A new paradigm shift on national grievance is emerging in South Africa
The heated debate sparked in large measure by the utterances made by Jimmy Manyi and the response thereto by Trevor Manuel in respect of the Coloured and Indian communities in the context of employment equity laws in South Africa; and also by the alleged influence of the Guptas on our elected representatives, points to an underlying paradigm shift in our approach as a country to the all important matter concerning the national question sixteen years into our democracy.
This is a move away from an earlier epoch in our democratic transition in which there was an emphasis- informed by the prevailing national and class balance of forces- on the need for a delicate management of the race, class and gender contradictions for purposes of reconciliation and consolidation of our new democracy. We are now moving into a period which is characterized by an attempt at seriously grappling with these dialectical contradictions for purposes of faster and thorough-going social transformation in South Africa.
The deepening and the maturity of our democratic order has thus necessitated this shift because paradoxically, any further attempt only at managing these contradictions whilst scratching the surface when it comes to fundamental social transformation threatens the very survival of our democracy.
It therefore follows that many in our society have started rigorously engaging with this paradigm shift in an attempt to raise their grievances as expressed by the race, class and gender contradictions on the one hand; whilst on the other hand some engage with it in an attempt to reverse it in order to defend and maintain the status quo.
It should therefore be expected that the manner in which some will engage is not always going to be informed by rational thought process and courteous language - necessary as these are - given the heated and sometimes spontaneous nature of racial debates in South Africa.