Squandering Struggle gains
Periodically my stance on affirmative action draws critique accompanied by insult. I am neither anti-black nor pro-white, I promote an equal society in a free market system where everyone is treated in accordance with the Constitution. Bheki Mashile’s response (nose189), albeit narrow, is welcome, as it means that he is engaging with the important South African issue of blackness.
I applaud his farming and community newspaper endeavours – we need more citizens like him – but I despair at his narrow perspective of what it means to be a black man.
In the US, affirmative action was implemented to protect minority rights, whereas in South Africa it protects majority rights. The United States is rethinking affirmative action since it has not been as successful as hoped. Jason Riley’s book Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed and writers Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams extensively describe how affirmative action has harmed black advancement in the United States.
As Riley says, “if a policy, however well-intentioned, interferes with that self-development... it does more harm than good”. According to Riley, “more than 80% of black kids in New York City public schools are performing below grade level. A big part of the reason for this low performance is the sub-culture of children who reject the attitudes and behaviours conducive to doing what has to be done to achieve academic success. Black kids read half as many books [as white kids] and watch twice as much television”.
This is reflected in our townships where children have adopted this sub-culture against performance, restyle their uniforms, openly smoke dagga and engage in anti-establishment behaviour that rejects sound morality, self-respect, and concern for their fellow human beings.
Affirmative action in South Africa had noble intentions, but it has had unintended consequences. I would like to see affirmative action abolished and a situation whereby all South Africans have equal access to opportunities.
We cannot achieve a unified nation if access to opportunities is limited to certain groups. We need less divisiveness and more inclusivity. Affirmative action in South Africa is inherently racist and perpetuates a race-based society where the oppressed have become the oppressors.
Race-based legislation only benefits the connected few. Poor black South Africans are the biggest casualties. The economy suffers when the best skills aren’t used to drive it. There is enough evidence to back these failures. South Africa fought and defeated the racist apartheid system to normalise our society.
When dissenting voices are shut up instead of heard, we are on dangerous ground. It is every South African’s democratic right to voice our opinions.
Mashile ascribes the advancement of South African black people to affirmative action, suggesting that black people are incapable of advancement without assistance. Black people are capable, and it’s unfortunate that Mashile thinks that black people require assistance to achieve anything in life. For decades black people have been saying what Jason Riley says, that “liberal solutions to the black problems [are] as wrong-headed today as they have ever been” and “it’s not that they don’t work, it’s that they make matters much worse”.
If we look at cash crops introduced by the colonialists, they didn’t create employment, they trashed self-sufficiency. South Africa’s mining industry employs on its own terms, management hires and fires at will, and they tear breadwinners away from their families. We must push back against the “fake altruism” that Riley refers to, and ask ourselves “At what point does the helping start hurting”?
It is insulting that Mashile ascribes any thought that is different to mainstream black thought as trying to be white. It is criminal to ascribe whiteness to a black person who aims to be eloquent, who aims to uphold standards for themselves.
Good language skills and a life with integrity aren’t the preserve of white people. Who has attached these attributes to white people? The same black people who whine that whites behaved so badly during apartheid, that their opinions are not valid?
Jason Riley validly states that “Liberals and intellectuals do black people no favour when they make excuses for black cultural defects instead of denouncing them... Blacks ultimately must help themselves. They must… develop the habits, characteristics, behaviour that other groups have developed”.
Contrary to Mashile’s assertion that this is aiming for whiteness, these attitudes don’t eradicate our blackness, they develop our blackness, enhance our contribution to society, and promote a stronger South Africa.
The liberation struggle achieved a democratic South Africa, but legislation promoting divisiveness squanders the Struggle movement’s gains. To aim for an equal society we need to reject any form of racism that interferes with that goal.
Herman Mashaba
Johannesburg
• In response to Bheki Mashile’s defence of BEE and other affirmative action (nose189): I agree that some correction was needed, but the way the policy has been implemented is disastrous. Putting people into positions way above their capabilities has resulted in 90% of affirmative action and BEE benefits going to 1% of the population and this 1% doesn’t seem to give a damn about the have-nots.
As a white South African male in his 50s (poster boy of the privileged minority) I have not been able to find employment in South Africa since the mid-1980s but found plenty of opportunity in our neighbouring countries. Therefore all the tax I have paid for the past 30 years has not been in South Africa, so this flagrant squandering of taxpayers’ money is no skin off my nose.
The worrying part is that a growing number who have been denied the benefit of affirmative action by those who greedily scooped it for themselves are turning to crime. This has me reassessing my decision to return to SA.
Barry Ellis
Bulwer, KwaZulu-Natal
• I was disappointed to read Bheki Mashile’s take on affirmative action (nose189) and his interpretation and criticism of Mashaba’s success with Black Like Me. He should read Dr Chika Onyeani’s books for his enlightenment. Communism, socialism and even democracy work well in theory but the real test comes when they are put into practice and the chinks are exposed. These gaps apply to Bheki’s interpretation of affirmative action, which is confirmed when he says “We deserve to be more than ANC flag-waving, freedom-song-singing darkies”.
Yes, you do deserve something more, provided you adequately fulfil the prerequisites of whatever you deem to deserve. One has to earn respect, it cannot be demanded.
It is acknowledged worldwide that the institution of affirmative employment policies should specify a time frame within which the playing fields should have been exponentially levelled; after that, they will surely impact negatively on the economy.
Purely to comply with a quota system, irrespective of the competence of such “deserving” people, will result in increased overheads and compromised productivity.
The ripple effect of inefficiencies, of which there are many glaring examples, will negatively affect the economy – and has done so.
It takes – should take – more than affirmative action to achieve success.
C Alexander
Durban
Petr Vavruch's intended comments:
The key word is bondage. Not sure if I understand it. Perhaps this way: I feel bondage because the government is corrupt and incompetent. During my working life, I felt bondage because I had supervisors. Some excellent, some terrible. It is always my decision if I feel bondage or not.
If I got it right and that's how you meant it, the blacks can decide if they feel bondage or not. It's better if they decide not to feel it because it serves no purpose. Seems that nobody dares to tell them. Why? Because it is safer for the ruling class if blacks feel bondage than if they switch attention to REAL grievances, of which there are many.
You are right, the blacks did not in fact fight for democracy, they wanted to live like whites (excluding 'poor whites'). But to get it as entitlement, without much effort. I believe that some black domestics paid conmen 20 rands so they would be able to take over their employer's house. I heard on the radio an unemployed black who declared that he would get a job next year because he voted for ANC.
Because the government is corrupt and incompetent and the blacks will not replace it, there is no hope that South Africa will prosper. The ruling class feeds racism to stay in power. For blacks, everything starts and ends with race. Thus a lot of energy is wasted, energy that should be used for progress.
Black South Africa is not competing against South African whites, it is competing against the world: rest of Africa, BRIC, rest of Asia, Europe and so on. Most of those countries don't waste energy on nonsense, they develop, they educate, they concentrate on economy.
I am also slowly becoming a racist because a lot of what is happening is irritating me. Except in my case it does not matter.
Student protests irritate me. Again, they have REAL grievances but no, they waste energy on nonsense. If they transform universities the way they want, it will not be universities any more. There are some standards. Again, we are competing against the world.
See also:
Nine corruption scandals
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