A Growing White Arrogance

It was with a sense of incredulity that I read the contribution from Andre Blignault(Evil of Apartheid doesn’t justify present stupidity) in the Cape Argus Last week.

The unrestrained sense of Superiority and thinly veiled racism was immediately apparent. It boggles my mind, and yet it shouldn’t surprise me, that such arrogance is publicly displayed and even celebrated as rational thought.

Mr Blignault refers to an email sent around the white community in which the writer responds to a request for White South Africans to apologise for Apartheid. Never mind that the original email was circulated many years ago, Mr. Blignault naively assumes that White South Africans (read Masters) benevolently bequeathed black South Africans the right to vote, and thus black South Africans should be Grateful and not the other way round, where white South Africans should be Grateful that Black South Africans had not demanded greater redress for having Sanctioned this Crime Against Humanity called Apartheid.

What Mr. Blignault fails to realize is that there is indeed a great sense of injustice that still permeates the Townships and Squatter camps of the “hidden” South Africa. As oppressed and exploited South Africans not only fought the Barbarous Apartheid regime and its voters who continually supported it, but also the economic system, Apartheid was created for.

What all South Africans have ultimately to realize is that Apartheid was merely a tool to provide the Capitalist system with cheap labour and then systematically Favoured white South Africans so that they may become the Bourgeoisie and middle class. Democracy has merely allowed Black faces into that club, while the overwhelming majority of the people remain in dire poverty and abject misery.

The Fact that some white people have been displaced (as is evidenced by the growing number of “poor Whites”) with black faces does not mean that the architects and the beneficiaries of Apartheid Capitalism have been let of the hook. So please Mr. Blignaut this is not about Race but about Class.

Mr. Blignaut displays the classic symptoms of “Anton’s Blindness” This condition is a rare medical condition that occurs after a traumatic event such as a stroke or brain injury, in which the sufferers are blind but possessed of the fervent belief that they can see. People with this condition walk about as if they can see, and explain their bruises and injuries as clumsiness and absentmindedness not deficient vision.

Just like in the days of Apartheid when the White community turned a blind eye to the suffering of the people because whites benefitted from the system, so too today, our middle class “ Black and White” like Mr. Blignault wishes to turn a blind eye to the continued misery and abject poverty of the vast majority of the people. Mr. Blignault uses race to defend his Anton’s Blindness, while others will talk about “I came from a poor family why can’t they progress beyond their poverty like I did?”, and yet others will use religion as a justification for rich and poor ( Jesus said there will always be Poor People) while other well-off middle class and working class South Africans have become so numbed to the poverty around them that it is dismissed as an anomaly that has no bearing on their lives. Everything else but their deficient vision.

A quick look to the sporadic service delivery protests and occasional xenophobic attacks that erupted across South Africa recently will alert any thinking rational person to the sheer irrationality of an unequal system that at its very core, aims to keep the vast majority of the people as subservient labour while a few select elite are able to have no greater concern than the choice of the Next luxury car.

Any rational person will have noticed that it is not the colour of the faces that Govern us that matters, for it were, then surely Mr. Blignault would not have had the Freedom to express his misguided racists views, but the content of their actions that matter. It matters whether our leaders govern for the good of the vast majority of its people or whether it governs for the good of a very small group of its people.

So far the Facts are clear. South Africa remains the most unequal society in the world. With the huge wealth gaps increasing over the last 15 years.

If we do not address the very urgent disparity of wealth and privilege in this country we will see more protests and continued violence. As long as the vast majority of the people remain unemployed and forced to live in shacks, without toilets with walls and without dignity, we will continue to be hounded by ever increasing violence and anger at a portion of the society that continues to isolate themselves behind High walls with their Luxury cars, Holiday Homes and ever increasing vulgar displays of wealth.

So to Mr. Blignault and other sufferers of Anton’s Blindness, like the Cape Argus who refuse to print comment such as mine that hope to alert the nation to this impending disaster, and that refuse to see the rational results of the unequal distribution of this country’s wealth, and who despite all evidence to the contrary continues to believe that it is their “whiteness” that sets them apart, it is not this arbitrary natural occurrence of your skin that is at issue, but your selfish Greed and refusal to share the wealth.

When the Government eventually tries to balance the system, such as health, employment, wealth and education so that it may in some small way benefit the people of this country, I hear a loud clamour from those with wealth and privilege. This continued rigid refusal to share will come back to haunt you.

The Little white Clubs of exclusivity that you form (and yes I have seen you tucked away, resenting every intrusion by a black person, unless they are there to serve you) only serves to exacerbate your condition. The thing that you fail to see in your rabid racism is that Affirmative action and the advancement of Black Professionals should actually aid your cause, by making Capital more acceptable to the black majority, yet you shun them and keep them out and continue to hold onto the wealth and privilege like a rabid dog caught in a corner and intent on viciously tearing any one to pieces that would dare invade your space which you believe is rightfully yours.

So Mr. Blignault, in conclusion, you can either join us as we labour to create a new society or you can continue to tell yourself that you are not blind to the reality. Just don’t come crying to us when you bump your head.