South Africa: Raising the alarm about black anger (opinion) - carrying ominous messages from the black world to the white world

May 15th, 2009

 

 

Johannesburg (South Africa) - I do not see myself as a messenger carrying ominous messages from the black world to the white world. If I did I would be no more than the race-blackmailer whom white South Africans would have to appease to calm “my people”.

But I also do not see myself as the “Uncle Tom” — grinning from ear to ear to assure the master that all is well with the natives. If I did I would be the race-denying, “sensible” black who, in Cornel West’s words, “casts the white mainstream as the only game in town”.

If all I did was mimic the white mainstream then I would be going against everything that Steve Biko taught when he wrote: “I am against the intellectual arrogance of white people that makes them believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are the divinely appointed pace-setters in progress.”

Eschewing both racial blackmail and racial denialism, I prefer the race-transcendent criticism of a James Baldwin: “Self-taught and self-styled, hence beholden to no white academic patronage system”, and thus free to speak truth to both the black and the white establishment.

You may wonder where I am going with this. I have been thinking about how best to raise the alarm about black anger with the Zilles and Zapiros of this world, and do so without blackmailing them on account of race. I have no choice because failure to speak would leave me squarely amongst the race-denialists who sit silently while wrongs are being done.

And so in the tradition of Baldwin I will try to fuse “the life of the mind (including the craft of writing) with the struggle for justice and human dignity regardless of the fashions of the day or the price he had to pay”.

The human dignity I am talking about is that of President Jacob Zuma. Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille cannot insult Zuma with impunity and avoid being called a racist and all manner of ugly things by the ANC Youth League. It also cannot be right for Zapiro to hold Zuma to ransom with his shower thing as if he is entitled to the desecration of the man’s body. We should all know things are not right when someone sends a message to the radio station that if Zapiro were to go to a township he would never come out in one piece. And who does Zapiro think he is kidding by saying he will remove the shower but keep it hanging over Zuma? And who is not to say that is even more patronising?

But even if the black anger were to fizzle out, peace is not the absence of war. Peace requires the active cultivation of goodwill among people. That active cultivation of goodwill could start with Zille apologising for accusing Zuma of spreading AIDS among his wives — instead of hiding behind the oft- repeated excuse that she was quoted out of context. It could also start with a more reflective journalism. I am waiting to see if the journalists who have been quick to judge Zuma will criticise Zille. No, they won’t. They won’t because in reality they are political hacks who cannot transcend their own racial solidarity.

No matter how rational I try to be they will accuse me of playing the race card for raising these issues. They are the true blackmailers — “Shut up about us, or else.” Well, like Baldwin, that’s the price one has to pay.

The goodwill could also start with a more forgiving spirit in the white community. Since 1994 the burden of forgiveness has fallen on black people while white people and their leaders have remained instinctively punitive in this country. Just the other day Zuma extended an olive branch both in his parliamentary speech, his inaugural address and by appointing Pieter Mulder into his Cabinet. And what does he get in return but a spit in the face from the likes of Zille, Zapiro and other race-bound hacks.

I don’t know if there is a way of avoiding this race-inflected opposition politics and journalism in this country.

If there isn’t, then we’re all dead.

* Mangcu is affiliated to the University of Johannesburg and the Brookings Institution

source, Business Day (South Africa), by Xolela Mangcu*