Separate and Un-Equal !!!

There are times when I listen to various radio stations and people call in to make an argument that black people must stop moaning about apartheid, these callers point out that apartheid was abolished in 1991, almost three decades ago and therefore black people must move on and stop blaming everything on apartheid.

The apartheid system came into effect in 1948 when the National Party government lead by H.F. Verwoerd enacted a number of laws which institutionalized the doctrine of separate (black and white people must live in separate areas) and unequal (white people are superior to black people, or put differently, black people are inferior to white people). Over a period of more than four decades, the apartheid system meted out cruel and debilitating treatment on the black people of South Africa.

The goal of the apartheid system was to divide black and white by separating them from each other and use this division as a mechanism to dehumanize black people. The result of the apartheid system was that resources in South Africa were allocated along racial lines. To be sure, apartheid was designed such that there were the beneficiaries, those on the “right side”, the white people and the sufferers, those on the “wrong side”, the black people.

Without fear of contradiction, I believe that apartheid played itself out across a number of dimensions, and it affected both black and white members of the population in equal but opposing measure. My opinion is that there are four dimensions across which apartheid wreaked its havoc on the people of South Arica, namely: political, social, psychological and economic.

Political Dimension

In any free society, citizens exercise their power through the ballot box on how they are governed. During the apartheid years, citizens on the “wrong side” were robbed of the right to vote and were reduced to passive participants who could not express their will or make any demands on the government of the day. Citizens on the “right side” retained their right to vote, remained active participants, able to express their will and voice their demands to the government of the day. For many decades under apartheid, white people voted in great numbers for the election and re-election of the National Party. At each election during the apartheid years, black people waited and hoped that sense would prevail over white voters and that they would vote the National Party out of power. Sadly, it was not through the ballot box that the National Party lost its power, it was largely through the act of one man, F.W. De Klerk. The nobility of De Klerk’s intentions to first, remove a ban on liberation movements and then eventually agreeing to a negotiated settlement with the same liberation movements is an on-going debate. What cannot be argued and debated is that the political impact of apartheid, on both sides, cannot be over-emphasized.

Social Dimension

In any free society, citizens are allowed all manner of rights which we take for-granted today as they are now enshrined in Chapter 2 of South Africa’s Constitution, in the form of a Bill of Rights. During the apartheid years, black people were stripped off many of these rights including but not limited to: the right to move freely in their own country; the right to make choices freely; the right to speak freely without any fear of consequence or punishment and ultimately the right to simply live how they preferred to live. As a result, black South Africans could not define and determine their own destiny while white people enjoyed all the rights under the sun which allowed them to live the lives they wanted to live. One of the brutal instruments of the apartheid system was the “Group Areas Act of 1950” (GAA). The objective of the GAA and its subsequent variations was to separate black people from white people. Under this law, black people could only live in designated areas and their movement outside these designated areas was policed through, among other instruments, the Pass Laws. The most devastating effect of the GAA was the displacement of black families from their homes in order to make way for white residential areas. The separation of the black and white people in South Africa prevented them from either developing a common culture and norms, or gaining a better appreciate of each group’s distinct culture and norms. Therefore, the doctrine of separate and unequal resulted in black and white South Africans at first being physically separated from each other and then over time, this physical separation lead to a psychological separation. A separate and divided South African society was not then and is not now conducive to peace, and prosperity. Therefore, the lasting social impact of apartheid, on both sides, cannot be over-emphasized.

Psychological Dimension

Apartheid had hidden effects, which impacted the psyche of the people of South Africa, driven mainly by this doctrine of separate and unequal. These hidden effects manifested themselves in the form of: mistrust between the two sides and my opinion is that this mistrust persists to this day; perceptions by one group that another was and continues to be superior to the other. Perhaps the most devastating impact of apartheid was that the system emboldened some white people and allowed them to gain confidence if not perhaps arrogance about their position within the South African society. In my view, this arrogance continues to this day.  On the other hand, the apartheid system served to crush the confidence of black people, stripped them of their dignity and ultimately dehumanized them. Some black people resorted to drugs and alcohol abuse as a way to escape the dehumanized state, others tragically took their own lives and others still went into exile in search for a better life in foreign countries. I would argue that the impact of apartheid on the psyche of both sides is long lasting, and it will take a few generations to overcome the effects of the doctrine of separate and unequal.

Economic Dimension

In any free society, and as alluded to above citizens, have certain rights among them is the right to freely engage in activities through which they can create economic value for themselves and their families. In the current South African Constitution this right is defined in the Bill of rights under section 22 of Chapter 2 titled “Freedom to trade, occupation and profession”. Under the apartheid system black people had limited choices regarding economic activities that they could engage in. This meant that their ability to earn a decent living and create wealth was severely limited, if not entirely non-existent. Many black people found themselves working in low-paying, un-skilled jobs with no access to land and other means of production. I would argue that even today, a large part of the black population continues to have limited access to the means of production, except their own labour. During the apartheid years, white people had unlimited access to the means of production: land; capital and some might argue, even black labour itself. As a result, many white people were able to earn a decent living and others still were able to create substantial wealth for themselves and for their future generations. To this day, most of the means of production remain under the control of white people. Today, according to the United Nations Development Programe’s human development report of November 2013, South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world with a gini coefficient of 63.1, behind only the Seychelles (the highest) and the Comoros (second highest). Therefore, the lasting economic impact of apartheid, on both sides, cannot be over-emphasized.

My opinion is that South Africa has so far only addressed the political dimension of apartheid, chief among these was to return to all citizens the right to vote. A lot more still needs to be done to address the social, psychological and economic dimensions of apartheid. These three dimensions will not be fully addressed as long as there are those who deny that apartheid continues to impact lives, almost 30 years after its abolition, and it could impact lives for many more years if this denialism continues. Those who argue that black people must stop blaming apartheid and move on, fail to appreciate the impact of apartheid on both the black and white people of South Africa across the above mentioned multiple dimensions.

Just like the National Party enacted specific laws to entrench the doctrine of separate and unequal, the ANC government must enact laws to first, un-do the doctrine of separate and unequal and secondly, to create conditions conducive to a united, equal and prosperous South African people.

Our Politicians must show political will to create effective government !!!