Last week, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe delivered the most extraordinary speech at a gala dinner to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Indian community in South Africa. On the one hand, he congratulated the Indian community on their disproportional contribution to South Africa and, on the other, he seemed to express the view that their future role should be limited to the proportion of the population (2.5%) that they represent.
The first part of his speech was essentially a well-placed recognition of the role of the South African Indian community in the betterment of South Africa. Although Motlanthe doesn't mention it, it is worth noting that South African Indians, despite their initial status as indentured labourers and their relatively small numbers, have contributed to the South African economy and political life consistently more than their proportional demographic share would have suggested.
Apartheid, Motlanthe said, was designed to divide and rule through racial hierarchy - a hierarchy that "saw the white people at the apex, followed by Indians, then Coloureds, and Africans at the bottom." But Indians, he continued, wouldn't accept this: "In this racial matrix, Indians could have easily taken advantage of their relatively better economic conditions and looked the other way; instead, they consciously cast their lot with fellow African humanity." Their resistance "entrenched the enduring values of indivisible humanity among the oppressed, thus practically rendering this racial hierarchy irrelevant."
"Above all," he proceeded, "the political contribution of Indians in South Africa has been immense."
He gave a brief and balanced account of the roles of Gandhi and local Indian resistance leaders who advocated change, and duly credited Gandhi for his role in defying discriminatory laws. Gandhi's policy of Satyagraha, or "firmness in truth/ soul force," Motlanthe said, "involved much more than ‘passive resistance'." "And when [Gandhi] left there were others to continue his good work."
"It is a historic fact," Motlanthe said, "that the largest section of the Indian community have, intellectually and politically, always sided with the cause of national liberation."
He urged Indian South Africans to continue to play their role in maintaining and improving democratic gains: "Certainly, the continued role of Indians of varied descriptions in the educational, health and governmental and other spheres is crucial."
In the second part of his speech, Deputy President Motlanthe made a praiseworthy appeal for national unity. "Going forward, I am optimistic that somewhere in the near future, South Africa will develop a meta-consciousness, which, both at the individual and national levels, make us volitionally submerge our ethnic self-concept and open a way to one, great, over-riding South African identity."
A listener might, however, have asked exactly what he meant by "volitionally submerge our ethnic self-concept": was he making an unconstitutional call for minorities - like the Indians - ultimately to lose their cultural identities in a broader national identity - or was he simply calling for the absolutely acceptable emergence of the type of overarching national identity that we started to witness during the recent FIFA World Cup?
But then came an unexpected turn: Despite initially having praised Indians for rejecting assigned racial hierarchies before 1994 and casting "their lot with fellow African humanity," he attributed the economic vitality of the Indian South African community to Apartheid privileges. "Economic hierarchy meant that political status of racial groups corresponded to economic status. The post-94 era has inherited this ugly reality that contributed to the division of our people."
The Deputy President followed with a number of perfectly acceptable comments: "I submit that one of the biggest challenges we face today is to address the legacy of economic inequality on the one hand, while deepening non-racialism on the other."
He continued: "Inequalities in the economic domain should not exist; much less remind us of our past divisions. Put differently, economic success should not be synonymous with certain racial groups as a hang-up from our past."
Later: "... we must continue to put the inter-racial unity of the past to the service of the present. Our common future lies in the realisation that White, Black, Coloured and Indian South Africans' destiny is one." In the Deputy-President's view "Our young generation should be able to see a non-racial society in practice everywhere they look. Our composition in sports, government, private sector, religious institutions, and other pivotal spheres of national life should reflect our diversity as South Africans."
Then comes the rub: such a society should be created through reverse social engineering. "We have learnt enough historical lessons to know that just as racism was a conscious effort at social engineering; it can equally be defeated by conscious efforts to wipe it off our system of thought."
After congratulating the Indian community on their contribution to South Africa, Deputy President Motlanthe then ascribes their enormous progress over the past 150 years, not to their hard work and personal sacrifices under extremely difficult circumstances, but to their supposedly privileged position in the "apartheid hierarchy". What was needed was a little reverse social engineering to ensure that the economic, social and political role of Indians would, in the future, be limited to their 2.5% demographic share of the national population.
This is in keeping with the National Democratic Revolution ideology in terms of which we will not have achieved the goal of non-racial democracy until there is demographic representivity at all levels of ownership, management and employment in the private, public and non-governmental sectors of society. Thus, according to the late Chris Louw, Afrikaners' roles in public life were systematically restricted to the 6% of their share in the national population - regardless of the performance of all the individuals involved.
Demographic representivity would, of course, not be possible without the comprehensive re-racialisation of all aspects of our national life in which the individual's roles and prospects would once again be determined by their race, and not by their contribution. It would also ensure majority domination of minorities in every area of their lives - and would result in the sad negation of Nelson Mandela's historic call that "never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world."
This is hardly the way to reassure the Indian Community about their future role and prospects in the new South Africa.