South Africa: The melting pot reaches boiling point…

This year is just one week shy of reaching its mid-mark, yet in these first five months alone, South Africa has experienced what would have been expected at least 19 years ago, at the twilight of the Apartheid regime. 

It has not been a reversal of oppressive roles that has struck the nation but rather, the same, exact oppressor-supressee relationship that seems to be on fire right now.

To understand what I mean by this, a crash course in socio-political history in the past 20 years is necessary.  First off, 90’s president, FW De Klerk declared Apartheid officially over and released Mr Nelson Mandela (let’s face it, he did it under the pressure of the UN, International Courts and the collapse of the SA economy under sanctions…there was nothing amicable behind those motives…oh…and washing Black peoples feet is not enough to absolve him of it). 

The “Icon” Mandela took to the helm. There were bottomless “Truth and Reconciliation” court cases, meant to give closure to the families of thousands of victims of the racist regime (which it did nothing of the sort,t as it turns out, in recent interviews of those who took part in the process). Mandela talked peace and non-racialization. 

Then came Thabo Mbeki, the poet, the “African Renaissance” president who in reviving or attempting to revive a Pan African approach to Africanism denied the relationship between HIV and AIDS, ran for a second term and when he attempted to run for a third term, he was recalled from the presidency (or fired, in layman’s terms) and in stepped, very “Mufasa-like” Kgalema Motlante, for a brief couple of months as interim president (although, me thinks that he will most certainly be the next president, for a full term in 2014). 

The pre-Zuma era was marred by a rape case, public ridicule over his “quick shower” as an HIV/AIDS preventative measure and his outright Polygamous lifestyle (he now has 5 wives, he had six but he and the minister have been divorced for ages).  That brings us to today.    

First off, I’d have to be inclined to agree with what everyone is saying: the 2% white minority in South Africa has lost its mind. 

In a country where 85% of the population are racially, ethnically and in the case of this country, linguistically Black, how is it still possible to have the kind of overt racism that has been publicly visible since last year? 

Let’s put that into perspective, in a country of 55 million people, 1.3 just happen to be white, 3 million are coloreds and 2 million are Indians…that leaves over 48 million Black people. 

That’s like a kindergartener walking into the staff room and throwing a tantrum…it should not be possible, thinkable or tolerated, right? 

Well, that’s exactly what has been happening in South Africa, they’ve thrown a massive temper tantrum and dragged Black pride along for the ride, wreaking havoc on the healing inferiority complex of the biggest race group and the most wounded.

The outrage began with the Virgin Active “Yebo” Racist.  December 2011, a Black woman was at a gym in an affluent white area, in a cycling class. 

Enjoying the class so much, she shouted “Yebo!” which means yes in Zulu, a Nguni language spoken by over 20 million people across the Sub Saharan region. 

What ensued next was worse than just violence, it was that humiliation that one was made to feel during the thick of the regime, when being Black or Colored or Indian, but most of all, Black was one’s mark of shame and disgust. 

This white man got off his bike, stood in front of the woman and repeatedly insulted her, saying amongst other things, that she was:

“a kaffer (derogative term referring to blacks) who was born with her tail between her legs and she should crawl back into the bushes where she and all her people came from.”

Twitter was a buzz with it under the has tag of #VirginActiveRacist, but nothing was done, in fact, the management, white management of course, threatened to expel the victim rather than the man who firstly threatened a woman with his physical presence and racially abused her. 

Once the South Africa story hit the tabloids in March 2012, along with three more Virgin Active Racist attacks at the gym, they changed their stance immediately (only because “The Branson” go involved, albeit in 140 characters, on twitter…but it was enough). 

There were jokes, there had to be something in the water at the gym, instead of happy endorphins…it was relaxing the white folk and letting them express, in their most primal form, their exact thoughts on the Black race.

Prominent Afrikaans folk singer Steve Hofmeyer declared his racist beliefs (that all criminals are blacks and so forth) and the floodgates were wide open and a thousand nutjobs, not necessarily right-wing but definitely frustrated, swept right through; right up to the 20 year old (now failed model) Jessica Leandra Dos Santos who, and I quote:

“just dealt with an arrogant Kaffer at spar, I should have punched him” and again on twitter “I have no tolerance for African monkeys”. 

This brings us to this week’s fresh wave of racial attacks by the white minority has been big and ballsy, they’ve taken on the president of the country. 

The Goodman Gallery has been closed today due to the public outrage and ensuing court case against it for exhibiting a picture of our president, with his genitals hanging for all to see. 

The piece by Brett Murray, a white artist, is called “The Spear”. A German collector has allegedly paid for the portrait but delivery to him has been put on hold.  De ja vu, the same thing happened to Sara Baartman?  Sold to the highest bidder, a White European, she became the laughing stock of Europe, made to stand naked in a cubicle so that her genitalia and breasts could be ogled at, laughed at and  jeered at, “the strange Hottentot Bushman woman”.  

The exhibition of Baartman was used as “proof” that Africans were in fact sub-human and not the same in any way, to the white man or woman.

In this case, legal red tape has seen the artist and gallery defiantly maintain the portrait for the entire week with Monday, 21^st May being the first time the gallery has been closed since the exhibition. 

Black folk have been up in arms over the lack of respect that this artist seems to display in portraying the “First Citizen” in this undignified manner. 

It stinks of ridicule of the majority race and power and is a middle finger gesture, the last actions of a flailing grip on power on behalf of ever white man, woman and child. 

I was listening to Ukhozi FM, the biggest radio station on the continent and from the rage each listener conveyed, the African stand on the matter is crystal clear, they will be supporting the governments decision to take the Goodman Gallery and Brett Murray to court. 

However, when reading the twitter reports under #GoodmanGallery and #BrettMurray, one thing is as crystal as it is clear: These are the overt actions of a collective consensus amongst the white minority.

They still hold out hope for a return to power and with the new fight for emancipation from white chains economically, the last vestiges of white power on the continent look set to die a slow and painful death.

It is difficult to remove oneself from the emotion of it. It feels like a punch, a sucker punch in the face and takes one back, in my case to 9^th grade, my first encounter with “race” and racism, at Vryburger High School, a dual-medium high school (English-Afrikaans instruction) notorious for racism.

A white girl, in my grade, but in the Afrikaans grouping,  called me a half-breed Kaffer and asked why I was at “their” school and why my people didn’t just kill each other because we were baboons taking over.

I was 13 years old then, at 26 now, I remember everything about that day.  The smile that wiped of my face when I realised with confusion, what was happening, the way the sun seemed to shine even brighter, almost blinding me, agreeing with her, and how I couldn’t understand why no one around me said anything, why they just laughed half-hearted, nervous laughs. 

Then the horror of it dawned on me; my friends, at the time, were white.  Why would they say anything?

I didn’t understand it then, but I do now…this stuff is taught to them, to all of us as South Africans, from he time we are breastfed.

Sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly and we are worse off for it because it would seem, that we are quite possibly, the most racist country in the world because we think, breathe, define everything, everyone, ourselves according to race first, then ethnicity, then gender, then age…then allocate value worthy of each definition.

Does that make sense? 

Apartheid in South Africa was born, nurtured, and raised here.  It didn’t die a death of any sort; it just found a new playground and rescheduled recess. 

It’s still around, visceral and sneakier than ever.  It’s why there’s this hierarchy within each race, Whites are superior (deluded notions but some still believe) but within that group, English speakers are “better” than Afrikaans speakers. 

Coloreds are next and the fairer you are, the more prestige and “almost” white respect you will receive…the opposite for those closer to the darker race in their genetics.  Indians would be next and the same rule applies as that of the Coloreds. 

Finally, the vast Black race, where tribalism trumps the “fairness/whiteness” of ones skin. 

Where being Zulu or Xhosa will pit you against each other and all the other minor groups are up for the picking as allies (Pedi, Sotho, Tswana, Venda etc). 

South Africa is an emotional boxing ring. On the left, in a very Spartan-like recklessness, the white minority, pulling punches and low blows, painting paintings and spitting at women in the gym and taking on black men in supermarket isles. 

On the right side, weighing in at 48 million, is a cowering majority, whining but not taking a strong legal stand, not using its power  or legislation as a majority, and thus, losing every round (maybe 49 million counting some coloreds(myself included) and some Indians who identify themselves as Blacks)

So, the question at hand, to the Goodman Gallery and Brett Murray and “The Spear”: Had the president been white, would this portrait even be in existence?

Images Courtesy:

Danger! Apartheid Warning sign

One white woman amidst a sea of Blacks – The 2%

Sara Baartman through Colonial Discourse

Bruce Murray’s “The Spear” 

Lauren Schoff’s Johannesburg Underground, Apartheid.