It was a difficult pill to swallow. It needed an extra slug of water. Swallow it, we did. More than three decades ago we were forced, in some ways, to swallow it…
I remember a week in March 1992, when the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism (led by FW de Klerk) decided, on their own, whether they would “allow” the future to happen with/without them. Leader of the ANC Nelson Mandela supported the all-white referendum on the future of millions of black people in South Africa.
I was in the newsroom of The Sowetan during that referendum and collected the details of the whites-only referendum. It was my job. I would, after whites said “yes” to the future, write the front-page lead, and helped Aggrey Klaaste and Joe Thloloe craft the leader. Before that, everyone was waiting to exhale. Somehow, we were meant to accept that the future of South Africa lay through the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism.
A week or so ago, we waited, again, to exhale, as the leader of the ANC, now Cyril Ramaphosa, supported the idea that the future of the country, of millions of black people, would have to go through minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism.
At its helm now sits John Steenhuisen, leader of the Democratic Alliance, which represents the main interests of the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism, and who has been gifted the chance to succeed, whatever future may come. Steenhuisen is the latest to fill the seat (we can chose anyone from Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, DF Malan, Johannes Strydom, HF Verwoerd, John Vorster, PW Botha and FW de Klerk)
An important reminder is necessary. There were black people who, back in 1992, would join the old National Party directly, supported or associated themselves with the founders of apartheid in various permutations; from Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi to Abe Williams, who gave the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism, a gloss of credibility. The founders of apartheid could claim, they were not a minority-white party.
Over the past week, again, the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism, were presented as indispensable and claimed that they were not minority-white led. We should remember that De Klerk would claim, as have Helen Zille and Steenhuisen, that the NP was not a minority-white led party and anyone who said that was racist (he singled out black South Africans) for displaying the “most virulent and dangerous racism”.
Suddenly, and with some genius, the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism, sanctified themselves and turned everyone who disagreed with them into racists or people who saw pigment. At the centre of it all stood Steenhuisen (with Anthony James [Tony] Leon beside him). For what it’s worth, Steenhuisen and Leon are no De Klerk, Roelf Meyer, Kobie Coetzee, Leon Wessels or Gerrit Viljoen.
The indispensable Mr Steenhuisen
Whatever the constellation that may emerge in the coming days and weeks, the leader of the DA, and the descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism in southern Africa, cannot lose. They have presented themselves as indispensable. Social media is already abuzz with how Steenhuisen “defeated the communists” and how he beat the achievements of Leon.
It is clear that Steenhuisen and his followers will be praised for every bit of positivity, for the faintest glow of better days, and for making that remote robot, in the smallest town in the Western Cape, work. Steenhuisen will be credited for every fraction of economic growth and expansion, for likely fiscal stability and for a stable currency.
His followers will, of course, ignore the fact that the democratic order brought the country back from the brink, and within 10-12 years the country was on its most positive (growth) trajectory – with distribution being the greatest failure. No amount of growth is “positive” if it does not improve the lives of people.
Two points, here, are that we have to believe that Steenhuisen will do good, never mind the fact that, well, things can only get better, and may well have improved with or without him. It is an article of faith that, as Uncle Jeff in The Sowetan’s production section, said more than three decades ago that when whites mess up, “it’s a booboo”; when blacks mess up, it’s “a horrible fuck-up”.
I know a thing or two about the way black “mistakes” are magnified, but I signed a non-disclosure agreement. In post-apartheid South Africa, we have been convinced that black people can’t do right for doing wrong. So we turn, again, to the minority-white people, descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism.
This time, as the last time, we are presented with the need for stability. Listening to the radio last week, a woman from Old Mutual repeated, twice in one breath, that “the markets” responded positively. I could not make notes, as I am strapped up and incapacitated, I should make clear – and two things can be true at the same time.
I do not, for a second, ignore the market, such as it is. You would have to live in a cave, not interact with anyone (in the quest to secure food, clothing and shelter), and forage indefinitely in a world of finite resources, to believe that we do not barter, truck and trade towards greater productivity.
And – this is key – the market is not some technical thing disembedded from society or the social world. Bourgeois economics is not a science “like physics”. It is about humans, people and the relationships among them. In both these senses, there are people, traders, investors, financial advisers, policy makers etc, who (used to sit on telephones) sit at computer screens, have perceptions about good and bad/right or wrong, black and white, and feed their opinions into global networks of finance.
Here, then, is a test. How would these masters of the financial universe respond to “a township radical has been appointed finance minister”, and how would they respond to “a Harvard graduate has been appointed as finance minister”?
Using the same logic, would “markets” – people driven by prejudices, biases and expectations in an era of Afro-pessimism and of corruption – prefer a black person or a nice white person (whom “the West” would endorse)?
There is another truth that can be entered here and it may be subjective… It’s actually disheartening that we have to turn to populist revolutionaries and ethno-nationalists to make the case for people before markets, for people before profits and to call out the fact that we have had to turn to the descendants and legatees of European colonialism and settler colonialism in southern Africa.
It’s doubly sad that we have had to turn to the man of least significance, grant him the key to our future and the assurance that, as Uncle Jeff said, he may be responsible only for “a booboo”. Steenhuisen has nothing to lose but the stains of the past. DM