LUKE SINWELL | Racists can’t ‘Rescue SA’ from colonial injustices they created

The DA has come under fire for inadequate vetting of its MPs, who now formally serve in the government of national unity.

Reinforcing the popular image of the DA as a “white party”, evidence of their own MPs affirmation of racist tendencies continues to surface. Renaldo Gouws is on record and faces charges of hate speech for proclaiming “kill the k***rs, kill all the n***rs”.

Pictures have also emerged of Ian Cameron in “blackface”, which invokes racist entertainment whereby whites in the 19th and 20th centuries wore black paint to caricature blacks as incapable, animalistic and criminal, at an Afro-Forum protest aimed at challenging affirmative action admissions policies at universities.

But these should not be viewed merely as isolated incidences. White people did not negotiate themselves out of power because they wanted to secure the citizenship and dignity of black people: they did it because it was in their economic interests to do so.

This means that in post-apartheid SA, it is not sufficient to proclaim non-racialism, one must actively build an organisation which is consistently anti-racist. Otherwise, all the talk of non-racialism is merely window dressing disconnected from a concrete programme to eliminate racism in all its guises.

These are also not isolated phenomena within the ranks of the DA itself. In 2017, DA leader Helen Zille called upon us to recognise the contribution of white supremacy to the well-being of South Africans indicating that colonialism was not “only negative”.

The EFF appropriately indicated in a press release on Saturday that these cases reflect “deep-rooted white supremacy” within the DA and in another statement that the “convenient marriage” between the ANC and DA has the effect of “actively empowering white supremacy”.  But the “marriage” does more than this since racism and capitalism supercharge one another.

Racism then is not only about the lived and undignified experience of discrimination based on skin colour: it is also fundamentally about reinforcing systems of economic oppression. Racial hierarchies are a requirement for the smooth functioning of capitalism and the maintenance of a system that benefits a few at the expense of the many.

The system of slavery promoted the denigration and inhumanity of black people from Africa as a way of justifying the accumulation of wealth by whites. Similarly, SA’s migrant labour system relied upon racist ideas whereby black people were projected as lazy and unintellectual.

This was used to justify the fact that cheap black labour served white political and economic power. As Angela Davis famously stated: “Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying black workers less for their work.”

Racist states can give a loaf of bread to black people, but they can’t rescue black people from the colonial injustices that white people created. Capitalism has no problem flourishing in a racist, even misogynist society. While white leaders who have uttered racist ideology may be deemed suitable for the markets and investors, they undermine even modest gains made towards historical redress.

And while the partnership between the DA and ANC may provide a “stable” environment for investors and finance, the language of “stability” is rooted in the assumption that the markets and economic growth automatically serve or will somehow “trickle down” to the people.

The ANC’s embrace of neoliberal policy has reinforced economic inequality between whites and blacks leading SA to consistently rank as one of the most unequal countries in the world. While there is a concern among the population that the DA will bring back apartheid, racial capitalism does not require formalised systems of white supremacy to flourish.

The DA bemoans that the ANC has an “obsession with race-based policies” but is silent on the fact that its policies centred on rolling back of the state in favour of privatisation of goods and services are indeed “race-based” to the extent that they disproportionately benefit the white population.

No surprise then that the DA did not catch out Ian Cameron earlier for wearing “blackface” at a demonstration to defend white privilege. And instead of discussing material issues such as accessing water, electricity and land, we are confronting an organisation that hasn’t dealt with the ideology of racism within its ranks.

Given the DA’ “Rescue SA” plan, South Africans may be faced with a lose-lose situation: if the unity between the ANC and the DA does not bring about a degree of material change to the lives of the black majority, we all lose.

But if they do manage to spread the crumbs of the capitalist cake far enough into the shack settlements and villages, it will likely revive the mistaken sense that we require whites and colonialism to save black people from their own destruction.

• Sinwell is an associate professor and project coordinator, Centre for Sociological Research and Practice at the University of Johannesburg. He writes in his personal capacity