Posts Tagged ‘South Africa’
Racialicious comment: In SA, Racism has prevailed.
THE sad truth of South Africa’s second decade of democracy is that racism has prevailed. You see it in the vindication of those who once fought for white supremacy – to date not one apartheid general has been brought to book – you see it in the slur against Asian-Africans – so-called Chinese of South African descent, who by some weird twist of fate have now been reclassified “black” only to be scorned for not conforming to the original apartheid system which labeled them “coloured”. The list continues, as fellow South African’s fight each other over the meaning of these terms – black or white, African or not. For some, only those who belong to the two dominant Nguni clans – Xhosa and Zulu – deserve to be accorded status as black Africans. Those from minority groups, whether black or white, are now surely the next target of racist attacks, of the kind which has lead to the burning of human flesh in public.
There is nothing heroic in attacking ones fellow South African, and to call it Xenophobia only elevates the crime which is racism outright, plain and simple, finished and klaar. Others would call Xenophobia sheer stupidity, the inability to contemplate the South Africa of today in any other terms besides newspeak — a country in which so many have become mixed-up from birth. A place in which cultural affinity rather than tribal affiliation is what should identify us, as lovers of particular soaps, readers of certain books, listeners of particular radio programmes, all tellers of tales.
MEDIA24 Saga: I am not a human being!
UNDER South Africa’s Labour Relations Act, individuals are not allowed to claim discrimination. This is the opinion of South Africa’s legal fraternity who refuse to support my motion to have a counter-case lodged by Media24 thrown out of court. ”Since it has been so clearly demonstrated by council that I am not a human being, I am now forced to approach the Equality Court to be regarded as a person.” The discrimination case lodged before the court in 2006 alleges the company discriminated against me by refusing to renew a contract of employment. I was dismissed without a formal hearing or being given the opportunity to respond to charges, that were in any event not proffered with sufficient detail nor put on record. “Although this flies directly in contravention of the Labour Act, members of the Cape Bar have chosen to strip me of any protection afforded by the law.”
“I am now forced to approach the Equality Court, merely to be considered a human being with rights and dignity. It is absurd that current legislation makes absolutely no allowance for struggle journalists and appears to punish people who have been deemed ‘white’ by the state. It is both an affront on my dignity and a denial of my inherent right to be considered a human being. I therefore intend suing the people of South Africa for the return of my rights that have been ignored by the Act.”
Ashraf Jamal, the Hanif Kureishi of South Africa’s literary scene
THE man who produced the first serious attempt to fictionalize Observatory and the Cape Town art scene in a contemporary narrative, was saved from the gutter by his wife Christine, a wealthy heiress who later took her own life in mysterious circumstances — some say a protest against a stifling academic environment and the constant globetrotting of her husband.
Ashraf and I sit down at a local café – Le Petit Paris. It is 1995. Fresh back from San Francisco, I casually mention a novel in progress, The Fleshiton, a surrealistic orgy that is part Science Fiction novel, part romantic disaster. My final break-up with Rehane Abrahams has had devastating consequences and there is only one thing to do, regroup, plan ahead. Write the “great novel”.
We arrange a reading in the Tamboerskloof home of my actress sister, Carolyn. Needless to say, the academic is a little shocked. I have painted characters from a post-gender existence with a landscape that cross-references pop-culture, Aushwitz and the blues. Lindzi Rabinowitz and architect Johnny Jacobson are there, but my kabbalistic erotic fantasy fails to impress them.
Join the bourgoisie, become a blogger.
Thought a little parody would do just fine.
ELECTION: The Middle Class is Dead.
THE “revenge of the middle class”* has turned into a fiasco. Instead of national cohesion we now have an internicine class war between wealthy property owners and their poorer cousins. The only thing that will save us, is acceptance that nothing stands between them and the street, nothing accept a decent wage and a job, and that means you, the working class, full stop.
The insane notion that a middle class can be created on the seat of a property boom, has merely shifted the struggle for equality to a different platform. Middle class values are nothing but bunk created by real estate agents and wealthy advertising executives who believe that equality can be created out of branding, products and brochures from Constantia.
A short while ago, progressives believed that human rights could bring people together, a mere slip of paper, a document could forge the nation. Not so, since when push comes to shove, it is the middle class that is going to give way. For South Africans to truly feel as though they belong, we need more than empty promises of equity and land. What we need is a guarantee from the state against the liklihood of ever becoming indigent, homeless, a wage slave.
Like so many social democrats, I believe the only thing that can accomplish this is social welfare, a living wage. Whether this wage is paid by the state or a large corporation is none of my concern; what we all require then, is reason not to wage war against those who would starve us into submission, trade our land for foreign investment and make off with the proceeds, while ignoring exploitation and profit-taking on the backs of the oppressed.
The working class will rise up and eat the middle class unless something drastic is done. Now is not the time to trust spin doctors and politicians who recite the cant of the bourgoisie, rather it is time to forge a wider national unity, a greater class of South African, created from the guarantee of a basic income grant for all.
* Cape Times lead story of the day.
Put South Africa first!
WELL the honeymoon is definitely over – the ghost of PW Botha has come back to haunt us in the form of a super-presidency under Thabo Mbeki. Why should supermen flying around Africa be given extra powers if they already possess mandates from their people? If they keep crashing and burning on issues such as national soveriegnty, regional economic and political stability perhaps its because they never had a mandate to start off with?
How is it possible to create a Pan African Parliament that will eventually overide the laws of our own nation without at least a debate on the floor? How is it possible to find ourselves in the situation where, not only are we gagging newspapers about oil, but we’re actively supporting one world government and the Bush war in Iraq via our participation in the WTO? While corporate South Africa has been given a big “up yours” by the Laugh It Off judgement in the constitutional court, large corporate media and transnational corporations still fail to take heed of grassroots dissatisfaction with an economic system dependent upon coercion, a strong foreign military presence and punitive sanctions against the unemployed.
While Mbeki, the reformed capitalist, pumps rands into foreign trade deals that sell-out local labour and cleverly avoids facing up to the mounting casualities of his new economic policies, a growing tide of resentment against big government grows by the day. Despite attempts to nation-build, we are fragmenting into eleven language groups each with its own agenda as the former National Party burrows its way deep within our societal structures. Is it no wonder that the liberation movement has been outlawed and freedom fighters are now called terrorists? Is it no wonder that presidential spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe is proposing dictatorship from above instead of grassroots democracy from below?
Where other movements have failed, the anti-apartheid movement succeeded in creating a true people’s parliament and a bill of rights based upon the Freedom Charter. It is now up to our representatives to take these principles further by calling a referendum on the language issue before we forget what freedom means. As William Shakespeare once said, a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, but pretty pointless if the children of tomorrow are born into a world without freedom of expression, without South Africa’s unique version of human rights and democracy.
copyright 2005, all rights reserved, reprint with permission.
