INEQUALITY IS THE DEADLIEST ENEMY OF OUR COUNTRY

A talk delivered by the Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Mosibudi Mangena, at the Johannesburg Press Club function, held at Marks Park, Emmarentia on 22 March 2001

I know that many people in positions of influence in our country do not want to hear any more talk about race, about whites and blacks. They consider such talk divisive, negative and a harping on the past. They would rather hear more talk about reconciliation and the rainbow nation. It does not matter if all these do not yet exist. What matters is that it sounds mythical, romantic, poetic and makes everyone feel good.

The truth of the matter is that the scaffolding used to build racial inequality in our country was removed by the death of constitutional and legal apartheid in 1994, but the edifice itself still stands firm and strong. That edifice dominates every sphere of our lives on a daily basis. To turn a blind eye to that domination is at best foolish and at worst dangerous.

Black and white people in our society, generally speaking, live in one country but in different worlds. Terms and words we use so often mean different things to them.

To the majority of Black people “delivery” is a word loaded with so much emotion because it is associated with the provision of basic social services whose presence or absence can make the difference between drudgery and convenience, health and disease, and sometimes between life and death.

To millions of blacks there is no access to clean running water. There is no tap water in the neighbourhood, let alone in their houses. Over 14% of our citizens (6 million people) depend on contaminated rivers and streams for their water, and that explains why the image and face of cholera in our country is Black.

In every city and dorpie, throughout the length and breadth of our country, shacks abound. It is the 7,3 million Black people who live in about 1,6 million of these shacks who are clamouring for delivery of houses.

We may go on and relate the same stories about electricity, education, health, roads and so on. Yet, on the whole, white people are not asking the government of the day to deliver any of these social services to them. They are among the 44,7% in our population who have running water in their houses; they take electricity for granted, such that life without it is unimaginable. They can build or buy or rent their own accommodation, they can look after themselves when they are sick.

The deliberate and structured consolidation of economic power in the hands of white people over a period of three and half centuries lies at the very heart of inequality in our country. Subliminally and otherwise, many people might be forgiven for believing that what we have here is natural - it is the way God fashioned this country and its society.

Land ownership patterns are still what they used to be, if not worse. The ownership of banks, insurance companies, mines, manufacturing companies, supermarkets and other distribution outlets are almost all in the hands of the white component of the population. The media and other avenues for information and cultural expression of our people are almost all in white hands.

Even those black people who escaped the general poverty of their fellows feel they are under an economic siege of sorts. How can you not be if the food on your plate is from a white farm and bought from a white supermarket; the clothes on your back are from their store; the bond of your house and the lease of your car is in their bank; the petrol in your tank is from their oil company; your life insurance and that of your belongings are with their insurance company; the magazines and newspapers you read are owned and run by them. That of course explains why the household income gap between Blacks and whites is so frighteningly wide. It also explains why the life and economic relationships between Black and white are still what they were pre–1994. The same people who boarded trains, buses and taxis from the townships in the morning to report for work in the cities, and the people who toyi-toyi-ed for better wages before 1994, are still doing it today.

Of course inequality exists in all societies all over the world. But nowhere is it this huge, nor go blatantly along racial lines as it does here, nor is it caused by the kind of history we went through. That’s why this inequality we have here is unsustainable and poses a grave danger to our democracy and country. By doing nothing or little about it, we are setting the scene and stage for conflict and strife in the near future.

So, what do we do? At the general level, the answer is easy: Black people, as the sufferers in this equation of gross inequality, must wage the struggle for a more equal society.

In the Black Consciousness Movement where I learnt struggle politics several decades ago alongside the likes of Steve Biko, we assert that white people can never fully understand Blacks and the experiences they went through. Intellectually, they might think they understand, but in reality they do not. As a male, I might think I understand the problems and struggle of women, but I can never understand it better than them. So, the struggle for the emancipation of women is better waged primarily by them. Those of us who believe we understand and identify with that cause will support women as they soldier on.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on where you sit, the answer cannot be that simple. It is complicated by the fact that the solution of the problem firstly, is not independent of the vested interests of the white component of our population. If we are to build a more equal society in which all participate fairly and happily, whites would have to at least understand that struggle.

Secondly, it is probably true that the vast majority of whites might be aspiring for a future in this country that is prosperous and free of conflict and strife. Under such circumstances, it might be possible to find a formula(e), which facilitates a rapid movement towards a more egalitarian society.

 In AZAPO, and the BCM as a whole, our primary aim is to strive for an open, anti-racist and egalitarian society in this country where the colour of your skin will not be a point of reference. And we know that the road to such a society is still long and difficult

 But we also know that that struggle must be fought. If we do not consciously and deliberately wage that struggle, this country will implode.