When Mandela Goes

Cavendish Mall is one of the key meeting places of complacent, white, southern suburb Capetonians. They have Lattes there, skinny and otherwise, topped with the lightest hint of chocolate powder. They can wander around shops sporting expensive jewellery, overpriced nik naks and the latest fashion accessories. They can meander through the bookshop and shop at a leisurely pace for their necessities at a Woolworths, where even the next available till announcements are delivered in slightly hushed tones.

It is a wealthy environment. But you would not know that if you were not awake to the signs, because they are not entirely obvious. At any restaurant in the complex, you will battle to find a black patron. It is a safe haven for white people. They can see their art movies there on a Saturday evening. They can be at home with each other and relaxed. As they look around them, it is as if democracy never arrived with all its uncomfortable side effects, like taxis on the roads, and riff-raff being given too much freedom, and black people being allowed to do what they want. Cavendish Mall is a safe and pleasant environment. It is tasteful, without being loud. In it you can be assured that standards will be aggressively maintained and everyone will have the same expectations.

You will notice that most people have an attitude. It comes with a particular angle of the nose on the face – as though it has only recently sniffed the unpleasantness of lower forms of life. As I have said, you will notice that wealth is not flashy, nor brash, nor worn on the sleeve. No. The cars are usually ordinary, sun-blasted and with dents that have never been attended to. Even the clothes are not flashy, or loud. Hairstyles are usually the simplest. Makeup is not much in evidence. Things are tasteful and understated.

But it is an environment where like recognises and affirms like. This crowd of people have a set of rules which they all know from birth and follow rigourously until they die. Nothing changes. This is Cairp Tahn. This is the Southern Suburbs.

So I was interested to see some graffiti on one of the walls on a toilet in Cavendish Mall. It read this, in an unsteady hand – “I AM WAITING MANDELA DIE.” I am sure it is already attended to and has been removed – because graffiti is a very rare thing in Cavendish Mall, you underestand – (and we don’t want any of that, do we?)

But it made me think. Something about the sentence made me think, immediately (maybe it was the lack of correct English grammar), that it had been written by someone who was black. Not because I think blacks can’t write correct English, nor because I think only a black would write on a toilet wall – no. It was because I am white and I grew up under apartheid and because those are the kind of assumptions I am bound to make. But let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that my prejudices and my instinct are correct in this instance, and that it was written by a black person – what could it possibly mean?
Is it simply a statement of fact? Does it mean nothing more than what is being said? Someone was sitting on the toilet in Cavendish Mall and decided to write those words on the wall, because that is what he was thinking. He is waiting for Mandela to die. It would be odd indeed. Of the same ilk as “The sky is blue”, “I am bored” and “John loves Mary”. Except it isn’t.

The context of Cavendish Mall inevitably makes this some kind of a political statement. It is intended to be read in that context. It has a meaning more like “Troops out of Iran” or “Nationalise the mines”. It is not a bland or a neutral statement. And it is meant to feed into the deepest fears of the majority of the patrons of the Cavendish Mall. When Mandela dies, all hell will break loose. The black hoards are sitting around waiting for the day. It is only out of respect for the old man that they have kept their pangas under their beds, but when he dies! Then we will all be braaivleis.

And I expect, if it hasn’t happened yet, that there is going to be much buying of tinned sardines, stockpiling of water and matches – just as was the case during the first democratic elections. Why? Because it is a real possibility? No. It won’t happen.

Then why? Why the subliminal fear? Why the mounting hysteria? Why the bewailing of certain doom and racial misfortune? I will tell you why. Because deep down, in the recesses of their consciousness, white people in this country know just how big a compromise was made in the interests of peace. When they lie in their beds at night, they know that the poor cannot be fooled forever and the lid has got to blow on the sham at some point. That is why, this simple, ungrammatically correct sentence, written on a toilet wall in Cavendish Mall, has profound resonance.

The imperative of Restitution

Yesterday, I had a conversation with an extremely powerful man. It’s not the first time I have spoken to him. And now, as before, I was struck by his ordinariness. He is, to be sure, unprepossessing. He is a grey man outwardly, but far from colourless. You wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. You would be unlikely to strike up a conversation with him in the lift. He dresses plainly but casually and he heads a vast, successful multi-continental commercial empire.

He is not afraid to give you his opinion and when he speaks, it is with the authority of a man who is not used to hearing the word “no”. When he speaks, he uses examples from his personal experience. And the examples he uses are engaging and easy to understand. When he speaks, he demonstrates that he has thought about the subject matter carefully. He has reached a conclusion and he shares his wisdom easily, in an unfussy and unpretentious way.

The myths and legends about him are legion. Barely mention his name in the sphere of his influence and you will hear a story of his genius, his vision, his insight, his commercial courage. People quake visibly at the mere thought of his censure.

We were talking about why I had decided to move back into government, to do the job I will be doing for the foreseeable future – the job of Restitution. Now I noticed, right from the start of our conversation, that his position, (which was entirely negative of the endeavour) was not an uninformed one. This is markedly different from many other white people who have shared their opinions with me on my move, recently. Most white people immediately mistake Restitution for Redistribution. The moment they hear the words “Land Claims” they assume the Mugabe position. Why, they want to know, would I want to have anything to do with taking people’s land away from them and giving it to other people who are ill-equipped to run it?

Their lips curl. They bare their teeth at me and they snarl their disapproval. It matters nothing, when I point out that Apartheid did exactly what Mugabe is doing. It took land away from people who were its legal owners and in most cases did nothing to compensate them. But for these people what Mugube is doing is wrong and it somehow wasn’t wrong when the Nationalist party did the same thing. (Or, if not that, then it is just ignored as a comparison). They simply cannot hear the argument.

Not the man I was speaking to. He knows exactly what Restitution is. He can cite precise examples. Nevertheless, he rejects it. He says it is – (and this is a word I found really extraordinary) – “immoral”.

He says it is about the past, and South Africa should be about the future. He says that most of the people who suffered dispossession are dead. He acknowledges easily that what was done to them was terrible – but he says it is too late to compensate them. Even if one could quantify the damage done to them, it is unproductive to travel the path to Restitution. He cites China and Japan as examples of forward looking nations – where the past was the past and the future is the future. So, they simply started again from scratch. What happened, happened. It is over. It happened long ago.

He gave an example of his own family sitting around the dinner table. His father would refer to a party which was taking place at the nearby farm owned by the Van der Westhuizens. “Now I hope”, his father would say, “that none of MY children will be seen at the Van der Westhuizen’s party”.

Why? Because during the Anglo-Boer War, it was Van der Westhuizen’s grandfather who pointed out to the British where the Boers were hiding.

It was a long time ago – and yet the fires were still burning. The hatred still there. Let it all go! He said. Why would you want to get involved in something like that, which can never be solved?

How convincingly I answered, I do not know, but what I said was this: I said that this was the essence of the settlement. This is the reason why we have peace, rather than blood in our country today. That was the deal. There will be no retribution, because there will be restitution.

If that position gets shifted, for whatever reason, whether it be because the claims are too difficult or to complicated; or because there are competing interests; or because “people should just move on and be done with it”, then in my opinion, the deal will collapse and the capitulation to commercial interests will be complete.

Not to mention the moral imperative. Not to mention the fact that people who were driven from their lands and their homes were raped emotionally and robbed of their dignity. Not to mention the effects it had on the children and their children after them. Restitution is the very least that can be done. And white people in this country, in my opinion, should keep very quiet about Mugabe, when we still have our own tragic history to deal with first.

It is all very well, and not a little disingenuous, to say “forgive and forget”, when the person urging everyone to do so is still reaping the not inconsiderable benefits of our inequitable, distorted past. The past is not the past. The past is still with us. It won’t disappear because we might like it to, or because it would be easier if it were buried or ignored. The past is still with us and it will be for a long time to come.

Racism in Claremont

Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams, Cape Argus

I heard an interesting interview on the radio, while driving from George to Knysna. It was with a woman who posted a “For Sale” sign up in her restaurant window, in Claremont, Cape Town. But the sign added, “White buyers Only”. Then underneath the printed sign, she added in hand-written print “Order of the inspector”.

Now, besides the fact that this, in itself, is rather strange in supposedly free, democratic South Africa, the woman who owns the business (whose name is Zikusooka Wamono), is black.

Her story goes as follows: First, she rented a place in a less than desirable area. Business was bad, because of the fact that passing vagrants, would urinate in the alley leading to her restaurant and loiter there. She tried putting up a fence to make the alley impassable. The barrier she had erected got taken down by the council. Business went from bad to worse and eventually she decided to close it down and look for other premises.

She chose upmarket Claremont. She found a suitable site. She designed it, equipped it and furnished it, at considerable expense. However, at every stage, she was pestered and harassed by the police. They visited her at odd hours, demanding changes to this and changes to that. They have opposed her application for a liquor licence. It was clearly harassment. But she soldiered on.

Eventually, after unbearable frustration and constant intimidation, she put the “For Sale” sign up. The police officer had told her that “over his dead body” was she going to open her restaurant, because a black-owned businesses would bring “indecent black people”. His advice to her was to sell her business to a white. And that is the reason she put up the sign in her window.

I called Zikusooka, just to express support and solidarity with her. And to say to her unsurprised I was that she had been subjected to this treatment and how unbearably racist my own experience of Cape Town has been, as well.

She told me that the policeman concerned was, in fact, not white – but “coloured”, or mixed race. That didn’t surprise me either, because the racism of this place is not the preserve of the whites alone. It is something which is the common vocabulary of everyone who lives here. It is largely unchallenged. It is considered acceptable. It is constant. It is widespread and it is encountered right across the board and it is completely debilitating.

Although I was warned about it, when we decided to move here some years ago, I have to say, I had no idea how serious and how widespread a thing it is in this City. I had no idea that it would be everywhere. In the supermarket; in the school; on every road; and in every suburb. Naked, unashamed and unapologetic racism. There is a thin veneer of integration, but it is a sham. You can see it is a sham when you go shopping. You can see it is a sham when you visit a restaurant or the beach or the gardens at Kirstenbosch. Or when you drive down a road. You can see it is a sham when you examine who teaches what, in which schools. As I say, it is across the board. White, coloured and black. Everyone.

So, I salute the courage of Ms Wamono. She told me that she is on anti-depressants and she did this out of complete desperation. But she remains unbowed. She is going to fight, until she has no breath left in her. I salute her and I have told her that when and if she finally opens her doors, that I will be amongst her first enthusiastic customers.

That being said, I have one hesitation. The reasons given by the other side, for opposing the granting of a liquor licence need to be listened to quite carefully and assessed. They argue that it is because of her previous business and the negative effect it had on the area, that they are opposing this application. I am not in any position to judge whether those allegations are true or not. But what I am sure of, is that she has been harassed this time. And it looks very likely, given the racially skewed context of Cape Town, that what lies behind the harassment, is racism.

And there is one other thing which may be at play here. Her name and her accent sound Ugandan. And you know how much we love Africans from other parts of Africa, in this neck of the woods!

The allure of popularist socialism

In an interesting, albeit entirely dismissive, article on “The Financial crisis and the rise of pseudo-socialists” published on Thought Leader, Sentletse Diakanyo starts by mapping the fall of World Communism, and continues with the situation at present, wherein a few countries – Cuba, North Korea and China - hold onto what he calls “the remnants of Communism”, while some Latin American countries have gravitated towards the left because of their Leader’s “desperate attempts to keep their filthy hands in the cookie jar”. In these countries, he argues, there is a growing realisation that “even misplaced nationalism can never make communism a logical and viable proposition.”

He then makes another point, which is probably correct : “The grand posturings of the pseudo-socialists in government impedes its capacity to resist the temptation to be caught up in the vicious cycle of populist rhetoric at a time when the economic circumstances demand a decisive response. There needs to be a concerted effort towards greater political alignment and economic integration [with the rest of the world] if Africa is to emerge from the rubbles of this economic meltdown prosperous.”

He continues: “Economic populism threatens the sustainable, long-term prosperity of the continent, in particular here in South Africa. Populists have already begun pitting the poor against the economic elites who are portrayed as the architects of the poor’s misery. History teaches us that we cannot afford to have laissez-faire capitalism reign supreme nor a paternalistic state that is out of touch with the economic realities of our country.”

Now, while this is all probably true, there is one element which the author does not deal with, but which to my mind, is the nub of the matter. It remains an outstanding element in the general arena of contestation for language and symbol. This is, after all, the arena on which the political game is played. It lies in the actual power which socialist language, concepts and symbols still retain within the South African context. And they do so for very good reason.

The words and concepts of the "left" still retain considerable power, because of the patently evident lack of actual content (and indeed delivery of basics) to the poor, by any previous government - capitalist (including racial capitalist) and smiling capitalist (which Diakanyo would term pseudo-socialist). That is not, as he would have it, a cynical pitting of the poor against the economic elites. It is just a fact of life, which one doesn’t have to play up or decorate in any way to make the issues representative of the experience of most people.

In the mind of the majority of poor people, there has got to be something in it for them, somewhere. That is the reason why the unashamed trumpeting rhetoric of the left , proves to be so enduringly popular. And it is not to say that these ideas are necessarily bad in themselves - they are usually obvious - it is rather the cynical use of them, while at the same time maintaining and promoting something so diametrically opposed to them, which is the worrying and disturbing element in our political framework at present.

Capitalism is really the only game in town, at the moment. But it would be very silly indeed to imagine that, therefore, Capitalism provides us with the answer to the problem. The problem was indeed caused by Capitalism, in its explicitly racial incarnation. The problem which it caused, in this neck of the woods, is still not fixed and there is no guarantee that it ever will be fixed, for once and for all, to the benefit of those who have suffered most under it. I have no doubt that we will plod on and that gradually, we will build more houses and put in more taps – but that is very unlikely to provide a quick enough fix to deal with the seemingly unstoppable problem of increasing poverty.

The poor are bound to notice 16,17,18 years from freedom, that either things are getting worse for them, or they are staying much the same. It is only the rich who may fail to make the connection. And that is essentially the problem, because an automatic binary relationship gets set up – essentially the insiders and the outsiders – and it is that context that the language and vocabulary of socialism (pseudo or otherwise) becomes a very suitable option for those who have nothing, and a very obvious means of whipping up support, by those who are, in fact, providing very little. Other than for themselves, of course.