Race, identity and history in the Western Cape: The crude attempt to profit from the myths in the making of Black, African, Coloured, Indian and White subjects
Recent attempts by among others, Peter Marais, a politician with a career spanning everything from collaborating with the apartheid regime in the Tri-Cameral Parliament to being a member of the ANC, to set up a ‘Coloured Empowerment Movement', have again brought the issue of identity to the fore in the Western Cape.
It is clear that he has learned little in his long political career, other than to promote division among people. There are very real issues of social inclusion, marginalization, and alienation that people who were classifed or would have been classified as Coloured face in the democratic South Africa. The rich but tragic history of slavery, genocide, oppression, exploitation, marginalisation and exclusion that People of mixed ‘race' faced and still do is an important issue for our country to deal with.
Unfortunately, the terms by which the debate are set by the proponents of a ‘Coloured empowerment movement', limit the potential for a much needed debate on this important issue. Identities are historical, social constructs, manufactured in relation to other identities and are therefor are co-dependent on these others. The myths about racial identities are that these are real, given biological, linguistic or cultural categories.
Non-racialism, liberation from these historical categories and the prospects for South African identities that are inclusive, are dependent on the debunking of the myth of our current identities as being given and immutable.
Being South African in the democratic South Africa starts with recognising that being Black, White, Coloured or Indian is secondary to being African and South African. We must also ensure that in the pursuit of our individual and collective interests, we do not unleash the demons of narrow nationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia and racism.
The ‘Bruin Bemagtiging Beweging'
The call to set up a BBB or CEM by Peter Marais is not a new one. Such an idea has done its rounds; in the apartheid years, after the democratic breakthrough and now again in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of our democracy. In fact, this call almost always comes in the run up to an election, where some or other opportunist tries to dupe Coloured people into voting for them by preying on their genuine grievances and their real and perceived experience of economic, social and political marginalisation.
To waste to much time on this effort would be fruitless, but the call being made needs to be exposed for what it is-a narrow, reactionary, opportunistic attempt to secure a political platform for people who are intent on getting votes for themselves at the expense of the interests of the people they claim to represent.
Any genuine discussion or mobilisation on the issue of identity must be premised on a number of key principles if it is to be progressive and to be in line with the spirit of our Constitution. The claims by these BBB types, like those of the FF+ and other extremist, exclusive organisations, are premised on the myth that the individual cases of marginalisation of people who fit the racial description they define for them, is proof of a generalised claim of marginalisation, dispossession, oppression and exploitation of a claimed racial grouping.
History, identity and race as social constructs
The first principle that needs to be established in this debate is that all the identities we have-whether based on perceived notions of race, on language or any other signifier-are historical categories, constructed in processes of social mobilisation.
None of these categories are preordained, immutable or timeless. There is no such thing as White, Coloured, Black or Indian people in the racial sense of these terms. In genetic terms, all of us are Africans, since homo sapiens as a species originated in Africa.
That these ancestors of ours migrated and colonized the globe is a matter of scientific record. The identities we have are therefore shifting ones, given their meaning in the context of political, social and economic processes that imbue these categories with a meaning. Ours is to understand this context and to define ourselves as humans beings first and foremost, but more of that later.
The notion of race has been debunked so many times over that it is actually a disgrace that people still use this category, other than in the sense that our Constitution and laws do, which is to seek to identify people who were or would have been categorised under apartheid in specific racial terms, or their descendants, with a view to attempting to ensure redress for the consequences of this classification.
The reality is that there is no Black, Coloured, White or Indian ‘race'. People who were classified under apartheid certainly have some common cultural or social customs, some staple cuisines and other things that define them as being part of a community. In some cases it is a language. But in reality, the diversity within groups classified under apartheid is as broad as it was between such groups.
White people as defined by apartheid constitute people from every religious, language and historical background that one can imagine, with a few exceptions, such as Islam and Albanian, for example. Coloured people constitute those with African, Malay and Indian slave ancestors as well as Khoi and San, not to mention White, indigenous Black African and even Chinese, Japanese and other Asian backgrounds.
Black Africans have various ancestors-Sotho, Tswana, Pedi, Venda, Shangaan, Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele among others, not to mention those whose ancestors have descendants who also reside in various SADC countries today, separated by colonially constructed borders.
Even the descendants of Indian people, who are regarded as being ‘homogenous' by those with racist filters, are diverse, having ancestors from all over a diverse sub-continent. The apartheid regime never quite knew what to do with Chinese people and they lived in between the official racial classifications. The point is that identities as defined historically in South Africa are not based on any racial, linguistic, cultural or social purity. These are social constructs and in many cases the basis for these definitions of people are fundamentally flawed, as was the entire edifice of apartheid.
The same goes for the idea that there are ‘Brown' people. While the experience of Coloured, Mullato or Creole is one that has some definite historical themes and commonalities, this does not define such people as a nation, ethnic group or anything of such nature. That people who of mixed race have grievances, here in South Africa and elsewhere, is common cause. But generalizing from that to where an organisation to represent such people is mooted is a giant step backwards.
Colonialism, Apartheid, Capitalism and Democracy
The origins of these flawed, backward, racist ideas is in the colonial encounter. Racist ideas were dominant during the period of colonial expansion, both as a motivation and a justification for the enterprise, but also as a crude world-view that sought to make sense of perceived difference, both for the oppressor and the oppressed, for the colonizer and the colonized. Generalisations about race cut both ways.
The point about colonialism and the racism that went with it, is that the consequences were almost exclusively negative in one direction. Those who bore the brunt of this enormous injustice, were Black (which includes Coloured and Indian people), indigenous people and those enslaved.
Apartheid gave legal expression to and formalized the power relations created in this toxic crucible. Capitalism both benefitted from these backward ideas and drove this racist paradigm. We should also not forget that there was and is a clear gender dimension to oppression and exploitation.
The democratic breakthrough and the Constitutional democracy we now have, gives us the opportunity to practice being a human being first, an African and a South African. Of course, we all have historical experiences, family histories and even contemporary experiences that remind us of and reinforce difference, marginalize some and benefit others.
Our response to that reality should not be to surrender to it, as Marais and others do, but to challenge it and to intensify the struggle to be human, African and South African. Within that process of struggle we are all South African Xhosa/Zulu/ Sotho, etc. We are all South African Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Atheist/Agnostic, etc. We are all White/Black/Coloured/Indian South Africans. But our Constitution calls on us to recognise that;
"We, the people of South Africa,
Recognise the injustices of our past;
Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;
Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and
Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.
We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to-
Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;
Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;
Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and
Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations."
It does not call on us to mobilise on manufactured racial, ethnic or similar grounds. Those like Marais who try to make us go backwards in time to define ourselves as Coloured, White, Black, Indian or anything else first, are robbing us of being part of a process of liberation. While it is true that contradictions will always be there as we build our non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous and socially just society, these contradictions are not the making of policies we have as a country. They are the consequence of the past and in certain instances, of failed or inefficient implementation of policies that are progressive and correct, such as affirmative action.
There are just as many Black, White and Indian people, as well as women, youth and people who live with disabilities who feel marginalised as there are Coloured people. Marais's initiative seeks to isolate one category of people, rather than unite all of us by expressing the common feelings of isolation, marginalisation and alienation that is a common experience of our post-colonial reality. If these groups do the same, our future is bleak.
In this sense the BBB is a direct challenge to the letter and spirit of our Constitution. Our challenge is to fight against such backward tendencies, just as we must against corruption, violence, exploitation and other social ills. We must fight against the tendencies that result in people who were historically classified as Coloured being marginalized, unfairly treated or in any way negatively affected. But we must do this for all marginalised people, regardless of their race, colour, religion or creed.
We must do so through unions, business groupings, social movements and political parties. But to seek to build a narrow grouping on a racial category given us by the apartheid regime is to surrender to a base instinct.
We can give life to our Constitution for all South Africans, but we will only succeed if we unite as human beings, Africans and South Africans first. The ANC Chair in the Western Cape has proposed that a summit on identity should be held for us to begin a conversation about this crucial subject, but a constructive one based on inclusion, solidarity and unity. I support that call.
Phillip Dexter, former trade unionist, former MP, social and political activist and entrepreneur, currently Communications Coordinator for the ANC in the Western Cape, writes in his personal capacity.
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