JULIUS Malema stirred a pot that many in the past have tried to do but who often splutter on the fumes.
Malema, though, refuses to cough. Speaking during the fourth birthday celebration of the EFF, Malema made statements he knew could potentially be misinterpreted or misrepresented. He quickly said: “This is not anti-Indian statement, it’s the truth.”
He added: “Our defeat of white monopoly capital must not be replaced by black monopoly capital. It must be replaced by socialism. It must be replaced by the sharing of the wealth. We are not for any monopoly, not Indian monopoly
“Here in Durban, here in KwaZulu-Natal, everything strategic is given to Indian families. Everything, big tender is given to Indian families. They are the ones who are owning strategic things here in KwaZulu-Natal. We don’t have a problem, we are saying to them share with our people I have been going around here in Durban, our people are crying tears when they speak about how Indian fellows are treating them. How they treat them as sub-humans (sic) and the ANC has allowed that nonsense because the ANC is captured here in KZN.”
Apartheid did not only have racism as its driving force, it had a hierarchical racism pecking order. This has endured in democratic South Africa. Even though the word “black” referred to all oppressed people, within the oppressed people there were different classes and these classes were (in the main) along racial lines. Even in the spatial planning and occupation of a city like Durban, the urban centre would be occupied by white people, the second group nearest to the centre were Indian people, followed by the coloured community and then the black townships and peripheral rural areas would be last.
This differentiation also indicated that opportunities and socio-economic mobility was not equally availed to all the oppressed people.
When white-owned businesses started moving out of the Durban CBD and relocated to office parks in Umhlanga, Westville, Kloof, etc, the people who were poised to inherit the CBD were those who had amassed enough economic muscle and better educational opportunities. These were Indian people in Durban.
Malema simply raised the old debate that has been ignored.
One starts thinking of prominent business families like the Schaiks, Singhs, Pandays, Reddys, etc, as families that boast(ed) increased business success with increased political connectedness with the hierarchy of the ruling party.
The dominance of Indian people in government procurement led to some formations calling for the KZN government to implement the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) codes with a degree of context application by excluding Indian people.
Those calls resulted in the then-premier, Senzo Mchunu, appointing a Special Committee on Social Cohesion. Its work talked to the strong perception that Indians “in addition to structural advantage, are also favoured by existing policy provisions in the provincial business environment at the expense of Africans”. It is no wonder that one of the recommendations by the committee was to revitalise policy provisions, to promote more equitable economic development and it stated that “central to this is the building of inclusive and equitable economy. This requires an appropriate skills base, the injection of financial capital into SMMEs and greater partnership between SMMEs and big corporate.”
In November 2015, after his election as KZN chairperson of the ANC, Sihle Zikalala said: “Indians are generally better off economically than Africans and they are quite successful in business because of their economic skills. We want them to share these skills and uplift their African counterparts, because we are genuinely concerned at the tensions.”
ANC KZN chairperson Sihle Zikalala
The government of KwaZulu-Natal, even in its public participation processes on procurement, keeps hearing this complaint about the skewed manner in which Indian-owned companies receive big contracts from government, especially in eThekwini Municipality and from the provincial government. The KZN government may be trying to implement remedial policies.
Malema then touched on the ill-treatment of black people at the hands of their Indian employers. He further zoned in to a specific sector of employment, Indian shops.
Malema said: “(Indian employers) don’t pay our people, especially those Indians who are owning shops. They pay them with food parcels. It must come to an end, we want a minimum wage even in the Indian shops.”
Is this a stereotype or the lived experience of some people? Malema claimed that he learnt of these lived experiences during door-to-door campaigns. One might say this is not a credible sampling technique for a research outcome that can be generalised; however, it could be enough of a preliminary sampling technique to establish a hypothesis that must be tested through the application of a much more rigorous sampling technique.
Generalising often highlights the prevalent phenomenon that needs urgent attention.
Recent campaigns have tried to allude to this, for example when women say “men are trash” it does not follow that all men are of the same attitude and are abusive towards women but the general phenomenon paints a picture of a society wherein women are under attack from men. Those men who are the exception are called upon to be stop the scourge of women abuse.
Malema himself understood that surely there are good Indian employers when he said: “If you are Indian and you pay your people well, don’t worry. If you are Indian and respect your fellow human beings, don’t worry. If you are one of those people of KZN who I spoke about when I was doing door, then you must know that you are no friend of ours.”
It seems we have a storm in a teacup, given the vitriolic reaction to Malema’s speech. He says some people were in tears when recounting their stories of ill-treatment at the hands of Indian employers. In truth, many who have lived in KZN have heard of such stories.
However, the anecdotes, witnessed incidents and growing remarks by employed blacks need urgent attention. At times even black professionals complain about racism from Indian colleagues and managers. This is part of the legacy of apartheid and nation building can never happen if we do not confront the ncomfortable questions about our existential arrangements.