As fear and loathing play out in this
country, the real question is what can be done to mend SA's racial divide?
In the aftermath of Eugene Terre'Blanche's
death and Julius Malema’s divisive tantrums, the social Web proved a powerful
mirror to South Africa's
fractured soul. Hate speech and violent talk bled out onto Facebook pages at
the same time that Dozi was mouthing drunken racial slurs and Steve Hofmeyr was
making a fool of himself, yet again.
The racial tension so evident after
Terre'Blanche's violent death has been simmering for a long time. Well before
the event, a virtual race war played out on Malema fan and protest pages on
Facebook, over the issue of Julius Malema singing that song. The divide then
was caused in part by a phantom going by the name of Thato Mbateti Mbateti, who
used anonymity to spew hatred and dispense foreboding.
It’s not that simple
More recently a host of Facebook pages and
social networking initiatives have sprung up in the naïve hope of being virtual
band aids to what is a deep and complex social problem. If only it was that
simple.
A society divided by massive disparity and
inequality, yet until recently cloaked by the veneer of a 'rainbow nation', South Africa is
easily disposed to racial tension. Our collective history is bloody, violent
and pockmarked with racial and tribal wars.
This country is a living contradiction. We
have a noble constitution with a world-leading Bill of Rights that legislates
equality, social justice and democratic values. Yet we are a country of massive
economic and social divides, in some economic categories amongst the most
unequal in the world.
The ticking time bomb
South Africa's jobless youth are what FM calls the country's ticking time bomb.
In March, the financial weekly reported that “2.5 million young people aged 18
to 24 are neither working nor in any kind of education or training”. South Africa
has one of the highest rates of poverty globally, and the second highest Gini
coefficient in the world, which indicates the gulf between the 'haves' and the
'have nots'.
Clearly the systemic problems that dispose South Africa to
racial tension can't be fixed overnight. How then can we try to stem racial
hatred both online and in the real world?
Professor Jonathan Jansen, vice-chancellor
of the University of the Free State (UFS) is a compassionate voice of reason in
the emotional madness of South
Africa's race debate. Jansen gave eloquent
expression to South Africa's
race crisis during his inaugural speech at the UFS when he said:
“Who would have thought that barely a
decade after the miracle of our transition we would be talking about
'minorities' in a democracy founded on the principles of non-racialism? Who
could have imagined that in Mandela's country human appointments to jobs would
be instructed by that calculating phrase, 'the demographics of the country'?
And who could have predicted the bare-knuckled violence that kills white
farmers on their lands and foreign nationals on our streets, or that the
poorest of black citizens would be felled by the racial anger of an 18-year-old
white boy barely out of high school?”
What every South African should read
A fearless maverick, Jansen is the author
of “Knowledge in the Blood: How white students remember and enact the past” and
“Diversity High: Class, Colour, Character and Culture in a South African High
School” (with Saloshna Vandeyar). I first read about Jansen's book last year in
an inspired column by Marianne Thamm in which she declared “Knowledge in the
Blood” required reading for each and every South African.
She's one hundred percent right. “Knowledge
in the Blood” is the story of the transformation of the University of Pretoria.
The brave and frank account of how Jansen brought understanding of the majority
black culture to a predominantly white institution to help create a racially
integrated place of learning.
Our collective history is bloody, violent
and pockmarked with racial and tribal wars.
But don't make the mistake of thinking it's
a narrow cast educational narrative. The book is a blueprint for
transformation, of how change can be achieved on both a social and personal
level.
We need an agreed, common narrative
The book answers the mystery about how
young Afrikaners both remember and enact an Apartheid past they never lived.
Importantly, the book offers hopeful insights for forging a new South African
narrative. Not one based on some 'Rainbow Nation' delusion, but based on
understanding and restoration. Jansen argues that the oppressors and the
oppressed need to find historical common ground by forging a collective and
inclusive narrative of apartheid that is “mutually conceived and resolved”.
And what do we do about the hate in the
meantime? In his recent column on TimesLIVE, Jansen reminds us that words
matter:
“What we sing, or say in poetry, or teach
in classrooms, can heal or hurt. As parents, teachers, public servants or
politicians we dare not leave our children without a sense of hope. We need to
nurture through words positive views of other people, especially those whom
society insists are different from us.”
The question we need to ask ourselves as we
vehemently take up our right to freedom of speech and dive into another round
of Facebook activism is whether we are hurting or whether we are healing.
Whether the energy we're using on social networks couldn't be better directed
toward social restoration instead of unthinkingly deepening the divide.
Find ways to cross over
Speaking to my friend, the writer Andrew
Miller, he reminds me that there is an “outstanding issue that is not currently
in currency”. He says the words matter, but asks to what extent our words (and,
by extension, our actions on social platforms), posturing, and ideologies are a
refuge from our physical isolation from each other? “How will we interact when
we never interact save for the strict confines of corporate life?” He advocates
an end to talking and calls for actions, saying we should find physical ways to
cross over the physical divides we have created. And if we do, then we might
find the words follow suit.
Miller's saying that as long as we remain
as structurally isolated as we are and nothing is done to bridge the chasm,
we're well and truly buggered.
Words matter. But actions matter more.