
What was termed Black Economic Empowerment turned out anything but that. Instead it became a means of procuring political favour for the incumbent capitalist class through the enrichment of a limited politically connected elite. Even they were not truly empowered, as the contemptible size of the equity stakes, acquired through complex and highly leveraged structures. The entire scheme hardly fulfilled popular hopes of economic justice.
The new political dispensation nevertheless facilitated the emergence of a new black middle class. This new economic class was the natural outcome of a normalised political situation, which opened the lid to a period of sustained economic growth last seen in the pre-1976 period. This segment could grow without the feared displacement of white employment seekers.
The moral logic of affirmative action, however, never quite found general resonance among South Africans of European descent, who now claimed victimhood amid fears of a reversal of economic fortunes. These fears, however, found little statistical confirmation as both the wages, employment and wealth accumulation of this segment continued to comfortably outperform those of black South Africans in the post-apartheid era, even among the university educated.
Despite statutory prescripts, anecdotal evidence pointed to the existence of a glass ceiling for the emerging black middle class. Their newly acquired status nevertheless made them a coveted prize for marketing practitioners owing to their high propensity for ostentation and lavish debt funded consumption, who promptly rewarded them with the coveted appellation, “black diamonds”. One they wore with an air of self-satisfaction, while the grateful retailers walked away with glee, all the way to the bank. The ethnic statistics of the senior managerial elite nonetheless continued to belie the underlying demographic context.
The pace of economic transformation, considered glacial by an increasingly impatient black South African population, has begun to find political expression in the formation of radical if not misguided political formations that presage further polarisation in an already polarised society.
A growing frustration among those of European lineage is also perceptible. Some of whom never quite reconciled themselves to the realities of the post-apartheid dispensation, which created for them the dissonant picture of political power residing with those for whom deeply engrained historical conditioning had taught were intrinsically inferior and hopelessly inept.
These persisting sentiments have in turn found a propitious alibi in an increasingly arrogant, unaccountable and corrupt government, lending a look of respectability to ideas that otherwise belong to the sewer of history.
It is hardly surprising therefore that twenty years into the new political dispensation, social cohesion is at such a disconcertingly low ebb, with historical animosities and suspicions at their strongest since the advent of democracy. This parlous state of affairs hearkens for new pathways of thought in light of demonstrably ineffectual strategies.
It is self-evident that functional relationships are impossible without mutual respect. Mutual respect in turn is difficult without the self-respect of all parties involved. Flouting this principle has perhaps been at the core of the difficulties with the post `94 reconciliation[1] project.
Among the unheralded and possibly the most devastating imprints of Colonialism and Apartheid has been the systematic decimation of black South Africans’ sense of worth, which in turn, has contributed to a modest sense of self-respect.
The first recorded encounter of Europeans with black South Africans in 1687 tells an eloquent tale about the depredations that were to follow on their psyche and social structures. A journal of one of those who were on the shipwrecked Stavenisse, a Dutch ship, on the East Coast provides an enlightening description of those they encountered.
Of the range of descriptions at his disposal, his specific choice of words is instructive, “among the finest specimens of the human race”. The description is doubtless not without a whiff of romanticism, nevertheless it is a far cry from the pitiful portrait that has come to prevail of what it means to be a black South African.
A subsequent observer offers another affirmative account of pre-colonial Nguni society:
“they are very civil, polite and talkative….revenge has little or no sway among them…one may travel 200 or 300 miles through the country, without any cause of fear from men, provided you go naked, and without any iron or copper….their country was extremely fertile and incredibly populous, and full of cattle…It would be impossible to buy any slaves there, for they would not part with their children, or any of their connections for anything in the world, loving each other with a most remarkable strength of affection.”
The idyllic picture offers clues as to the comparative technological backwardness of pre-colonial black South Africans. Living thousands of miles away from the ravages of inhospitable climate, suffocating proximity to scores of bellicose nations in highly densely populated environments, offered inadequate necessity for the kind of technological leaps seen in East Asia and Western Europe. As it has been said, necessity is the mother of all invention. There was technological advancement for pre-colonial black South Africans, nevertheless it progressed according to the pressure of necessity they had to contend with, which was apparently minimal.
The advent of democracy brought with it closure to the centuries’ long struggle for equality before the law of the land, bringing with it freedom of movement and trade as well as security of property rights. Privileges at the core of wealth creation, that were previously considered the birth right of South Africans of European descent for centuries. What it failed to secure, however, is the restoration of the crushed self-image of the black South African.
The black South African is politically free but he has come to believe that his language, culture and heritage are inconsequential at best, if not downright primitive. So much so that he has come to look down on of his own people who have managed to maintain some connection to their cultural moorings. You will be hard-pressed to find a single successful people group anywhere in the world with a similarly self-defeating outlook. He continues nevertheless to live in a daze that robs him of the awareness of the true nature of his plight and this condemns him to an even more arduous path towards finding his long lost centre.
His political freedom, laudable as it is, has yet to rebuild the intricate and well developed social system that ensured that young boys were nurtured to be responsible self-respecting and economically active men, young women pillars of the home and the old men and women dignified sages to guide the next generation. A social system defined by its value of the intrinsic dignity of humanity. He has come to tragically internalise the damming dehumanised version of his identity that is constantly fed to him as the true depiction of himself.
He languishes now as though a drunken man in an inhospitable and foreign milieu that looks upon him at best with veiled condescension if not a patronizing pathos, usually concealed under spurious grins. He must learn a language foreign to him, master cultural peculiarities at odds to his own. All of which may allow him some acceptance, though never quite complete, in a cultural milieu in which he will always be an outsider. This must be all done before the unyielding pressure to succeed in an economic environment that positively expects him to live up to its image of him – innately inept and therefore condemned to constant supervision from which he can rarely hope to graduate.
The tragedy of this permanent ordeal is that the black South African must endure it with a fragmented sense of self that has surprisingly received little attention since the advent of democracy. With his severed roots as well as spatial, cultural and spiritual displacement and therefore a contemptible knowledge of who he is, the black South African continues to live as an effective destitute in the land of his forefathers. His inner resources unavoidably insufficient to withstand the multiplicity of unflattering definitions he must endure in the dominant and often hostile cultural environment in which he finds himself.
He has come thus to tragically accept the correct view of himself as the one foisted on him by others. The fact that he is so susceptible to taking cue concerning his worth from external sources speaks volumes about his crisis of identity. This disposition poses greater problems for him than the largely unflattering views about himself that he oft complains about but nevertheless obsequiously imbibes from the socio-economic environment imposed on him by historical exigencies.
What is needed in building a true Rainbow Nation at peace with itself and the world has nothing to do with breaking down the white man but everything to do with building up the black man. Attention must be given not merely to his impoverished wallet but more crucially, his emaciated soul. The responsibility for this belongs to no one else but himself.
To this end, a leaf can be borrowed from the contested legacy of Mao Zedong who nevertheless had the perception to see the need to take the country through a period of internal reconstruction, with methods that were at the very best questionable, to deal with what he saw as weaknesses that lay at the root of the so called “hundred years of humiliation”. The end does not justify the means as some of the means in this case were nothing less than tragic. That said, the re-emergence of China as a global power toward the end of his reign must at least vindicate his discernment in seeing the need to rebuild the confidence of what had become a desperate, weak and fragmented nation.
This is certainly no call for the reconstruction of the pre-industrial idyll of lore. That is neither possible nor desirable as times have changed. In fact, a case can be made that pre-colonial black South African society carried weaknesses that rendered it vulnerable to its own “three hundred and fifty years of humiliation” at the hands of foreign powers. It is a call instead for the recognition of the damage that centuries of Colonialism and Apartheid have done to the black South African’s sense of self, which should lead to deliberate steps towards its reconstruction.
A perilous narrative has been deeply embraced by black South Africans that equates progress to the necessary forsaking of everything African and embracing everything Western. This is precisely the mind-set that renders them perpetual strangers in their own homeland, condemning them to the endless search for answers about their own identity and value from sources other themselves.
The time has come for black South Africans to define themselves for themselves. A new consensus must emerge of what it means to be a black South African in the 21st Century. This social movement must liberate us to express ourselves in a way that reaffirms the legitimacy of our dignity, humanity and perspective on life.
There might be a misinterpretation of this as being another knee-jerk anti-western diatribe. That would be to miss the point entirely. Such a path would not only be morally problematic but it would be a self-defeating diversion of precious energy. I speak here of a needed development of a pro-African consciousness among black South Africans. The two are not synonymous. To be pro-African does not equate to being anti-West. This consciousness will confer the kind of rootedness required to confidently and positively engage with the outside world in our own terms, out of a deep assurance of our identity and worth.
A movement has gathered momentum for land restitution. There is certainly a case for this as the endorsement of the prescripts of the land act of 1913 was simply an unjust compromise. Nevertheless to make land restitution the centrepiece of the strategy to recover from the ravages of Colonialism and Apartheid carries something of an anachronistic ring.
While land was central to the pre-1850 economy, the advances of subsequent decades rendered it less and less so. Knowledge and expertise have become the pre-eminent means of production in the modern economy and there is simply no escaping that.
The land restitution process must be accompanied by the injection of capital into the agricultural and mining sectors which must raise the level of productivity for these primary sectors. To make them the cornerstone of our economic strategy, however, is to confine South Africa to a perpetual player in the lower leagues of the global economy as these sectors are notable for their comparatively lower rates of return, not to mention their tendency for cyclicality and high price volatility. Their importance, however, lies in building a capital base that can be used for diversification into higher yielding and more sustainable sectors.
Even in the information age, manufacturing expertise remains crucial. The decimation of some of our manufacturing capacity over the past two decades, largely at the hands of cheaper Chinese imports, points to the need for different thinking when it comes to manufacturing. The lesson is there for all to see – an industrial strategy centred primarily on cost is unsustainable. Other competitive advantages must be developed, harnessed and maintained. This is how to compete sustainably in a global economic environment underpinned by divergent socioeconomic realities that necessitate that certain countries will always have lower labour costs than others.
To recover some of their self-respect, black South Africans must eschew economic dependence on their white compatriots. This can only reinforce stubborn white-supremacist contempt and the maintenance of the deleterious belief we are incapable of self-advancement.
There must be a concerted drive to develop a groundswell of black entrepreneurs. They will need government support as did their lighter hued compatriots but support is no synonym for dependence. The time has come to conceive of global businesses run by black South Africans, who must develop the confidence to open up new frontiers of knowledge, innovation and expertise to the global family of nations.
This will require us to defy the counsel of our fears as well as countless opposing voices, mostly emanating from ourselves. We have the example of our Afrikaner compatriots to look to, who had the gumption to disregard their self-doubts to build what became leading global corporations. We must believe that God has endowed us with greatness as well. Success will create its own momentum, opening a whole new world of possibilities for others and future generations. A beneficent virtuous cycle must be precipitated. The time to begin is now[2].
[1] The popular term “reconciliation” is in fact a misnomer as it presupposes the previous existence of harmonious relations between black and white South Africans, something not borne out by historical evidence. My use of the term is according to its popular interpretation – conciliation.
[2] It might seem strange that a discussion about building a cohesive society has focused primarily on black South Africans. This is premised on the idea that sustainable relational partnerships are partnerships of “equals”. A lack of self-respect afflicting one of the parties naturally breeds contempt by the other. This might explain why pleas for reconciliation have largely emanated from one side with the other side showing scarcely concealed disinterest. This is a natural and predicable outcome that will continue until such a time that both parties understand their own true value. Only then can the reconciliation between white and black South Africans, that has hitherto proven so elusive, begin in earnest.
.
