Knowledge is preciousUniversity of Venda
Discourses on Difference and Oppression

SOUTH AFRICA IN TRANSITION:

A STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ON NATION-BUILDING

SNW KIGUWA, Department of Political Studies
University of Venda

INTRODUCTION

In his ‘Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonarparte’ Karl Marx wrote:

men are makers of their own history but they do not make it as they please, they do not make it
under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. 1
This remarkable statement captures the theme of this chapter about the impact of cultural diversity on nation-building in South Africa. In April 1994 South Africans wrote their own history by ending apartheid and ushering in a new era of democracy. They followed this up by writing a democratic constitution guaranteeing fundamental human rights and government by the people, for the people and about the people.

They did not do this as they pleased or under circumstances chosen by them. They did so under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from their past. The South African Constitution, political and social system are reflections of this past, apart from being indicators of the desired future. This chapter seeks to highlight on the relationship or relationships obtaining between the various ethnic groups of the South African population revealed by negotiations leading to the writing of the new constitution and thereafter.

These relationships which have characterized the government and politics in South Africa since 1994 have their roots in the past apartheid system and structures. The people and successive political leaders have had no choice but to respond to them so that the process of nation-building could begin and continue uninterrupted. In this chapter two kinds of relationships capture attention. First is the relationship between the white former rulers or oppressors and the black or oppressed majority. The second is the relationship between black ethnic groups on the question of power sharing in the new political dispensation. In both sets of relationships fear, mistrust, bitterness, desire to preserve cultural identity or mere conservatism became conspicuous and had to be dealt with before the way forward could be constructed for the new South African nation.

THE GENESIS OF THE PROBLEM

It is difficult to understand and appreciate the numerous political problems, which the demise of apartheid unfolded without a brief reference to the country’s political history. A brief look into the near past is therefore in order. It is the contention of this writer that fear of the majority and desire to protect minority rights has for the past half century been the main subject of contention in South Africa’s political, economic and social life. This fear re-ignited strongly in the negotiations, which culminated into the new democratic era. Up to today this fear has not subsided although it is not as conspicuous as it was during the years of apartheid. A number of things still remain to be done before it will finally disappear. But indicators are that it is slowly but steadily losing momentum.

Apartheid, which became official government policy from 1948 to 1994, was a product of this fear. Ironically protecting minority rights translated into the majority losing theirs and subsequent political turmoil giving rise to wars of liberation and stringent repressive laws application of which made South Africa a police state. Rather than giving them security apartheid consolidated white minority’s fear of the black majority and this led to banning of all black political organisations sending their leaders into exile, or execution plus long prisons sentences. Denial of basic human rights and disenfranchisement followed. Liberation wars and independence of all other states on the continent plus a worldwide campaign against apartheid accompanied by political and economic isolation created a desperate situation for the white minority regimes inside South Africa which heightened their fear of the black majority.

Apartheid was about keeping South Africa white for the white minority. Racial segregation, denial of political and economic rights, social degradation and inferior or in some cases no education at all were measures to safeguard white minority rights. Being black or coloured appeared to be of no consequence as such. It was not the color black, which they hated. It was the overwhelming numbers of black people, which bothered them. What was at stake was preservation of the white race and its western civilization in South Africa where the vast majority of the people were not white. The reference below serves as testimony to this fact:
 

the European had hitherto been able to maintain himself in South Africa because he was economically and culturally superior to the native. If the government went out of its way to civilize and uplift the native in an unnatural manner the white man would not be able to maintain his superiority. We are slowly but surely committing suicide.2
This statement attributed to J. G. F. Strydom, then leader of the National Party in Transvaal when he was addressing Parliament on ‘The Native Policy Debate’ is proof of white Afrikaans fear of the black majority and explains why the apartheid policy was put in place. The philosophy of apartheid was, white superiority, separate development, educational and economic backwardness so that black people should never be able to successfully compete with whites. They had to be denied of franchise in order to keep the government and South Africa white and preserved for white descendants. The techniques used aimed at keeping the natives in their place as servants of their white superiors without any means of independent existence. Social inferiority was emphasized and no intermarriages were allowed. All instruments of force i.e. army, police, prisons and the judiciary were exclusively white.

For almost half a century this was the state of affairs. Black people were exploited, without land or means of independent existence except through selling their unskilled labor cheaply to their white superiors. Several generations of whites and blacks went through this system with a result that black inferiority was firmly implanted in the minds of whites and extreme bitterness and hatred in the minds of blacks. Whites and blacks never worked together as cooperating citizens to advance the interests of their country. They were always at loggerheads and had nothing in common. Each one regarded the other as its archenemy who had to be destroyed or contained. With the advent of a new era this had to change. The transition from apartheid to democracy in 1994 illuminated on fundamental problems whose solutions are yet to be found. It is to these problems that we must now turn.

BLACK AND WHITE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A NEW APPROACH

Bad ideas never die but simply reappear in new forms (Sachs 1992: p41) wrote Albie Sachs, one of the most outstanding non-black freedom fighters in South Africa. Apartheid is not yet dead it has only changed forms in which it is expressed. The fear of white minority of the black majority has not disappeared altogether. The balck majority is still in the process of finding a basis on which to forgive and forget the past. For many little has changed. Many of the wrongs of the past are not yet addressed. The following pages will try to show the precarious conditions under which whites and blacks are working together to build a new nation.

As Sachs points out the struggle for human rights is a struggle born out of anger, generated by injustice, inequality, cruelty, extreme deprivation of all social amenities including alienation of land which has not yet been fully returned to the original owners, and humiliation or degradation. Apartheid did not just fail as a policy it implanted long-lasting negative psychological effects on both the oppressors and oppressed alike. Such effects cannot be changed in one day or through legislation. It is something that requires time to heal. Accordingly there are visible and invisible injustices being committed and which impact negatively on efforts aimed at national reconstruction.

Race and culture are two inseparable concepts in the study of South African politics and history. A study of racism is directly linked to economic, political and cultural factors. While race implies biological differences regarded as permanent and which within the discourses of race gives rise to theories of inferiority and superiority, culture refers to historically or socially constructed differences, which seem to contain no connotation of permanent hierarchical distinction. 3

A discourse of culture would seem to provide a powerful tool with which to challenge the ideas of immutable hereditary difference. The modern concept of race and culture is animated by hostility to ideas of human universality, both espouse a philosophical relativism and their core lies in anti-humanist outlook (Ernest Renan 1881: p131). The formulators of the apartheid creed to keep blacks away without means of production or access to political and economic power used race and culture. They had to be exploited , denied of human rights, education and even citizenship. Apartheid had a purpose it came to serve but this purpose was far from nation building. It was not envisaged that black and white would one day live together as equal citizens striving together to advance interests of their country.

When that time came the negative legacy of apartheid became apparent. Apartheid was simply not meant for nation building and those who endorsed and practiced it fully are now struggling to learn new ways of living befitting the changed times. A nation, as Renan observed, is a voluntary contract between its members. What holds a nation together is a conscious decision on the part of every member to affirm his or her acceptance of that nation’s collective identity and cultural heritage. Members share in their past a glorious heritage and regrets and of having in the future a shared programme to put into effect. Their sense of shared values and collective affirmation of such values is what constitutes a nation.

What transpired in the preliminary negotiations aimed at establishing democracy in South Africa (known as Codesa I and II) showed first that all people of South Africa were willing and ready to constitute themselves into a nation. Secondly the Codesa negotiations revealed a need and determination to establish new societal values, political culture and national interests to be pursued by every citizen of the new nation being born. Up to 1994 there were no common societal or cultural values let alone political aspirations applicable to all South Africans. But there were problems to which we must now turn.

THE 1994 AND 1996 CONSTITUTIONS

In 1994 a number of divisive issues existed over the drafting of the Interim Constitution under which the first democratic elections were held and subsequent formation of the first non-racial majority government which saw Nelson Mandela taking the oath as the country’s first black president. It was during these negotiations that the fear, suspicion and conservatism implanted into the minds of black and white came to the forefront threatening to rock the democratic process. Indeed the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) agreed to participate in the elections at the eleventh hour. 5

What were the issues over which contention existed? Inside the negotiating chambers there was the issue of power sharing among competing political parties and granting provinces greater powers. Some political parties like the IFP wanted a federal system of government, which would enable provinces to uphold their cultural and social values. The National Party (NP) had the same position. The African National Congress (ANC) stressed the need for closer national unity, which necessitated a strong central government. In short the ANC felt that a unitary system of government would be best for South Africa.

Power sharing on a federal system of government was rejected by the ANC for two reasons. First there was unequal distribution of resources among provinces. Some like Gauteng and Western Cape being very rich while others like Northern Province and Eastern Cape being very poor. Only a unitary system of government would facilitate and speed up economic development through central planning. The second reason was that a federal system of government would heighten tribalism, division and marginalisation of the central government. Apartheid was a divisive mechanism which could not permit true nationalism to emerge and by so doing negate all efforts for national reconstruction and development.

The ANC appeared to be the only political party, which had South Africa at heart. All other parties had sectional and cultural identities to fight for. They lacked effective representation throughout the country. They had hardly any national programmes to sell to the electorate with the result that the ANC won seven out of nine provincial governments. Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) took Kwazulu Natal where it was formed and many political analysts regarded it as a Zulu party. The National Party (NP) took Western Cape where most Afrikaner voters live and many coloureds who supported it. The other parties had their catchment areas too small to be of any real significance.

The ANC advocated simple majority rule. The National Party and Inkatha Freedom Party entered into fluid union with the ANC in the Government of National Unity (GNU). Although the ANC had scored absolute victory in the nation and qualified to form the government without help from other parties, it was felt neceassry to bring other parties on board for the sake of national unity and reconciliation. The IFP walked out of the negotiations resolved to boycott the 1994 elections and was persuaded to return by some promises of fair treatment in the negotiations leading to the 1996 constitution. The most important of these promises was acceptance of International Mediation between Kwazulu Natal and the ANC led government.

The issue of international mediation caused a lot of friction between IFP and ANC because while it was promised, the latter rejected it after the election of 1994. IFP leader Gatsha Buthelezi ordered all IFP members of Parliament to quit the Government of National Unity. But those holding ministerial positions including Buthelezi himself were excluded. Power sharing enabled the National Party and Inkatha to exercise real power as part of the GNU. But it denied them ability to function as opposition parties. For this reason NP leader FW de Klerk withdrew his party from the GNU in June 1996 and declared that the NP was now welcoming all races and began to prepare for the 1999 elections. 6

THE WRITING OF 1996 CONSTITUTION

As in 1994 the ANC remained the only party pursuing nationwide goals and had significant following in all the nine provinces. Power sharing on a federal system of government remained a thorny issue. But it was effectively and finally rejected. Instead the Upper House or Senate was renamed The National Council of Provinces with all the nine premiers as members and each province was to be represented by nine members nominated by provincial legislatures. Chiefs and Local Governments are also represented. The Council of Provinces is the custodian of regional interests.

Minorities expressed desire for special protection against suppression of their culture, marginalisation of their languages, beliefs, extinction, of their personality, denial of their history and general exclusion from the middle and higher reaches of society. For this reason article 5 of the 1`996 constitution recognized nine official languages namely Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Twana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. Language rights were meant to be general so that language presently discriminated against should have a higher status without downgrading English and Afrikaans. The state undertook to promote these languages by being used in school teaching, literature and media to engender respect for different languages and to prevent the use of any language or languages for the purpose of domination or division.

This represented a radical thinking on race and culture in South Africa. Social groups tend to define themselves by their history and identity, which set them from each other. It was important to recognize this plurality of differences as a positive aspect of the South African society today for struggle for racial equality takes the form of a struggle for group identity. Social fragmentation was a way of giving voice to those previously excluded from the political arena. This idea that all groups have a right to speak for themselves in their own voice and have that voice accepted as authentic and legitimate is essential to the pluralistic stance of postmodernism. The politics of difference has evolved in South Africa as the intellectual embodiment of social fragmentation.

The argument advanced here is that pluralism or assertion of difference helps to undermine the grip of the dominant groups over political and social discourse. Traditional politics exercised before the 1994 changes served to silence the voices of the weak and oppressed and consigned their histories and experiences to the margins and subsumed all experiences to the dominant outlook. The issue of race in South Africa and elsewhere was a matter of right versus wrong. The politics of race had become very divisive, complex and morally more problematic.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND POLITICAL PARTY SYSTEM

South African political parties reveal the cultural diversity and political history of the country. Each one seems to have limited membership and absence of national vision or mission. Only the ANC provides exception to this. It has long-term and short-term goals. Since 1994 the National Party has been in decline. It has lacked direction and seems to suffer too much from the image of its apartheid past. The change in name to New National Party (NNP) and leadership has not reversed its downward plunge. The NP or NNP has all along drawn its support from erstwhile Afrikaaner speaking South Africans and the coloureds all concentrated in the Western Cape Province.

It was able to win the provincial elections and formed the government in Western Cape in 1004. But this support has been steadily declining and could only hold on to power in Western Cape ion the elections of 1999 through a coalition with the Democratic Party (DP). The reasons for its decline lies in its abominable past, defections by its Afrikaaner supporters to other parties , particularly the Democratic Party, and United Democratic Movement (UDM) founded by Bantu Holomisa and Roelf Meyer its former Secretary General and Deputy Chairperson of the Constituent Assembly which wrote the 1996 constitution.

Two other parties were formed out of NP ranks namely The Freedom Front led by General Constand Vijleon formed in 1994 and The Freedom Alliance led by Louis Luyt. The political programme of these two parties was narrow and so peculiar that they could not attract membership outside the extreme Afrikaaner brotherhood. They came into being because they felt the National Party had betrayed Aafrikaaners by abolishing apartheid and handing power to the black majority represented by their archenemy the ANC. The Freedom Front (FF) stood on the platform of a homeland (Volkstaat) for the Afrikaaners so that they could keep their identity, culture and language. They wanted to have their own schools where instruction would be in Afrikaans. Groups of white extremists had to be contained by quiet diplomacy. They have now most momentum and the idea of a Volkstaat has been laid to rest.

Liberal non-Afrikaaner whites who are property owners largely support the Democratic Party led by Tony Leon. They have not been able to attract many non-white voters because they have nothing to offer them. tHe relations between the DP and the ANC are not very cordial. President Thabo Mbeki once referred to the DP in a Parliamentary address as "our own homegrown Tories". Although accepted as the official opposition to the government it was not allowed to chair any of the Parliamentary Committees. It is regarded as a stumbling block to development.

The other big party, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is accused of tribal or traditional policies and to some extent blamed for the political violence in Kwazulu Natal. It has since 1994 ruled that province but has little support elsewhere. The other political organisations can best be termed ‘pressure groups’ or political factions without any serious contention to political power. The conclusion one can draw from this is not conducive to national integration and cultural reform. The ANC is the only unifying party and its overwhelming majority support countrywide and continuous down plunge of opposition parties has translated into national integration taking place along ANC philosophy.

EXPRESSIONS OF DISCONTENT AT THE GRASSROOTS

Two kinds of discontent have surfaced since 1994. The first is racial discontent by white Afrikaners who have not yet been reconciled to the new changes in the country. The second is black people displaced from their land, without income and whose rehabilitation has yet to be effected. With regard to the first racial antagonism has been reported in the public service, public corporations, police and army. Early in 1999 a senior female staff of the South African Airways (SAA) was reprimanded for using abusive language against a black junior staff whom she allegedly called a ‘kaffir’.

In the police and army black and white officers have had incidences of racism in their relation to each other and the public they serve. Perhaps the worst of these was in Tempe Barracks in Bloenfontein where one black officer Madubela, gunned down nine white officers and injured several others before being shot dead by one of the victims. Although racism was officially denied other events which followed especially at his funeral in Umtata where the Pan African Congress (PAC) , the liberation movement he served in during the struggle to end apartheid, insisted that he was a hero who deserved to be buried with full military honours, a thing which government categorically denied.

Resistance to change still exists and it comes in many forms. In Potgieterst and Vryburg ugly incidents of racism surfaced in schools. Afrikaner parents wanted tokeep these schools white and to use only Afrikaans as the language of instruction. They defied government policy of integrating these schools. Riots broke out, black and white pupils fighting and injuring each other. The schools were temporarily closed and reopened under government orders. In the Vryburg school a black deputy principal was aapointed much to the dismay of white staff and pupils.

In the medical service racism is rampant in several hospitals. Without mentioning names racial antagonism between black and white staff has come to light. Many white patients refuse to be attended to by black doctors and nurses. They also object to sleeping in beds, in which black patients sleep or use the same facilties like toilets. In the Tzaneen area residents have sought permission to build private hospitals where whites go for treatment. Although in their application they pledge that these hospitals would accept both white and black patients their real intention is to separate themselves from nonwhites. Government is reluctant to grant them permission.

In March 2000 the Human Rights Commission (HRC) issued subpoenas to newspaper editors and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to appear before it and answer charges of racism in the media. The subpoenas were later withdrawn but a weeklong enquiry was conducted, the revelation of which was that black news editors and journalists are greatly discriminated against by their white counterparts. They are believed to be inferior, not to know what they are doing and generally of second rate abilities. Five black news editors gave evidence to the Commission about their disappointment and frustration within their profession because of their colour. A number of white news editors in their evidence confirmed what the black news editors had said and stressed that apartheid took a long time to be assimilated into both black and white minds. It could not be washed out in a day. The new constitution may have abolished apartheid but it will take time for it to fully disappear from the minds of those who were born in it and practiced it all their lives. 8

LAND ALIENATION

Land alienation and forced removal of black communities from their ancestral land is one of the major obstacles to national reconciliation. Black populations who were so forcefully removed, tortured and deprived of all independent means of subsistence are ready to forgive and turn on a new leaf on the condition that they get their land back. Several cases of black farm workers being refused to bury their dead on the white owned farms where they were born, worked and lived, with the feeling from the bottom of their hearts, that this land belongs to them, is so hurtful that unless a satisfactory solution is found reconciliation between black and white will remain a cherished dream to be accomplished.

The Northern Province, is one of the regions with the highest incidences of this kind. But perhaps the worst case is that of the Makgoba ethnic group historically described as the Makgoba nation. In the war, which culminated in their forced removal and alienation of their traditional land, their leader Chief Makgoba was killed, and his head cut off. According to these people this head was taken to the Pretoria museum. They were told to bury Chief Makgoba’s body without the head. This deplorable act has all the years of apartheid sank into the blood of several generations of the Makgoba nation.

It is contrary to custom to bury anyone without the head or any part of the body. The Makgoba people are very bitter about this. They sent delegations to Pretoria to get their Chief’s head so that they could bury it in the same grave. But all their efforts came to nothing. They have been told time and again that Chief Makgiba’s head is not in Pretoria museum. No one knows where it is. The Makgoba people cannot come to terms with this. Culturally, spiritually, socially and even politically a big riff was created which needs to be healed before life can return to normal. 9

CONCLUSION

South Africa is in transition from apartheid, which was segregative to a new era, which is integrative. Given the short period of transition and the magnitude of the problem it has performed remarkably well. Most people, black and white, have accepted the dictates of the new order, which they themselves have created and set in motion. Most of them were tired of apartheid, which was taking them nowhere. But as the saying goes ‘Rome was not built in a day’. It did not fall in a day or as Shakespeare once put it ‘no wound heals but by degrees’.

Apartheid took many years to construct and put in place. It could not be wiped out in one day or through legislation alone. People have to construct new cultural, social and political values to replace it. In other words a new political culture is required but it cannot take effect overnight. It takes many years to grow. What one can say now is that the country has taken a decisive step to reconstruct a viable nation to which there can be no going back.

On the 30th of March an unprecedented incident took place at Potchefstrrom high court when AWB leader Eugene Terry Blanche handed himself over to the authorities to begin a one year jail sentence with all extremist AWB members looking on. Five years ago this was unthinkable for any AWB member to believe, that he or she could be punished for beating a black person or to think that a black led government has power over him. With this incident it is now obvious all citizens of South Africa have accepted the new era. Only gradual marks of conservatism remain to be ironed out.


REFERENCES

Albie, Sachs, (1992) Advancing Human Rights in South Africa, Cape Town: Oxford University Press

John, Middleton (1997) Ed. The Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Saahara Vol 4, NY: Charles Scibener’s Sons Macmillan Library

Renan, Malik, (1996) The Meaning of Race: Race History and Culture in Western Society, London: Macmillan Press

Paul, M, Sniderman and Thomas, Piazza (1993) The Scar of Race, The Belknap Press of Harvard University

Melvin, M, Leiman, (1993) The Political economy of Racism: A History, London: Pluto Press

Hoemle, R. F. (1945) South Africa’s Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press

Naome, Chazan; Robert, Mortimer, John Ravenhill; Donald Rothchild, (1992) Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa 2nd Ed., Boulder Colorador: Lynne Reinner Publishers.


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