Learning Zulu

November 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

By Kristin Palitza
Guest Blogger
The plane hits the tarmac with a brief thud. I have landed in South Africa, for the first time. As I exit through the sliding doors of the baggage claim area, an elderly woman is waving at me. She works with Amnesty International, one of the organisations I have come to volunteer for, and she has kindly offered to host me for the first couple of weeks of my stay, until I find a place of my own.

She is talkative. On the way from the airport to C.’s home, I am told a variety of colourful and impressive stories about her life. I presume they are meant to give me (a) an introduction to my host and (b) an insight into the recent political history of the country. C. is not shy to talk about her achievements as a liberal white in the anti-apartheid struggle. And she has every reason not to be. She was a member of the Black Sash and had many black friends, who she didn’t hesitate to drop off in townships after curfew, when demonstrations ran late, even though her husband thought it too dangerous. To defy segregation and unfair apartheid laws, she also went swimming with black friends on a whites-only beach, risking arrest. According to her husband J., the apartheid regime soon took such a strong interest in C.’s political activities that its spies rented the house opposite their home to be able to watch her every step.

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REVERSE RACISM

December 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

A recent survey shows that white people still sit comfortably atop the pile of income earners in South Africa.

The latest South Africa Survey, published by the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), shows that for 2008 white South Africans made considerably more than other races. According to the survey, the average per capita income in South Africa for that period was R32 599, while per capita income for white people was R135 707.

Indians had the second highest per capita income at R56 173, with coloured South Africans at 27 569 and black South Africans the lowest at 19 496.

Mail & Guardian.

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THE RACE ISSUE

October 23, 2009 By 3 Comments

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The Johannesburg weekly newspaper, “Mail & Guardian,” recently published its (annual?) “Race Issue.”  The idea of a “Race Issue” seems odd as a topic in South Africa since race define that country’s everyday.  And it sort of implies, although I don’t think they meant it, that now they’ll get back to reporting other things: We’ll talk about race again next year.

Anyway, I finally had a chance to read most of the articles.

So what can we say about them? Amongst others, there’s a lead article about utterances by ANC leaders; we find out that one white reporter does not want to talk about racism and voted for the Democratic Alliance; that there are nice black people in the Democratic Alliance; and there’s a meandering piece by novelist and educator Njabulo Ndebele about white and black expectations, etcetera.  This is all well and good.  But the relationship between race and class (how it stays the same, or changes), hardly comes up. It is all about identity. And about the preoccupations of the black and white middle classes.

But there were highlights. Especially the piece by journalist Pearlie Joubert.

Read that. Here’s an extract:

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APARTHEID’S FINAL TRICK

October 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Researcher Kelly Rosenthal writing in the Mail & Guardian about witnessing the beat-down of a poor black homeless man by black security guards in a shopping mall in Cape Town while shoppers (both black and white) look on approvingly:

This is the true toxic inheritance of apartheid, the final trick played on us. Yes, we dismantled an elaborate legal apparatus of segregation and repression. Yes, we made the transition from repressive police state to democracy without civil war. Yes, we conducted a mass ritual to deal with decades of state-sponsored violence. Yes. We did all that. But we did not expunge from ourselves the terrible talent of seeing members of our own community as radically other, signified by some arbitrary feature. It used to be race. Now black people, too, can stand by and laugh when someone is beaten. That’s democracy. These days the more dangerous signifier is class. To be poor is to be inhuman. To be poor is to be a different kind of citizen. And, of course, race is never far from class in this country.

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POLITICAL “ETHNICITY”

October 4, 2009 By 1 Comment

Last week three people were killed and scores of others injured or left homeless in attacks on members of a poor squatters movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, outside the country’s third-largest city, Durban. The attackers shouted: “‘The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the AmaZulu.” AmaMpondo is a veiled reference to identify the squatter movement as Xhosas. Not as Zulus. Abahlali, however, has both Xhosa and Zulu members and supporters. But as more information emerge this “ethnic” violence has less to do with ethnicity and more to do with politics. In fact, some of the squatters and their supporters claim the attackers did so with the full knowledge of the police and the municipality, the latter which is run by the ruling ANC and which is intent on clearing the city of slums before the 2010 World Cup.

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SOUTH AFRICA: “THE WHITES ARE PRETENDING IT DIDN’T HAPPEN; THE BLACKS ARE PRETENDING TO FORGIVE”

September 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

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Probably the most insightful one-liner I’ve read about South Africa in a while.

From a piece by The Guardian’s South Africa correspondent, David Smith. It’s what a cynic told him about Apartheid and its legacy.

Read Smith’s take on recent events in South Africa, including the white refugee crises here.

It’s worth reading the comments on the piece, which confirms this insight.

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THE REAL VICTIMS OF THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

August 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The death by suicide of 22- year-old S’khumbuzo Douglas Mhlongo on Friday is an extreme example of how some of our laws and regulations may be adding unnecessary burdens to the lives of the poor.

[South Africa] has laws and regulations on its books that place the country on par with some of the developed nations. However, most of them are in practice out of sync with the circumstances of the poor, and just make it that much more difficult for the poor to make a living.

Mhlongo, a part-time employee at a pet food factory, was offered a full-time position which he could only take up once he got his identity document. He applied at the Department of Home Affairs office in Pinetown, where officials sent him from pillar to post.

Mhlongo had already borrowed heavily to finance his living expenses and to make trips to the home affairs offices, expecting no doubt that he would repay the money once he got the job. Bad mistake, you might say, but what options did Mhlongo have?

When one official tore up his application because he was not convinced that he was indeed a South African citizen, Mhlongo reportedly committed suicide.

[The Business Day]

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