October 3, 1999
WHO IS 'AFRICAN'?
In Apartheid's Wake, a Word Still Divides
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
JOHANNESBURG -- This is a nation that prides itself on casting aside
old labels. The "Europeans only" signs hang in museums now. Blacks
and whites rub shoulders in the formerly segregated halls of
Parliament. Five years ago, South Africa formally set aside the old
notions of apartheid. Ever since, it has proclaimed a rainbow
identity and officially celebrated all people as fellow citizens.
Then, a bespectacled white man stood up and declared: "I am an
African."
And members of the intellectual community here gasped.
When Max du Preez, a journalist, used his column to plead for full
identification with the black majority last summer, some blacks raged
that whites -- with their long history of oppressing black Africans
-- have no right to claim the title "African" (which, under
apartheid, had been a synonym for black). Some whites wondered why a
white guy would even want the title. And soon the heated debate
exposed the anxieties over old labels and new identities that still
simmer in this
changing society.
Five years after the death of apartheid, some people are still
struggling to redefine themselves and their roles here. And as the
debate burns on, some are finding that old classifications fade
slowly from the hearts and minds, the politics and economics of the
new South Africa.
"I come from the white left," explains Mr. du Preez, who crusaded
against apartheid only to find himself unsure of his place in a
country where most leading actors proudly identify themselves as
black and African. "I put myself on the side of democracy, on the
side of the majority. But now, I fall through the cracks.
"I want to be accepted in this nation, to be part of this
celebration of democracy, this so-called rainbow nation," he said in
an interview.
"If people say you're not an African, that means you're a European.
That makes you a visitor. I do not want to be a visitor. I do not
want to be a moneyed, separate white person. My family has been here
for 11 generations. And I have a need to belong, very, very deeply."
In other words, he wants the very word used by apartheid to divide
this society to be turned on its head to define a new, nonracial
unity. The debate, which continues on radio talk-shows, in newspaper
columns and letters to editors, is far from settled, and it still
rings loudest in the ivory towers of this society. While their Boer
ancestors had called their own language Afrikaans, for instance,
there
seems to be no rush among ordinary whites to reclassify themselves as
"African,"
A search for identity resonates in different places, in different
ways, among other minority groups around the world -- among the
ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan, the Muslims in India, the Arabs in
Israel. But the issue plays out with a special kind of pain in South
Africa. Here, even the liberal whites who embrace an African identity
typically hail from a wealthy elite that disparaged Africans and
African-ness and
benefited from a racial ideology that forced blacks to the lowest
rungs of society.
And a lot remains, in the ordinary pattern of life here, that gets in
the way of seeing across racial lines. Government bureaucracies still
categorize individuals as white, colored, Asian and African for
purposes of counting and integrating the population. And while skin
color no longer determines where you can dine, it still largely
determines which political party you vote for, which neighborhood you
live in, and whether you have a job or electricity or indoor
plumbing.
Only 27.3 percent of blacks, for example, have running water in their
homes as compared to 96 percent of whites, according to census
figures. And unemployment, which stands at nearly 40 percent among
blacks, is virtually nonexistent for whites at 4 percent. Meanwhile,
many whites have come to feel crowded out and unsatisfied in the new
South Africa, as crime rises and their political power ebbs.
"Pigmentation in South Africa, even after 1994, is not just a little
detail," said Khehla Shubane, a research officer at the Center for
Policy Studies. "The life chances of a person are determined to a
very good extent depending on where a person is in the racial
hierarchy. And at the bottom, you still find Africans. At the top,
you still find whites."
Mr. Shubane, who is black, said he applauded whites who participated
in the liberation struggle and embraced them as fellow South
Africans. But within the broader national identity, he said,
individual identities remain: Whites and Africans are among them,
separate and distinct.
"They don't share my ancestors, my culture, my history, my language
or my religion," said Thobeka Mda, an education professor at the
University of South Africa, who fired off an angry column in response
to Mr. du Preez's. Both columns ran in The Star. "This African-ness,
it's only a land thing, a way of claiming the right to be here."
Stephen Mulholland, a white journalist who waded into the fray two
weeks ago, said blacks could keep the African label; he has no need
of it. "I am a South African," he wrote in The Sunday Times. "My
citizenship and residency do not require me to have continental or
racial loyalties."
But Jakkie Cilliers, a white military expert who considers himself
African, said South Africa will only become a nonracial society when
whites and blacks learn to see each other and to accept each other as
people, as fellow Africans, regardless of race.
"The South African transformation is not just a change in government,
it is a transformation of the whole society and how we view
ourselves," said Mr. Cilliers, who runs the Institute for Security
Studies.
"Under apartheid, we whites convinced ourselves for years that we
were an extension of Europe," he said. "But we aren't. And that's why
I don't like black South Africans calling themselves Africans.
Because I am also African."
And some blacks agree.
Parks Mankahlana, a spokesman for President Thabo Mbeki, says skin
color is not the crucial issue.
True Africans -- black and white -- are easy to find, he says: They
are the people working for a better society. And that means, he says,
giving the debate yet another twist, that some blacks are not truly
African.
"If I were asked to choose between Max du Preez or Mobutu as a fellow
African, who do you think I would choose?" Mr. Mankahlana asked.
"Definitely it's Max du Preez."
--
Prof. Mads
Vancouver.
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