URL: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za
Policy, Law, Economics and Politics - Deepening Democracy through Access to Information This privately-owned website is operated and maintained by Creamer Media
   
Polity
Published: 03 Sep 2010
The question of race
Raymond Suttner speaks on race, non-racialism, and the relevance of affirmative action and black economic-empowerment today.

Witherden: Raymond, thinking back to the 1955 Congress of the People when the Freedom Charter was adopted the ANC-led alliance of organisations began advancing a non-racial perspective. How did this perspective come to dominate ANC politics of the time?

Suttner: The ANC gradually developed from an organisation who conceived unity of the oppressed in an ever-broader way.

First, African men only, but uniting what had been separate chiefdoms.
Then it came to include women and then in this period, although the ANC as an organisation was separate, it formed alliances with Indians, Coloureds, whites and women in trade unions.

There still been residual tensions with Indians, as had broken out in 1949, and with the Communists prior to their banning. In fact, Communists were to play quite a prominent role in the Congress Alliance as it was called, although they were doing so de facto, because the Communist Party was underground.

So, the Freedom Charter begins with words which Africanists and black consciousness people find objectionable: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white."

So it ennunciates a vision of a society where the position that you hold, the rights that you have will not depend on what population group you belong to.

The word race, by the way, is unscientific, but you can't ignore the word race, because rights were allocated, advantages were given to people, disadvantages were suffered by people on the basis of being socially constructed as Africans, Coloureds, Indians and so forth.

Now, the ANC and its allies in the Freedom Charter went all over the country to hear what people wanted.

If you look at that document, it is not the universal declaration of human rights, it's a South African document.

It is a reaction. The freedoms it calls for may be unnecessary to call for in other countries. But in South Africa it called for freedoms, which related to what people suffered under apartheid repression.

Witherden: What is the relevance of affirmative action and black-economic empowerment now and is there a contradiction between these policies and the post-1994 idea of non-racialism?

Suttner: Affirmative action is an attempt to deal with historical disabilities, which are undeniable, which attached to the social categories of race and it measures whether people are advancing in professions, in universities, in a number of other places.

It's based on and derived from America where it applied to minority, here it applies to the majority and I think it is very important that we don't deny the significance of this.

But, it is not enough to put people, it's the same as women, to put women and to put black people in top positions. You have to transform the culture of those institutions.

The universities in South Africa are still primarily white institutions with curricula, which are not transformed in a way which changes the paradigms in that they are derived either from the apartheid era or purely from the West, or mainly from the West.

Also, I believe if you promote someone to a position you set them up for failure unless they have had a proper mentoring process.

Now, I think that the supervision on a one-to-one basis is inadequate and many people, especially black people, are not getting adequate supervision which talks to them, which recognises the sensitivity of coming from a Bantu education disadvantaged background.

With regard to black economic empowerment, it means that it's depicted in various ways - you know as a transformative and all of this.

I think what it does in reality is transform the capitalist sector to some extent and allows the emergence of the very small black capitalist, especially African capitalist class, and it does very little for everyone else.

However, I do think it is legitimate to create a black capitalist class but I believe that the government should apply incentives and disincentives not only to the black capital emerging bourgeoisie but to all of the capitalist class.

For example, tax breaks if you create more jobs, tax disincentives if your work is capital intensive and is in the financial sector only and they haven't done this.

You have heard things that "there is nothing wrong with being filthy rich" or "I didn't enter the struggle to become poor" and I think that black economic empowerment has created some resentment and government has not used its stick and carrot in order to direct it adequately towards productive activities and job creating activities.

Witherden: How do you align the idea of non-racialism with these policies?

Suttner: Non-racialism is meaningless if it ignores the existence of different locations of different sections of the population groups.

Non-racialism doesn't make race disappear, it doesn't become irrelevant that I am white and never carried a pass. It doesn't become irrelevant.

This is where I disagree with Neville Alexander of UCT who says you can't have non-racialism and mention the word race.

I think, you will make non-racialism irrelevant if it erases the disadvantages left by apartheid.

Affirmative action attempts to address the disadvantages that black people still have, because they have been black and because de facto, there is discrimination in the market place.

Witherden: This year there has been a lot of, what is referred to as playing of the race card, by politicians. Is race over emphasised?

Suttner: So-called race card is used selectively. When someone wants to investigate corruption they respond by saying that people are trying to show that black people are incapable of governing and that is misuse of it.

I think it is very very important that our country should be represented in a way that is demographically representative of the character of the country.

It is correct that we should have primarily African leadership, but that is a different question from how you relate to others.

 

Witherden: Next time we will discuss the State of the Nation going forward on Reflections for Raymond Suttner.

 

 

Click here to watch Part 1: Raymond Suttner speaks on the evolution of the African National Congress, covering the party's formative years, its resistance to apartheid, mass participation and its rise to government.

 

Click here to watch Part 2: Raymond Suttner discusses models of African National Congress leadership with regards to outstanding individual leaders and the notion of collective leadership.

 

Click here to watch Part 3: Raymond Suttner considers the "glorification of violence" under the current African National Congress leadership, as well as the party's decision to take up armed struggle in the 1960s.

 

Click here to watch Part 5: Raymond Suttner discusses the state of the nation going forward with reference to the Freedom Charter, the performance of the current African National Congress leadership and what needs to be done to make South Africa better.