Durban - Prominent political figures have sounded the alarm on the emergence of racial animosity in South Africa.
Frank public debates, not racial rhetoric, were needed to forge social cohesion and a unique sense of South Africanness, according to two former presidents, an Afrikaner tycoon and British diplomat agreed on Tuesday.
“The moment we are irritated, we quickly dial back to pre-1994 in the way we respond to irrationalities,” said former president Kgalema Motlanthe, speaking at the annual FW de Klerk Foundation conference in Cape Town.
He said cyber racism was “most disheartening”, and not a “restful” reflection of post-apartheid South Africa. Most bloggers appeared to be young people who did not know apartheid, and such comments did not come from a lunatic fringe, but the mainstream.
“In a constitutional democracy, the boundaries are open for clear, open and robust speech, but do not accommodate racial insults and incitement to racial violence... This serves as a barometer for our social cohesion.”
Earlier, Motlanthe said economic justice was the true test for national unity as embodied by the constitution, the “living document... (which) also reflects historic consciousness”. Freedom, justice and equality were rooted in an integrated economy.
“If we all look back (to Codesa), we will discover the compass we so need to find our way,” Motlanthe said.
FW de Klerk, the last apartheid president and a deputy president in democratic South Africa, said he was concerned by “a new, bitter and confrontational tone” in the national discourse, It was the antithesis of reconciliation. While he said South Africa was “in for a rough five years, but it should be better if we stick to the rule of law and the principles and value of the constitution”.
However, he lambasted the SACP as “a potentially fatal threat” to South Africa’s constitutional democracy. “It continues to hide behind the ANC banner and fails to seek (election) support in its on name,” he said.
Yesterday’s conference reviewed nation building 25 years after De Klerk’s announcement on February 2, 1990, unbanning political organisations and releasing Nelson Mandela, It set in motion South Africa’s transition to democracy and the first all-inclusive elections on April 27, 1994.
The conference came against a backdrop of racial incidents increasingly hitting the headlines - from pupils being separated in classrooms, and assaults on domestic workers, to the Twitter backlash after former president Nelson Mandela’s personal assistant, Zelda la Grange’s, take that whites were not wanted following President Zuma’s comments during the ANC’s 103rd birthday bash last month that South Africa’s problems started with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck.
IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said the task of strengthening and protecting South Africa’s constitutional democracy remained.
“I hear the warning sirens of social fragmentation and recognise that our constitutional democracy will flounder if we fail to maintain that founding principle of non-racialism.
“For the sake of all we have worked for, and all we still hope to achieve, may the present leadership of our country heed this warning,” he said.
Lord Robin Renwick, the British ambassador to South Africa prior to Mandela’s release, agreed South Africa would do best by defending its constitution and the independence of the judiciary.
Progressive redistribution was not an unrealistic goal, but the question was how it would unfold as perceptions could affect the country.
If there was to be increased state intervention, he said, “then you need to have a state more efficient than we have seen anywhere in the world ever”.
Not even East Germany managed that, he said, quipping: “Karl Marx is dead everywhere, except in South Africa.”
Businessman Dr Johann Rupert called for “apolitical, totally open” debate led by civil society: more people needed to speak out, even if it meant being unpopular.
But Rupert sharply criticised trade unions for holding back government, particularly in education, which needed to be ramped up to produce the necessary skills base.
“The government has to decide if it wants Sadtu (SA Democratic Teachers Union) to run the country or if government want to educate the kids.”
Political Bureau