"Coloureds and the Men of Stone"

Coloureds and the Men of Stone- race and identity in the new SA




Nowhere is the failure of government to deliver a better life for all and to fulfil the dream of non racialism more starkly revealed than in the current resurgence of the debate around "Coloured" people, thanks to Mr  Jimmy Manyi, government spokesperson. This fact is an obscenity that should haunt anyone with any appreciation of South Africa's past. It is something we as South Africans should be thoroughly ashamed of. That we are generally not speaks volumes about how little we have leaned in our new found freedom, and how narrow and mean spirited that vision has become since Madiba's retirement from the presidency.

Ethnicity is a complex topic to define, unlike racism. There is only one race, the human race, as we should all know by now. Science, DNA sampling and paleontology have all proved this beyond reasonable doubt.

But there are many ethnic identities, and what they all have in common is two things. First, they are largely situational. They take place in a context. So at times we might feel proudly South African, or proudly Hindu, or proudly Xhosa, or proudly African, as we compare ourselves to others. There are also those that proudly define themselves as Coloured. But second, ethnic identities will only turn nasty when they occur in societies in which there is fierce competition for scarce resources – where the economy is not growing fast enough is the usual context. Then people collect around identities that enable them as a group to achieve what they cannot as separate individuals. Rising ethnicities are a sure sign of failure on the part of the state, whether economic or social. Ask the former Yugoslavians.

If that is not warning enough, then there's our own history. The history of "Coloured" South Africans is such as to tear your heart out. This is not to disparage the sufferings of any other ethnic "group". But in South Africa the obscenity that was apartheid sliced and diced South Africans in general and Coloureds in the Western Cape in particular in brutal fashion.

The Mixed Marriages Act tore families in two in ways that defy every religion in the world. The Group Areas Act ripped the heart out of entire long established communities and threw them onto the sands of the Cape Flats rent , breaking all the ties of mutual caring and affection that sustained the young, the old and the vulnerable, and the unemployed. Often they were replaced by the gang culture that terrorise people to this day, but at least provided the protection that long established communities build over centuries. District 6 is the best known and most visible of these former communities destroyed by apartheid, but it is only one of them.

And so under apartheid "white" and "African" men applied to be reregistered as "Coloureds" so they could continue to love their women and children at home and in peace. Or families took the decision  on which members were light skinned enough to "pass for white", and, having made that decision, severed all ties or recognition of each other to save each other. There must  be a special place in Hell for the architects of this evil and the human anguish it caused.

And the rest of us, what is it that we learned through the painful years of struggle? What is that that boys on the border, or throwing stones in the townships died for? So that we could see this bile re -emerge from the "official" government spokesman? So we should be told that once again there are "surplus" people of one or another ethnicity that must be moved around like cattle to serve some or other race obsessed ideology? That we must compound one evil with another?

And so now we have the Manyi incident, as if nothing has been learned at all.

Yet Manyi is telling the truth. For until recently, until early this year, there were provisions in the Equity legislation that Cabinet had oversight of and thus knew about that clearly state that in the pursuit of "demographic" representivity ( a truly Hitlerian concept if there ever was one) regional demographics should not interfere with national demographics. In other words, that the representation of "Africans" (whoever those are) should not be crowded out by the preponderance of "whites"(whoever those are), Indians (where were they born? In India?) or "Coloureds".

And why not? Because Mr Manyi is just the tip of an iceberg. On the slopes of Devils Peak, overlooking the very Cape Flats where all those "Coloureds" are, and just around the corner from District 6, we have an unctuous vice chancellor who agrees with these "racial" definitions and, rubbing his hands in the manner of a Uriah Heep, adjusts the University of Cape Town's entrance criteria to reflect "ethnic" preferences. And all South Africans still are asked to tick little boxes on official forms to indicate whether we are white , Coloured, African or Indian. We are complicit.

Others tell us the whole Manyi "Coloured issue" is just "electioneering", as if otherwise it wouldn't matter. But does matter, because it goes to the very heart of the South African project. It ends with us regaining our senses and our morality, or with us descending into the Rwandan abyss.

Mr Manyi is not the clever man his supporters claim he is. His views are fundamentally those of the peasant, in which the world is fixed, and resources are limited. In this world view, your prosperity is at the expense of mine. If you have more, I have less. And so I group with others who seem like me to grab my share of this limited cake. It is as grubby, and as primitive as that. The concept of a non-racial South Africa with a growing economy and a society underpinned by respect for each other is nowhere to be found in the peasant view. It assumes failure.

The problem with this nastiness is when it comes to the application, when you deal with the flesh and blood of humanity. That doesn't happen in the solemn, disinfected halls of Parliament, or the lofty halls of academe. It comes with wrenching people physically from the communities they live in. It requires a meanness of spirit that would sacrifice individuals on the altar of some twisted ideology. It requires, as Trevor Manuel pointed out (whatever his real motivation) a profound ignorance of our past, and a determination to repeat it, until those of us who know better, like Shakespeare's Lear, would cry out "Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones: Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vault should crack".

The shame is not just on Mr Manyi and his ilk. The shame is on us all, that we tolerate this for one more wretched minute.



Dr Gavin Lewis is a DA MPL in Gauteng, and author of Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of Coloured Politics in South Africa.

(Note: This article appeared as an op ed in Business Day, 24/5/11)