South Africa

Over at The Boston Globe Derrick Z. Jackson reminds readers that among Jerry Falwell’s many loathsome views, the recently departed openly and unrepentantly supported Apartheid South Africa. While it may not be especially edifying to dance on a man’s grave, there also are few reasons to celebrate Falwell’s life in which hatred was couched in a flatulent and warped version of Christianity.  

A couple of weeks back I wrote about controversy over the renaming of the South African town of Louis Trichardt.  It seemed obvious to me that a country that had so long seen the majority population trampled under the foot of the white minority ought to have the fairly fundamental right to reclaim the naming rights of the country’s towns, cities, and institutions. Some members of the formerly privileged population disagree.

The naming controversy is back in the news. This time the issue is the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC’s) running of ads  referring to “Tshwane,” an African name meaning “We Are All One,” and by which the municipality (but not the city proper) of Pretoria has also been known for some time now, as Africa’s leading capital.

The complainants in this case are from AfriForum, which represents itself as a civil rights organization for minorities, which means for South Africa’s whites, that is affiliated with the equally white-dominated union “Solidarity.” (Enjoy, if that is the word, their website here.) Color me dubious about AfriForum, a group that grabbed the mantel of protector of civil rights only well after the demise of one of the least-civil rights oriented governments in modern history finally gave way to multi-racial democracy. The AfriForum staff is all white, and among their many complaints with the current dispensation are as follows: “Specific problem areas, e.g. the government’s growing obsession with race, political interference in sport, race-based welfare subsidies, crime and the ill-considered changing of some place names will receive attention.”

Let’s forget the irony of  white South Africans of a certain age lamenting an obsession with race for a moment. Let’s instead keep in mind that the race obsession of arguably the most race-obsessed regime in human history necessitated serious attempts at transformation in sport, in welfare policies, and in the rest of South African life, and that crime is a function of poverty as much as anything, and that poverty was pretty much built into the apartheid system. As for the “ill-considered changing of some place names,” this is only a viable complaint if you sincerely believe that an overwhelmingly African country ought to continue on with names imposed by a white master class, indeed that whites are entitled to prevail when it comes to place naming. That is, suffice it to say, a peculiar (and rather self-serving) rationalization.

AfriForum might seem more sympathetic if it appeared to be trying to cross racial lines in a country so historically beset by racial division overwhelmingly fomented by the white minority. Instead it just comes across as ranging between shrill and tone deaf. AfriForum is not racist, per se, from what I can tell, but its commitment to civil rights seems selective and at times nearly parodic.

Thabo Mbeki recently wrote in ANC Today about the links between the role that crime plays in the country’s psyche and the still percolating racism that simmers beneath the surface of the ociety.  The country’s whites too often ignore the connection. Money excerpt:

“For this section of our population … every reported incident of crime communicates the frightening and expected message that the kaffirs are coming. Entrenched racism dictated that “justification must be found for the persisting white fears of ‘die swart gevaar’. All incidents of crime, preferably broadcast as loudly as possible, provide such justification.”**

 There is some merit to Mbeki’s remarks. There is a large segment of the white population that is almost gleeful about crime and that will use it as an excuse for lambasting the ANC. Crime is a function of poverty and lawlessness, and poverty and lawlessness were defining characteristics of the apartheid state.

 That said, Mbeki needs to be wary of the demagogic tendency to close off all criticism by tossing off accusations of racism against those critics. It is a fine line and is not an easy one to tread but for the sake of the South African political climate, this is an arrow that needs to remain in his quiver most of the time. It will be most lethal if used least frequently. 

**Swaart gevaar is an Afrikaans phrase meaning “black danger” or “black peril” and that refers to the age-old white fear of the black masses. And kaffir is the ultimate South African racial epithet, the country’s toxic ”N Word.”   

The Proteas, South Africa’s cricket team, are readying themselves for the World Cup, which starts this month in the West Indies. Although a number of teams see themselves in contention to win the final in late April, the South Africans have been playing well and have a good chance to pull off a victory.

If the Proteas prove to be world beaters, their victory will symbolize more than just a recovery from a quagmire of poor play and controversy that beset the national team after a match fixing scandal involving former captain and national hero Hansie Cronje (who tragically died in a plane crash in 2002) a few years back. It would also represent another very visible sporting triumph to match the symbolically loaded victory for the beloved Springbok rugby team in 1995. The Springboks had long represented the apogee of white supremacy in South Africa, especially during the country’s years of sporting isolation. Yet when Amobokkobokko (Zulu for “Our Springboks” ) hoisted the Webb Ellis Cup after a thrilling injury-time victory over the powerful New Zealand All Blacks in Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela donned captain Francois Pienaar’s Springbok jersey in a moment that embodied the spirit of reconciliation in the New South Africa, which Archbishop Desmond Tutu had come to call “This Rainbow Nation of God.”

Sports can provide powerful indicators of social and political trends in any society. One can watch the attempts to juggle a desire to bring black, “Coloured,” and Asian athletes onto South Africa’s national teams while trying to maintain a purely merit-based system. One can see the occasional hint of racism on the part of athletes or coaches or administrators. But one can also observe that prior to his suffering a potentially devastating knee injury, Chiliboy Rallepelle, a black hooker, was set to captain this year’s Springboks in the Rugby World Cup to be held in France later this year, a competition which the Boks appear set to challenge to win. Sports, in other words, can provide a pretty good reading of the temperature of society at large, even if only imperfectly.

One of the stars of the Proteas, fast bowler Makhaya Ntini, is also African in a sport that for so long embodied the colonial mindset in South Africa, and indeed globally. Ntini also might be the most popular athlete in South Africa. He certainly is the county’s most popular cricketer. He is confident about the Proteas’ chance to win and is looking forward to the World Cup. He might lead South Africa to another powerfully symbolic moment on the sporting pitch. He is not an African cricket player. He is a South African cricket player who is African. That was once unfathomable. Now it is merely remarkable.