Racial labelling is still very much part of every South African’s identity, writes Devi Rajab
Durban - South Africans rarely know each other outside of a group stereotype. After 21 years of democracy we still display the residuals of our apartheid socialisation.
This self-negation is a grave stumbling block to our economic and social development. What should we do about it?
The well-respected political commentator and columnist Aubrey Matshiqi is in town as a guest of Democracy Development Programme (DDP).
On Tuesday morning at the Elangeni Hotel he will be leading discussion on deconstructing racial identity and what race means within the South African context, exploring historical and philosophical foundations as well as the attitudes and social forces towards building a nation at peace with itself.
Our colonial and apartheid past weighs heavily on our present predicament in need of serious transformation in all aspects of our lives today. It is therefore incumbent on every South African to reflect rationally and honestly on the question of race and racism in post- apartheid South Africa. This important public dialogue challenges me to think seriously about who I am as a South African.
In India I am regarded as a South African. In South Africa I am regarded as an Indian. But since my definition of myself is often determined by others, I am wont to see myself as they see me. I am born a Hindu married to a Muslim with a Jewish son-in-law and a Swedish Christian daughter-in-law and adopted Zulu brothers from the Tembe family for whom I have tied raaki (a Hindu custom where sisters tie a red cord around their brother’s wrist to strengthen the filial bond).
But who am I really? My forefathers came from the south of India, having left behind a way of life, relatives, a culture of cuisine, music, language, religion and a rich ethnic tradition.
The flip side was poverty, stringent adherence to tradition, limited life opportunities, the caste system and the pressures of family expectations and control.
In a diasporic haemorrhage, when Indians left India’s shores mainly for economic reasons, they brought along with them a fearless determination to succeed and took on the character of their adopted country while still retaining religious and cultural roots.
Today I am a product of this mass scale human trek from India to Africa. I am a living example of this testimony of a proud heritage that my forefathers built for me some 150 years ago with their blood, sweat and tears.
And out of their toil I emerged having metamorphosed from various historical designations of coolie, amakula, ama-indya, Asiatic, Indian, charow to the pinnacle of my new identity as a fully fledged South African. I am a unique creation unlike my counterparts in the rest of Africa. I have a proud heritage of tilling the soil, picking up the garbage, planting the vegetables, sweeping the streets, selling fruit and vegetables in the marketplace, waiting at tables in hotels, working in the coal mines, selling newspapers and driving buses. Though a helpless victim of apartheid, I also have a proud heritage of fighting for justice and leading the vanguard against an oppressive regime with higher order principles of non-violence. Now after four generations I can proudly say that Mother Africa has defined me, embraced me and moulded me into this unique product aptly described as “conceived in India, made in South Africa”.
Now after 21 years of freedom from apartheid what have I become and how am I viewed?
Racial labelling is unfortunately still very much a part of every South African’s identity. In this respect I am still an Indian within my country and not a South African. Affirmative action defines my life’s opportunities in much the same way it did during apartheid though I enjoy freedom of association, residential mobility, religious affiliation and social freedom.
I understand and accept the need to level the playing fields through the process of equal opportunities and affirmative action and to some extent BEE. But will the younger generation understand this principle, that essentially will make them pay for their fathers’ sins? Unless we begin to set a moratorium on when all South Africans can be accommodated as equal recipients of opportunities, the prognosis of race relations in the country will be bleak.
It is little wonder that even though we have abolished institutional racism South Africans are still struggling with interpersonal racism. Despite their differences South Africans seem to share one ineluctable similarity. They all cry “racist” at the drop of a hat and each points a finger at the other. Depending on the composition of the gathering, the racist can take on the hue of the absent other.
Social naiveté, intermingled with cultural chauvinism, where one believes that one’s own cultural ways are the benchmark by which everyone else has to conform, is often mistakenly identified as racism. For as long as there are people in the world, there will always be the affliction we loosely label as racism. Presently, the world is grappling with grave political disputes that have transformed into “cultural intifadas”.
So let’s not feel embarrassed or apologetic. I applaud the DDP initiative and look forward to opening my horizon in today’s dialogue on deconstructing racial identity.
* Dr Devi Rajab is a former dean of student development at UKZN.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Mercury