OPINION

Raceballs 20: Bumper edition

Raceballs |
29 November 2019
Official Almanac of the People's Republic of Racial Lunacy

15. The EFF's response to Andre Ruyters appointment as Eskom CEO:

The EFF rejects the anti-transformation and racist appointment of Eskom's new CEO, Andre de Ruyter, and we are disgusted by the continued obliteration of Africans in key state-owned enterprises. The appointment of Ruyter is irrational, shameful, a clear demonstration of deliberate intent to collapse Eskom to rationalise privatisation of South Africa's most important strategic assets at the hands of people, and does not come as a surprise. His appointment is part of a racist project led by Pravin Gordhan to undermine Africans.

14. Cyril Ramaphosa in his weekly letter explaining how, as a matter of deep and profound principle, the ANC government is both for and against race domination, and for and against non-racialism:

We knew that we had to build a truly united nation, not merely to replace domination by one with domination by another. Non-racialism is not the product of a negotiated compromise, but is a fundamental pillar of the new society we are building. It is only through advancing non-racialism that we will be able to reconstruct the fabric of our society and narrow social and economic divisions and build a new democratic society from the ashes of the old that had destroyed the potential of our country. It is a principle we will not abandon.

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At the same time we also recognise the ‘unfinished business’ of nation-building: which is overcoming the deep divisions that apartheid created in our society.

That is why redress continues to be a crucial pillar of government policy, whether it is in land reform, employment equity or in economic transformation.

Although we have come a long way since 1994, the occasional expressions of racial and ethnic chauvinism shows that many in our society have yet to overcome what Joe Slovo once termed the ‘psychological barrier’ towards true non-racialism.

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Since 1994, we have actively sought to drive transformation through affirmative action and our broad-based black economic empowerment policies, through preferential procurement and initiatives like the Black Industrialists programme. Within government itself, transformation of the public service to reflect this country’s demography has been critical. As we strive to rebuild the public service – including at our state-owned entities – it is our mission to appoint people who are capable, qualified, ethical and who embody the values of public service, whether they are black or white, men or women.

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13. Mmusi Maimane’s attack on those “racists” who seek to preserve exclusionary economic policy:

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12. Ferial Haffajee conjuring up of a “New Right” label out of thin air:

To which Gwen Ngwenya replied as follows:

11. Jan-Jan Joubert on how “whites” should and should not behave in South Africa:

It’s a strange phenomenon, this aversion to listening on the part of many whites. I regularly come across it. They just want to talk and tell everybody their opinions. On hearing I have good access to and a blessed relationship with the EFF, many whites are quick to tell me what they think I should say to the party. What they don’t seem to consider for even a moment is that I am enriched by listening to the EFF, not by preaching to them. It’s only through listening that one gains an understanding of anything.

From an extract from Jan-Jan Joubert’s new book, as published in the Daily Maverick.

10. Ismail Lagardien in the Daily Maverick on the return of Gwen Ngwenya as DA policy chief:

"Nevertheless, the new DA 2.0, now increasingly being captured by the classical liberals, would defend the most egregious of capitalism’s iniquities with claims that 5,000 years ago we did not have flushing toilets and now we have smartphones – so “shut up!” and don’t complain about inequality or patriarchy. They would insist, also, that meritocracy would solve all the problems in a country wracked for nigh on 400 years by the structural and somatic violence of European colonialism (which the British historian JM Roberts described as an “assault on the world”), settler colonialism and apartheid."

9. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s lecture on transformative constitutionalism:

We have to “give practical expression to the injustices of the past”. And anybody who says, please stop blaming it on apartheid and colonialism is being mischievous. What we cannot do is to blame it all on colonialism and apartheid, but most of the problems that we have to contend with right now are a direct consequence of colonialism and apartheid. It is therefore absolutely necessary that we never stop talking about colonialism and its sister neo-colonialism, and apartheid, because then, you leave those who have always believed in this crime against humanity to be comfortable and to shape it in a sophisticated way, in such a way that it doesn’t quite look like discrimination, when in fact, it is. We will be betraying the legacy of Madiba if we don’t give practical expression to the injustices of our past and the question is what are those injustices?

8. Ralph Mathekga in News24 on “classical liberalism”:

There is just one tiny problem for this classical liberal thinking. The truth is that the majority of people in South Africa unfortunately do not have access to opportunities and hence they cannot enjoy certain rights irrespective of how the classical liberals insist on defending the system that seeks to propagate these unreachable rights. What's the point of insisting that people have a right to access certain rights when we know that they are not able to do so? This is similar to blaming the poor for failing to exercise their right to buy a car. This is senseless, and so is the idea of classical liberalism at this point in time.

7. The thoughts of NUMSA GS Irvin Jim on all matters race-related:

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6. Former Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba’s intemperate responses to his IRR critics:

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5. Prince Mashele writing in the Sowetan on Helen Zille:

"That will be the final judgment of history on Zille: a stubborn white woman who showed the middle finger to black people in her last senile days on Earth. Indeed, she is too old to redeem herself. History manifests through personalities. Just as Hendrik Verwoerd has become the face of apartheid, Zille has availed herself as a latter-day spokesperson of colonialism. A diabolical leader lends a diabolical face to his or her organisation and society. Such is the wider realm in which the toxicity of Zille's ill-advised return to politics exerts its fullest impact."

4. Academic Christi van der Westhuizen on the “white denialism” of liberals in the DA:

"For many people who live the experience of being racialised as “black” in the world, it is impossible to negate the effects of race – both negatively, as a system of oppression, and positively, as a source of resistance and identity. As Maimane put it poignantly, "if you don’t see I’m black, you don’t see me. These views ran head-long into the DA’s historical white denialism, sparking an intense political battle for the party’s soul. Hence, when Steenhuisen talks about the “slavish race-based obsession of the last few years”, he is sniping at black leaders’ attempt to turn the party away from its legacy of race-blindness."

3. The academic Jonathan Jansen, who can speak Afrikaans, complaining about being addressed in Afrikaans in Stellenbosch:

2. The response by Panyaza Lesufi, Gauteng MEC for Education to AfriForum’s call for his removal from his portfolio:

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1. EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on all matters Springbok related:

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