The Demon Of Racism

[LillyNomad]

The demon of racism has to be uprooted in its
totality. It brutalizes entire peoples, destroys
persons, warps the process of thought and injects into
human society, a foul air of tension, mutual
antagonism and hatred. It demeans and dehumanizes both
victim and practitioner. (Racial Problems in South
Africa. Speech by ANC President OR Tambo at the Second
Pan-African Youth Seminar, Dar Es Salaam, August 1961)


The ANC in its January 8, 2000 statement said that
"the challenge facing the 21st Century is the solution
of the problem of the colour line. It will take our
country a long time before it wipes out the apartheid
legacy of racism. More than many other peoples in the
world, we know the destructive impact of the ideology
and practice of racism. We must intensify the struggle
against racism for our evolution into a non-racial
society as a central part of the historic mission of
the ANC."

This discussion paper therefore seeks to address our
understanding of racism in a universal context
(Section A); its evolution and manifestations in South
Africa (Section B); the struggle against racism
(Section C); the challenges of building a truly
non-racial society (Section D) and the immediate
programme to address these challenges. (Section E).


Section A:
RACISM – ITS ORIGINS AND MANIFESTATIONS
Ideology

Racism as a universal concept, has manifested itself
as an ideology, that underpinned social, political and
economic systems of oppression, exploitation and
discrimination. Our starting point will therefore be
to define ideology, which in its popular usage, refers
above all to the realm of ideas.

There are a number of definitions, but we will use a
definition that refers to ideology as a system of
beliefs that seek to explain and ultimately to change
the world in accordance with such beliefs. In its
content, ideology is concerned with basic
philosophical principles and the bases of political
power. In its philosophical aspect it seeks to explain
the key problems facing society (the nature of the
self, the interaction between the self and the
collective, the relation of persons to the natural
environment, the nature of society, and the view of
history).

Political ideology is concerned with questions such as
the bases of political (and economic) power and the
interpretation of equality and freedom.

Ideology therefore shapes the purposes and priorities
of political action, helping the ruling class in power
to gain acceptance for its policies or it can mobilise
human efforts behind a cause, such as social equality
or freedom from oppression.

As a system of belief, it is not merely a collection
of pure ideas, but include feelings, likes, dislikes,
hopes, fears etc. It also finds expression in the
cultural institutions of a society and in fields such
as history, religion, ethics, science, philosophy,
literature, art, music and poetry.

The ideology of Racism and its manifestations in the
world

Generally, racism refers to a system of belief that
discriminates against people on the basis of certain
physical attributes or origins. Popular usage also
refers to situations in which people make social
distinctions between members of groups, who look
physically different, speak a different language,
different religions/faiths or belong to separate
nations.

The most socially harmful kinds of racism are those
instances in which beliefs about racial differences
and racial inequality are institutionalized, in other
words, when they become part of a country's laws and
public life in such a fashion that people with certain
ascribed racial identities are treated differently
from people supposed to belong to other racial groups.


During the last few centuries its main manifestation
has been as a system of belief that justified the
subjugation and enslavement of the indigenous peoples
of the Americas, Asia and Africa by countries of
Western Europe starting around 1500.

Of this stage Marx wrote:

"The discovery of gold and silver in America, the
extirpation, enslavement and entombment in the mines
of the aboriginal' population, the beginning of the
conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning
of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of
black skins, signalled the rosy dawn of the era of
capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are
the chief momenta of primitive accumulation."

"The transformation of the individualized and
scattered means of production into socially
concentrated ones, of the pigmy property of the many
into the huge property of the few, the expropriation
of the great mass of the people from the soil, from
the means of subsistence and from the means of labour,
this fearful and painful expropriation of the mass of
the people forms the prelude to the history of
capital. It comprises a series - of forcible
methods... The expropriation of the immediate
producers was accomplished with merciless vandalism,
and under the stimulus of passions the most infamous,
the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly
odious," so wrote Marx.

Such indeed was the slave trade; such indeed was the
expropriation of the African peasantry.' [THE
HISTORICAL INJUSTICE. Sechaba March 1979]

As a political ideology, it was therefore a component
part and a reflection of exploitative social relations
between the colonizers and the colonized, a form of
expression of these relations and a means for their
justification and perpetuation. It encompassed actual
structural relations between the colonizers and the
indigenous people, as well as cultural and
psychological justifications and attitudes which
sought to explain these structural relations.

It applied Darwinist notions of evolution and
hierarchy to human races, with white people of
European descent believing that they were at the top
of the evolutionary scale.

It also used religion to morally justify this process
of colonialism, with the maxim that 'the chosen of God
are those who are white.' Martin Luther had said: "An
earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of
persons. Some must be free, others serfs, some rulers,
others subjects." As part of this worldwide movement,
successive colonial governments and (since the Union
of South Africa in 1910) white governments therefore
practiced racism as an ideology - as a political
programme that included conquering the indigenous
peoples by force through numerous wars of
dispossession, their subjugation as second class
citizens and as a reservoir of cheap labour under
colonial and later apartheid rule.

Institutionalized racism became an overt part of the
apartheid ideology as espoused by the National Party
after 1948, when they consolidated colonial power
relations, and – like Nazi Germany – consciously
engineered political, social and economic life around
concepts of racial and ethnic identities.

South Africa was not the only modern institutionalized
racist state. Australia's immigration laws until the
1970's restricted the immigration of Africans and
Asians: ''Keeping Australia white' and denied the
Aboriginal population certain civic rights and
economic opportunities. In most former European
colonies, the indigenous populous were given full
political, social and economic status only after
protracted anti-colonial and national liberation
struggles.

Racism and ethnic oppression are essentially two sides
of the same coin and manifested during twentieth
century as the crime against humanity committed
against the Jewish people by Nazi Germany and the
genocidal killings in Rwanda and Burundi. Hence, at
the historic conference Pan African Congress which
brought together Africans from the African continent,
the United Sates and the Caribbean, the call was made:
The problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the
colour line!


Section B:
THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT OF RACISM
Colonial conquest and subjugation
To understand racism in South Africa, one needs to
understand the evolution of its economic basis, its
class and social character.

From the first settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in
1652 and for the next two centuries, an ideology based
on racial prejudice came to sustain the trading
interests of Dutch and later British merchants.
Inequality between blacks and whites stemmed from the
pressing need of European settlers who were producing
agricultural products for the world market, to exploit
the labour of the indigenous population.

The indigenous peoples were commonly referred to as
the 'Hottentots' and 'kaffirs'. They were described to
be living a 'savage life' – wild, uncivilized,
'uncultured', 'rude', 'untamed', 'barbaric', etc. This
served as a justification for the subjugation of the
indigenous people and once integrated into the
colonies, their second class status. At the same time,
the life of Europeans was validated as 'the civilized
way of life'.

At this time, indigenous people saw no need to work
for others and leave their viable independent
societies. Settlers were obligated to import labour
from the slave markets of Asia and West Africa. But as
soon as the settlers were powerful enough, they began
attacking the natives, taking land and livestock by
force. Those unable to escape beyond the frontier
became settler slaves.

It is interesting to note that there was no inherent
racism in traditional African society. During early
contacts, shipwrecked Portuguese sailors were
integrated into Xhosa communities. Without the means
to exploit, whites were embraced as equals and when
not threatened with dispossession, blacks welcomed
whites.

A series of resistance wars against colonialism were
waged by the indigenous people at every possible
frontier. The Dutch colonists who were the first to
occupy our land by force of arms, later came into
conflict with a new colonial power, Great Britain.
Sections of the Dutch (the Voortrekkers) continued
their wars of dispossession into the inland and
eventually establishing the Boer Republics in Orange
Freestate and Transvaal, whilst the Cape Province and
Natal were under British colonial rule.

Inequalities became much more entrenched as industrial
development in South Africa began with the large scale
mining of diamond and gold during the late 19th
century in the Boer Republics. This process demanded
skilled artisans which were provided by white
immigrants, minimum production costs and maximum
profits to ensure further expansion. To further keep
production costs low, they also used labour intensive
methods by using unskilled (mainly black) workers. The
consequence of this formula was unequal wages, higher
in favour of white skilled immigrants. The white
workers became protective of their relatively
privileged position.

Here was a classical case of a 'labour
aristocracy'(Mzala) allied with the capitalists for
the return of higher wages and characterized by an
intolerant attitude to the aspirations of the black
workers. This relative advantage of skilled white
workers, buttressed by the laws of the country,
created a social structure that was colonial par
excellence.

Colonialism of a special type
British capitalist expansionism led to the Anglo Boer
War (1899-1902), which essentially was about control
over the mineral wealth of the Boer Republics. 'In
1910 Boer and Briton entered into a social contract in
which the British undertook to help ease the Boer out
of the Dark Ages while promising to respect his
traditions. For his part, the Boer pledged' not to
resist the advance and domination of British capital.'


Between them, Boer and Briton agreed that they would
share political power and, finally, that the
indigenous African population would not be party to
this contract but would be kept under the domination
and at the disposal of the signatories, to be used by
them in whatever manner they saw fit.' [THE HISTORICAL
INJUSTICE. Sechaba. March 1979]

The Act of Union marks the political watershed in the
history of our country. Through its colour bar clauses
it entrenched our status as a colonized and conquered
people, drawing a sharp line of demarcation through
the South African population. All whites, including
the subordinate classes among them, were defined as
members of an exclusive community, possessing certain
prerogatives at the expense of the blacks. It is this
institutional subordination of the blacks that stands
at the core of colonialism of a special type.

Colonialism of a special type was therefore used by
the liberation movement to describe the unique
situation where both the colonizers and the colonized
shared one country.

An entire framework of laws and racial practices gave
colonialism of a special type a palpable form, and
were consolidated when the National Party came to
power in 1948. This included amongst others:

The South African Natives Commission proposed
territorial segregation by which the country would be
divided into black and white areas: These proposals
lay behind the 1913 and 1926 Land Act.
The Population Registration Act (1950) which allocated
all South Africans to a particular racial group, from
which flowed differential privileges and prohibitions.

The Group Areas Act (1950) and subsequent amendments
which gave the government power to proclaim
residential and business areas for the sole use of
particular race groups, which together with forced
removals, which together with forced removals
constituted one of the most blatant violations of the
property rights of black people since the early years
of colonial domination.
The Separate Amenities Act (1953) which wrote into law
the principle that members of different races might
not enjoy the same public amenities;
The Bantu Education Act (1953) which redefined the
content and purpose of African schooling and vested
its direct control in the Department of Native (later
Bantu) Affairs, as well as laws on Coloured and Indian
Education on tertiary institutions.
Other early apartheid legislation introduced sharp new
curbs over the urban residential rights and rights as
urban workers of the African population:

The Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act (1953)
excluded African workers from the formal system of
industrial relations;
The Native Building Workers Act (1951) and Industrial
Conciliation Act (1956) extended the operation of job
colours, and passes to women.
The national question therefore, expressing the
contradiction between the black colonized and the
white colonial state, became the dominant
contradiction in South Africa. The 'national
character' of the NDR was and is therefore about the
resolution of the antagonistic contradictions between
the oppressed majority and their oppressors; as well
as the resolution of the national grievance arising
from colonial relations.


Section C:
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST RACISM. A STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL
LIBERATION
To uproot racism, it was clear that the first task was
the defeat of white minority rule, to be replaced by a
non-racial and democratic government, based on the
will of the people. The mandate of this new government
would be the creation of a free, united, non-racial,
non-sexist and democratic society.

Faced with these atrocities and the fact that their
interests had been totally disregarded in the absence
of a political organization of their own which could
voice their grievances and aspirations, African
intellectuals some of whom had come back from abroad
gave a vision to the people.

This vision turned into action and took the form of
awareness around rights, duties, obligations to the
State and sought to promote mutual help, feeling of
comradeship and a spirit of togetherness among them.

Pixley ka Isaka Seme – one of the founding fathers of
the ANC – was vocal on the question of African unity.
He emphasized unity that cut across, but did not
replace ethnic characteristics, his central theme was
that

"the demon of racialism must be buried and forgotten,
it has shed among us sufficient blood: we are one
people. These divisions, these jealousies, are the
cause of all our woes and of all our backwardness and
ignorance today."

Even when it was tempting to adopt a narrow Africanist
radical position in the 50's, the ANC was consistent
in decrying the 'demon of racialism' as this view was
articulated throughout the preamble of the Freedom
Charter in Kliptown, 1955.

"We the people of South Africa, declare for all our
country and the world to know that South Africa
belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and
that no government can justly claim authority, unless
it is based on the will of the people" (Kliptown, 26
June 1955).

Throughout the 1950's, the ANC began seriously to
sharpen the weapon of mass direct action, which took
the form of boycotts, mass demonstrations of women and
political strikes, through the unique form of the
stay-at-home. There were peasant revolts all over the
country. (A HISTORY OF THE ANC: Francis Meli p.129)

The government's reply was to ban meetings and
gatherings and the trigger happy police would open
fire to young and old, wounding and killing them. The
turning point of our struggle against racism took
place on the 21st March 1960, with the anti-pass
national stoppage of work. On this red letter day, 69
people were killed by the South African police and
army in Sharpeville as they embarked on a peaceful
march to the local police station. It then declared a
state of emergency and banned the liberation
movements.

Out of this provocative response from the racist
regime, Umkhonto weSizwe (the People's Army) was
formed to take a new course of struggle as was
declared by the MK High Command:

"We are striking out along a new road for the
liberation of the people of this country. The
government policy of force, repression and violence
will no longer be met with non-violent resistance
alone."

Later, at the Rivonia trial, some of the key leaders
of the ANC were sentenced to life in Robben Island
(Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, R. Mhlaba, A.
Kathrada, R. Bernstein, D. Goldberg, E. Motsoaledi and
A. Mlangeni). Nevertheless, the ANC continued to
advance its struggle against racist apartheid regime.
During April 1969 at Morogoro in Tanzania, the ANC
evaluated the road ahead and adopted another important
historic document: Strategy and Tactics.

The politico-military aspects of the struggle were
viewed in the context of historical experience and
political reality which were characterized as follows:


"The main content of the present stage of the South
African revolution is the national liberation of the
largest and most oppressed group, the African people…
this is the mainspring and it must not be weakened. It
involves a stimulation and a deepening of a national
confidence, national pride and national
assertiveness." (Morogoro, 1969)

Following the period of relative lull in the internal
resistance during the 60's it was the students and
youth of SASO and 1976 which gave fresh impetus to the
national liberation struggle. Their philosophy of
Black Consciousness sought to instill a sense of pride
in being Black, in Black symbols and culture and it
called for the unity of the oppressed through their
inclusive definition of Black that included African,
Coloured and Indian.

This, together with the revival of the ANC internal
underground, formed the foundations for the non-racial
content of the mass struggles of the 80's.

This character of our struggle informed all activities
of our revolution up to the point where the balance of
forces shifted away from the regime, it became
difficult for the regime to rule, 'as the people acted
en masse to make the system unworkable." (STRATEGY AND
TACTICS, Mafikeng 1997).

The regime finally conceded and bowed to the people's
struggles and agreed to embark on negotiations with
the ANC.

t
Section D:
THE CREATION OF A NON-RACIAL, DEMOCRATIC, NON-SEXIST
AND UNITED SOUTH AFRICA
On 27th April 1994, this process of negotiations
ushered in the first democratic elections in the
history of South Africa. The elections, together with
the adoption of the Interim Constitution, the
establishment of a new government led by the ANC were
major landmarks in the transformation of our society.
So was the work of the elected Constitutional Assembly
which adopted the new Constitution based on the
principles of democratic majority rule, equality and
human rights.

April 1994 therefore represented the strategic defeat
of the forces of white minority rule and a decisive
departure from a colonial system spanning more than
three decades.

This marked the end of the first phase of our struggle
and ushered in the second phase which is the
transformation of South Africa into a truly
non-racial, united, non-sexist and democratic country,
to create a new nation out of 'the belly of the beast'
The final Constitution adopted in 1996, contained the
framework for democratic majority rule and the
platform to build this truly united and non-racial
nation.

The 1993 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
ends with an epilogue entitled "National Unity and
Reconciliation". Among other things, it says:

"This Constitution provides a historic bridge between
the past of a deeply divided society characterised by
strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and
a future founded on the recognition of human rights,
democracy and peaceful coexistence and development
opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of
colour, race, class, belief of sex. The pursuit of
national unity," it continues "the well-being of all
South African citizens and peace require
reconciliation between the people of South Africa and
the reconstruction of society."

For its part, the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of
South Africa has a preamble which among other things,
says:

"We, the people of South Africa, recognise the
injustices of our past... (and) believe that South
Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our
diversity. We therefore... adopt this Constitution as
the supreme law of the Republic so as to heal the
divisions of the past.. (and) to improve the quality
of life of all citizens and free the potential of each
person."

A country of two nations
President Mbeki, two years after the adoption of the
Constitution in the debate on 'Reconciliation and
Nation-building' in Parliament in May 1998, therefore
raised the question: 'what is nation building and is
it happening?

He responded to this question with an unequivocal NO
when he said:

"We therefore make bold to say that South Africa is a
country of two nations. One of these nations is white,
relatively prosperous, regardless of gender or
geographic dispersal. It has ready access to a
developed economic, physical, educational,
communication and other infrastructure. This enables
it to argue that, except for the persistence of gender
discrimination against women, all members of this
nation have the possibility to exercise their right to
equal opportunity, the development opportunities to
which the Constitution of '93 committed our country.

The second and larger nation of South Africa is black
and poor, with the worst affected being women in the
rural areas, the black rural population in general and
the disabled. This nation lives under conditions of a
grossly underdeveloped economic, physical,
educational, communication and other infrastructure.
It has virtually no possibility to exercise what in
reality amounts to a theoretical right to equal
opportunity, with that right being equal within this
black nation only to the extent that it is equally
incapable of realisation.

This reality of two nations, underwritten by the
perpetuation of the racial, gender and spatial
disparities born of a very long period of colonial and
apartheid white minority domination, constitutes the
material base which reinforces the notion that,
indeed, we are not one nation, but two nations."

As we approached the second democratic elections in
1999, the ANC recognised the continued truths of these
assertion and therefore in its Elections Manifesto of
1999 said; 'We must act together, in conditions of
social discipline, to continue to build a South Africa
of freedom, prosperity and security for all, and to
solve the national problems that confront all of us,
including the advancement of national unity and
reconciliation. Change must go on at a faster pace!'

Phase 2 – Reconstruction and Transformation
During the long journey to achieve a truly non-racial
society, South Africans have resolved that

"the apartheid expression cannot be reformed. Like
Nazism, its antecedent and sister crime against
humanity, it must be overthrown and uprooted forcibly,
in its totality" (Comrade Oliver Tambo)

Following the adoption of the new Constitution, the
democratic government proceeded to put in place a firm
foundation of democracy through the establishment of
institutions such as the Constitutional Court, Office
of the Public Protector, the Commission for Gender
Equality, the South African Human Rights Commission,
etc to ensure that the basic rights of every citizen
are protected.

Various laws have been enacted by the government to
deracialize, democratize and unite South African
society and to establish equality in all spheres of
human endeavor. It had to start the torturous process
of dismantling the apartheid state – the bantustans,
separate departments, etc.

However, the road leading towards a fully united
non-racial and non-sexist South Africa is a long and
difficult one due to the complexity and
all-pervasiveness of apartheid colonialism and its
legacy of underdevelopment and the huge social
deficit.

The National Democratic forces, in order to achieve
its strategic objective of a truly non-racial,
non-sexist, democratic and united South Africa must
therefore as immediate and strategic tasks transform
and deracialize the state machinery, the economy,
education and human resources, culture; whilst at the
same time meet basic needs, effect land redistribution
and ensure a better life for especially the poor,
women, youth and disabled as a necessary.

Transforming the State
Paramount to realizing the strategic objective of our
national democratic revolution and as elaborated by
the RDP, is the establishment of a democratic,
non-racial and non-sexist state machinery (including
the civil service, the judiciary, the army, the
police, intelligence); that in its approach,
composition and outlook share the vision of a "new
nation" from the ashes of the racist and undemocratic
South Africa. It must be the machinery that is
representative and reflective of the demography of the
country. It must be efficient and sensitive to the
needs and aspirations of South Africans and must put
them first. (Batho Pele) Above all, it must always be
informed by the programme of redressing the imbalances
caused by the apartheid state. The new ideology of
non-racialism should inform the shape and substance of
its daily activities.

Economic transformation
The economic structure of the South African apartheid
system was influenced by the racist ideology and vice
versa. This white racial stereotype ideology was used
as an "instrument of the accumulation of wealth by the
white minority monopoly capitalists". Consequently,
the majority of blacks were not given access to the
means and instruments of production. This situation
sustained skewed power relations in favour of the
white minority.

It is this kind of reality that we must transform. One
of the tasks of the democratic government is therefore
to deracialize income, opportunities, ownership and
access to the economy, to effect redistribution in the
interests of development and growth and in the
interests of the historically disadvantaged. It is
only under these conditions that we can be assured of
a vibrant and dynamic economy.

Opening the doors of learning to all
Institutions of learning were used as centers of
racist ideology during the apartheid era in South
Africa. Since 1994, we have started the process of
ensuring that the doors of learning and culture are
opened to all. However, much more needs to be done.

Tertiary institutions remain largely untransformed in
their demography, ratios of student populations,
access to research opportunities, in the numbers of
women and blacks at post graduate level and occupying
senior positions in management. According to the Human
Sciences Research Council, in South Africa: 21% of
graduates are African (76%of the population); 68% of
graduates are white (12% of the population); 4% of
graduates are Coloured (9% of the population) and 7%
of graduates are Indian (3%of the population).

Despite our Constitutional and legal framework cases
of racism in schools are still emerging, six years
after our democratic elections and schools
integration. White parents still resist black children
coming to what they term "ons skole". The
reconstruction process of the new education system is
no easy matter, it needs support from all sectors of
society, with the aim of creating a 'new person'.

Our policies and strategies should be targetted
towards creating the 'best person' and also focus in
making education accessible to the majority of those
who are in the periphery of the economy so that they
are not condemned to the status of being better
labourers – whilst those coming from affluent
backgrounds enjoy the best opportunities.

Our objective must be to develop technical,
technological and scientific culture compatible with
the requirements for progress. The critical
assimilation of humankind's achievements in the field
of art, science and literature should be 'Ours is to
produce the best person for the future'.

Land, Poverty and Race
In order to deal with the crushing poverty to which
millions have been relegated, government must
intensify its programme to provide food security and
basic nutrition to those in dire need. This has to be
based on proper tracking, improvement in efficiency
and integration with community development.

A central pillar of colonialism of a special type was
the skewed distribution of land. As part of the
programme to deracialise our society, land reform
processes (redistribution and security of tenure, etc)
which seek to address this imbalance in ownership,
have been introduced.

However, this process has been very slow, and the land
hunger of our rural masses and abuse of farmworkers
are producing a potentially explosive situation,
unless we speed up change in this sector. The process
of land redistribution have been slow, because of
reasons of capacity, because of resistance from some
of the current land owners who use various methods to
stall the process. This include unrealistically high
prices or refusal to sell, which makes it difficult
for government to access such land on a massive scale,
particularly agricultural land.

The Security of Tenure Act which have been enacted to
protect the rights of farmworkers, has yet to be
effectively implemented and monitored. One of the
priorities of the democratic forces, will therefore be
to ensure that the implementation of land and agrarian
reform programmes are intensified to provide affected
rural communities with a decent living, to encourage
agricultural production and in the context of an
integrated rural development strategy.

A major constraint to women's efforts to overcome
poverty has been the lack of rights and access to
land, we must ensure that land reform programmes
specifically reach out to women, and take their needs
– such as information, training and resources into
account. (Resolutions of the Mafikeng Conference,
1997).

More overtly than most sectors, the farming
communities remain cesspits of racism and
exploitation. Daily, workers rights are undermined
with regard to pay, tenure, leave, education and other
basic human rights.

Whether it is the worker who is forced to eat faeces
by his boss, or the 79 year old retired worker who is
evicted from a farm, a farmworker who is painted with
a metallic paint on instruction from his boss, or one
who is driven over by an annoyed boss – the examples
of abuses are endless.

The SACP in its submission to the Human Rights
Commission hearings on racism in the Media (April
2000) therefore asserted that 75% of the poor in South
Africa are black and almost 20% fall in the category
'ultra – poor'. Addressing racism therefore means
fundamentally changing the quality of lives of the
black majority and Africans in particular. As was
observed in the Mafeking Conference 'social change
cannot await the transformation of the state machinery
and other instruments of power"

Racism and gender
Colonialism and apartheid sought to reinforce
patriarchal relations, manifested in male dominance
and the subservient position of women in all racial
and social strata of our society, with African women
in rural areas being at the bottom of the heap.

Women therefore took their rightful place in the
struggle alongside the other motive forces and was due
to such struggles that the liberation movement
integrated in its vision, the building of a non-sexist
South Africa. Certain fundamentals of the theory of
women's oppression in South Africa emerged
characterized by:

The recognition that black women are oppressed as part
of the black majority, as women and as workers,
suffering from triple oppression;
The recognition that it is necessary for women to
organize as women and within the liberation movement
to overcome gender oppression;
The recognition of the struggle for gender equality is
an integral part of the national liberation struggle.
The present situation provides an enabling legal
framework for women to advance their rights in a free
and secure society. Much has been done with the
establishment of the Gender Commission and the Office
on the Status of Women.

However African women continue to constitute the
majority of the poor, and mainly in rural areas. They
are found in the lowest paid jobs in the formal
employment sectors, amongst the unemployed, the micro
enterprises and in the rural parts of our land. They
continue to bear the brunt of poverty, heading single
family households with the lowest levels of income if
any at all, illiterate and facing the scourge of HIV/
Aids with the primary burden of caring for Aids
orphans.

The ANC needs to ensure the implementation and
monitoring of 1997 Mafikeng resolutions on the
empowerment and equality of women – in the
organisation and in society.

Racism and youth
Black youth in apartheid South Africa were deprived of
their youthfulness. They were forced to bear the brunt
of poverty, inferior education, lack of adequate
recreation facilities and repression from the state.

The challenge of the youth is the creation of the new
nation from the ashes of a divided South Africa. To
successfully achieve this mission, the youth must
learn about our past an our vision for the future.

Further, they must project the future based on the
present. The accumulation of ideas and knowledge
contained in the culture of the liberation struggle
and by society will ensure forward movement in this
regard.

It is this knowledge of the past and present in
relation with the future that will build a strong
youth so that they are able to withstand all
counter-revolutionary programs of the reactionary
forces that seek to undermine our democracy.

The youth as the future and flowers of the nation must
equip and empower themselves with various skills,
science, technology, literature and in many forms.
They should take up the challenges that relate to
participation in the family of nations as well as
domestically building a vibrant society.

Culture
Culture is a historical phenomenon, its development is
determined by the succession of socio-economic
formations and it is therefore directly or indirectly
the product of the activities of the masses.

In any racist and class society, culture assumes a
racist class character, both as to its ideological
content and practical aims. History teaches us that
when violence is used to dominate people, it is above
all used to destroy and paralyze its cultural life.

This was also the case with the racist theory of
apartheid, created, applied and developed on the basis
of the economic and political domination of the people
of South Africa.

Apartheid colonialism through violence and other means
attempted to liquidate and deny the culture of the
black majority. This was only partially successful,
for even during the heydays of apartheid the oppressed
masses clung tenaciously to part of their culture and
developed it, even under adverse conditions.

Part of building a non-racial society is the conscious
and ongoing development of a national culture,
building on our history and recognizing the diversity
of our people. Through this process, we must
constantly promote political and moral awareness of
the people as well as patriotism, the spirit of
sacrifice and devotion.

Whatever the ideological or idealistic characteristics
of cultural expressions, culture is an essential
element of the history of a people, culture is the
product of this history just as the flower is a
product of a plant. (Cabral).

Social movements and political organisations
Our social formations and movements, in fact civil
society as a whole tended to mirror the divisions of
the past. In this sphere too we should seek to build
truly non-racial organisations.

The trade union movement in our country remains
divided racially in part, because job reservation
defined the type of work that different races could
engage and enforced separate organization according to
grades. The new labour law dispensation provide for
the emergence of truly non-racial trade unions and
working class movements. The deracialisation of the
working class and the development of a working class
consciousness has still to emerge in the country
especially within the white working class.

Political organizations, outside of the liberation
fold, have constructed a discourse based on 'equal
opportunity' which denies that the playing field is
not level. Any attempts therefore at introducing
corrective measures to deal with apartheid's legacy is
being met with outcries of 'reverse racism'.

Another dimension has been the tendency to try and
explain the national contradiction (sometimes even
within our own ranks) as no longer between the
historically disadvantaged black majority (African,
Coloured, Indian) and whites, but rather to refer to
this contradiction as between the African majority and
other national minorities (whites, Coloureds and
Indians).

Affirmative action in particular is regarded as
undermining the advancement of "minorities".

This kind of analysis has led to a situation where
many Coloured people believe that once again, they are
caught in the middle between black and white. "We used
to be too black, now we are too white" and where many
Indian people have chosen to exclude themselves from
political engagement, seen particularly in the low
registration figures in predominantly Indian areas.

Media
The media in South Africa, too reflected the divisions
of the past based on race. Since 1994 there has been a
tendency for sections of the media to position itself
above their social responsibility to inform and to
reflect the broad diversity of views in our society.
Any criticism leveled against this tendency is
interpreted as a challenge to press freedom.

They, like the opposition, see themselves as the
protectors of South Africa's liberty against 'the
natural inclination of a predominantly black
government to dictatorship and corruption.'

In this regard, we should motivate for the acceptance
of the recommendations contained in the ANC submission
to the HRC "Hearings on Racism in the Media."

Strategic observations
While racism clearly remains a fundamental problem of
South African society, recent events (particularly the
Human Rights Commission investigation into racism in
the media) pointed to the absence of a common national
discourse and reference point amongst South Africans.

It points to the absence of a common understanding of
the history of racist ideology, its socio-cultural,
socio-economic and psychological manifestations and
therefore how this legacy affects our society today.

While racism continues to bedevil all areas of South
African society, one form that this takes is the
active denial of race (in all its manifestations) as
an issue in our society today.

Another form is to acknowledge racism as a problem,
and then argue that whites, as a minority, are its
victims. The black majority, it is argued, practice
racism against whites. This racial inversion is often
employed by powerful sectors throughout our society to
resist real transformation of the power relations that
underpinned apartheid.

Eradicating racism therefore necessitates a
two-pronged strategy. While defining the actual and
subliminal forms of racism in contemporary South
African society, it is necessary at the same time to
understand resistance to addressing racism as well as
their capacity to undermine attempts to eradicate
racism.

Legal remedies to deracialise our society (such as the
Equality Act or the transformation programmes of the
RDP) need to be accompanied by a strong, public
education and cultural programme that animates public
opinion in accordance with non-racist, human-rights
and multi-cultural thinking and practice.


Section E:
IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES FACING THE DEMOCRATIC FORCES
The ANC as a vanguard organization of the forces for
national democracy, will have to pay attention to this
as an important and strategic task of the NDR in the
current phase. It will have to unleash all its
organizational machinery, both in practice and in
theory to lead the process of deracialisation of South
Africa.

The first part of this process is to intensify the
political discourse on racism at a branch level and
amongst all sectors of our society.

Secondly, we need to build and work for the
development of a common and national vision (or
national consensus) on the path towards the creation
of a truly democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, united
and prosperous country and nation.

This vision should ensure the contribution of all
South Africans – black and white – to creating a
better life for all and for the common development of
their country.

We should develop a micro-plan of action that focuses
on the implementation of the resolutions on the
National question as adopted in the Mafikeng
Conference in 1997.

We should identify key tasks and challenges in
preparation for both National and International
Conferences on Racism organized for August this year
and early in 2001.

We should encourage the African Renaissance Institute
and other similar institutions to include issues of
racism as part of their agenda and establish forums
with other civil society organizations to continue the
debate and campaigns against racism.

This discourse should deepen understanding amongst all
South Africans, of our history, the nature and
manifestations of racism, its social effects and
relationship with religion and culture with the aim of
building consciousness on the need for all of us to
work together towards uprooting the demon of racism
and setting an example to the world.

Conclusion
The struggle for freedom still remains incomplete as
long as the legacy of apartheid remains. This task
therefore demands that we achieve the greatest unity
of the masses of our people, inspired by the new
patriotism, to continue to intensify the fight against
racism for our evolution into a non-racial society.

Forward to the African century!

LillyNomad
p.s. sorry for being so long-winded, bit I busted my tush on this one. It means a lot to me.




[Edited by LillyNomad on 13th January 2001 at 21:23]

[dokkie]

Good heavens!
Did you type all this yourself?

[ex-southafrican-girl]

well it just goes to show that Lilly is one of the few people who have the heart and soul put into the problems in SA, it is just as important to me, just wish more people felt the same: to be honest didnt read that all myself Lilly was abit to long for me but i could see by the length of what u said u are dedicated, go for it girl, we need more people like you!!!

[LillyNomad]

Yes Donkkie, I did. It took three days of research, reading, writing on notepads and going through some of my old material.

Thank you X-SA-Girl.
I get very passionate on subjects that interest me and are important. I have a deeep love of humanity and wish I could do something great or wonderful in this lifetime before I die.

Why hope to live a long life if we're only going to fill it with self-absorption, acquiring material luxuries, body maintenance and image repair?

When we die, do we want people to exclaim "She looked ten years younger!" or do we want them to say "She lived a great life and did wonderful things to better/help mankind"?

LillyNomad

p.s. Does anyone have any thoughts or responses on the subject?

[ex-southafrican-girl]

well lilly i agree with u totally it would be better to be known for what u did and not for what u looked like etc etc, also i would like to comment that the heading THE DEMON OF RACISM says it all, it is something that has sadly enough grown over the whole world and not just South Africa, Lilly may i ask what u do as a profession?

[LillyNomad]

What we love to do we find time to do."

Ask Brad Kuhlenberg that question. ;-)

LillyNomad

Absence diminishes little passions
And increases great ones,
As wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire.








[Edited by LillyNomad on 22nd January 2001 at 21:57]

[Mandi]

A long piece! Hope members find time to read it and then reflect on it.

I like the part in the conclusion wherein is is stated that the struggle for freedom in South Africa (against the legacy of apartheid) demands greatest unity among the people, and which will be inspired by new patriotism.

I was a bit taken aback to find people (in another debate on these boards) incensed when I asked why do certain South Africans abroad make it their duty to send as many negative messages about the country as possible. I am happy to find in LillyNomad's take that they lack this sense of patriotism.

South Africans abroad need to be patriotic about the country and contribute positively (even by criticism) to finding solutions, and stop just badmouthing the country.