I have listened
closely to debates around the statues in our country on various media platforms. In many of
these is very little mention of racism. There is talk of statues being ‘offensive’.
A great deal is said about ‘history and heritage’. There is also reference to notions
such as ‘inclusion’ and ‘social cohesion’.
But if we want just
and sustainable solutions to this issue, we need to discuss racism and call it
by name. From there, we can jointly find the road to a more through-going transformation.
At UCT, even though a full discussion of racism was not held, it was easier to
find a workable resolution because the UCT vice-chancellor openly acknowledged
that racism (both past and current) afflicts the institution. Max Price
realises that listening to the students and dealing with exponents and heroes
of white superiority is the least that UCT can do.
But for wider
society, and the broader issue of these landmarks, it is difficult to get wide
agreement (including larger numbers of white people) because many do not see
that removing the busts of these past champions of white superiority is the
least that society can do. It is therefore imperative to make racism a focal
point of current discussions.
In the rest of
this article, I will discuss racism as well as issues of racist oppression
memory work. Thereafter I return to the debate around the removal of statues in
the context of the need to oppose and root out racism.
It is true that
‘racism’ is sometimes used to refer to discrimination by one person against
another based on colour or ethnic origin.
In this
article, it is used in the sense used by Ashok Ohri, Margaret Legum and Basil
Manning, renowned anti-racist workers in South Africa and Britain. Racism in
this sense is an ideology of group supremacy, is practiced over generations and
enters the culture of both the oppressed and oppressor. It entails denial on a
massive scale of resources, opportunities, dignity.
In our case,
white racism has led to systematic human rights abuses and denial of rights
that will affect us for generations to come. Black people suffered immense loss
– including the loss of lives.
In relation to
racism and memory work, a critical step in transformation is acknowledgment by
perpetrators and those who benefitted. Verne Harris and Chandre Gold, in an
official paper for the Nelson Mandela Foundation state that dealing with
oppressive past requires “people to take responsibility for violations
done in their name”.
They also take
a tough line on perpetrators. In this regard they say that “a blanket amnesty
for the perpetrators of violation can never be justified” and could lead to “resilient
cultures of impunity, lack of accountability, and societal rage.”
In current
debates, some like Steve Hofmeyr and Sunette Bridges, would not like to foreground
racism. Such people want to chain themselves to their heritage – but what are
they saying about racism and allegiance to a system declared a crime against
humanity?
Others are
calling for “negotiations” on the issue of statues. Some, including a spokesperson
for the Freedom Front Plus, have called for keeping all the old statues and
simply adding ones that depict liberation heroes. Can you imagine the scenario:
five old-guard statues and five statues of anti-apartheid activists in every
town, and double that in each city? Can you imagine if such an approach were
used in Germany after the end of Nazism? This is exactly what we get if we try
to sidestep the racism issue.
A few white
people have called on those demanding the removal of the statues concerned to
consider the biographies of the particular “hero”. “How many people did Rhodes
kill,” one caller to a radio station asked this week, demanding that the
offending statue be left alone. This caller fails to realise that the campaign
to dethrone “old guard” statues is actually a drive to end “denial”; to bring
home to South Africans the hypocrisy of claiming to be free of racism and yet
glorifying those who crafted, propagated and entrenched the system of
domination.
Finally, some
in the white community believe that removing the offending statues is a sign to
white people that they have no place in South Africa. But the opposite is true.
People like Max Price and other progressive white people know that this is not
about some kind of reversal of white-black racial discrimination. Many of those
who support the idea of bringing down the stone figure of Rhodes would welcome
statues of, for example, Beyers Naude, Helen Suzman and Liberal Party stalwart
Peter Brown. In this regard, as statues go, the dividing line is the distinction
between champions of an evil system and those who fought against it.
Despite our
fights, white and black people can face the future together. But a basic
requirement is acknowledgement of racism and taking responsibility for what
happened in the past.
Frank Meintjies
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