Marching for a different normal
On Thursday 25 October a wave of orange hit Sandton. Thousands of people chanted “Enough is enough!” in Sandton’s narrow streets, and an echo carried the voices further. People took photos from balconies and luxury roof gardens of the tall buildings that constitute the heart of national and international capital. It was a strange phenomenon because people wearing orange shirts and caps challenged the norm.
Sasol’s Khanyisa employee share ownership plan is at the core of the dispute. This plan excludes people one hundred percent from it, and this by virtue of the colour of their skin. Racial exclusion is regarded as normal, non-racial, inclusive, the embracement of diversity, as redress and as equality. Any resistance to the race norm and any voices for inclusivity of all are seen as abnormal, racist, rightist, exclusionary, intolerant and anti-transformational.
The bitter irony of Sasol Khanyisa is that it is based on the Sasol core values of inclusivity and diversity. A white worker who has been working for Sasol for 30 years will get nothing while a young, black worker who has only been working there for three weeks will get a share worth R500 000. Rigid silos of race are being established in the name of inclusivity and diversity. When white workers then ask if it is not perhaps wrong that only black people benefit, then they are racist.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) was the marchers’ first stop. Sasol Khanyisa is listed on the JSE’s transformation segment. This segment of the JSE was created for the purpose of racial exclusion. There, only black can do business with black – a small, modern day homeland on the JSE. Sasol wants to retain its transformation status and wants to make sure its black shares do not end up in white hands. To list on the “JSE homeland” white people have to be kicked out of the deal because the sign above the homeland says: “Blacks Only”. The marchers in orange challenged that sign.
To exclude people based on race is not normal, and it can in no way be normalised. If it is left at that and it gets institutionalised it will not be reversed without radical intervention. Meanwhile, it is causing many people pain people of little political influence who belong to minorities.