Putting Tu and Tu together

Author: Nkosinathi Biko (CEO steve biko foundation)
Title: Putting Tu and Tu together
Date: 07 May 2006
Edition: 1st published in the Sunday Times

Bishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu is very consistent. He is given to expressing his opinion through ways that are guaranteed to be outside the realm of comfortable politics. Being possessed of bl ood with a lower boiling point, I was infuriated by his excessive patience as demonstrated by his visit to the Wilderness in 1997, in an attempt to persuade the Groot Krokodil to embrace the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Having served as the Defense Minister of the Republic of South Africa from 1966 to 1979, the Prime Minister from 1978 to 1984 and President from 1984 to 1989, P.W Botha commanded the apartheid machinery for nearly three decades. The units over which he presided visited great violence upon black South Africans as can now be empirically substantiated. Yet in 1997, Botha defied the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the words: “I have nothing to apologise for. I will never ask for amnesty. Not now, not tomorrow, not after tomorrow.”

Despite this attititude, on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the Groot Krokodil in January 2006, Tutu found enough from his reserves of humanity to make the following wish: “Happy birthday and God bless him. Ninety is a very good innings. Oh, he’s an old man, and you know, you expect, he will mellow.”

It is against this background that Tutu’s latest pronouncement that “white South Africans need to be thankful towards black South Africans” must be examined. First, the act is not atypical of the man, therefore the dominant exclamation: “How could he say that!” is of no consequence to the dialogue he has so aptly brought to the center on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the truth commission. Of concern should be why he of all people was drawn to raise this issue. After all, Tutu is the face of national reconciliation and a person of reverential optimism. Is his pronouncement the sheer divisive bigotry it is made out to be, or is it symptomatic of a growing undercurrent in the minds of ordinary victims of apartheid who have yet to taste the fruits of a negotiated settlement?

The response to the Most Reverend reminds us that negotiated political settlements are by nature perfectly imperfect. Whilst the settlement offered many opportunities, flowing from it were many undesired consequences. One of it shortcomings was the moral equivalence it extended to both sides of the conflict. With this approach came ambiguity of the true cost of our freedom. No description so undermines our national sacrifice than the term “miracle.” The abolishment of slavery, the end of the Jewish Holocaust, and the end of the Rwandan Genocise are simply that – an end to the most unfortunate periods in the history of humanity. Miracles do not come at such cost. The cost having being suffered, it is no miracle when humanity finds that which it should never have lost in the first place - its sanity.

Secondly, no sooner had the political settlement given rise to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were we dubbed by the international media, the “rainbow nation” a term we readily embraced. I have argued elsewhere that the colours of the rainbow are harmoniously juxtaposed, an analogy that hardly resembles the race or class relations in South Africa. The notion of a miraculously birthed rainbow nation glosses over very fundamental questions that should be part of the dialogue as we define our national identity. A more useful dialogue is one that sees us claim the biltong and the boerewors, the Bokke and Bafana Bafana, the bush and the beach as we simultaneously acknowledge economic inequity, unemployment, poverty and HIV/Aids. By correctly framing our identity we are likely to embark on a development trajectory that sees us embrace being South African and enjoying the hard earned rights without being indifferent to the remaining socio- economic challenges. We certainly would be disabused of the supposititious state of harmony that glosses over our wounds.

Should whites offer an apology for apartheid? Firstly, the TRC process required neither an apology nor a show of remorse. It would understandably have been extremely difficult to establish the quality of an apology, were it a condition for amnesty. However, as Tutu has himself argued, it is precisely the absence of such a legal requirement that would have made any apology such a genuine and far reaching gesture. Had the perpetrators of apartheid atrocities seized the moment and showed remorse, I am certain that the process would have been less about amnesty and more about the restoration of humanity. However, hitherto nobody has apologized for apartheid. The words of the Groot Krokodil speak for themselves. His successor, F.W De Klerk, argued before the TRC that as leader of the Nationalist Party he knew of no reason why he should accept responsibility. He did not issue any instructions nor was he aware of any violations of human rights: at once undoing what would have been a reasonably profound legacy.

Apartheid denial permeates down to the level of ordinary citizens. It is commonly accepted that apartheid is a cause whose victims survive in the millions and whose supporters have since all perished. Unfortunately, one of the bitter realities is that white South Africans were the only ones enfranchised to have voted apartheid out of power. They did not. Instead, as Steve Biko argued, the liberal convictions that were evident over the intervals between elections, evaporated in the election years. Thus apartheid was voted back into power over and over again. The efforts of the progressive white South Africans were not significant enough to constitute anything more that a minority. If whites had the vote and they failed to vote apartheid out of power then Tutu’s statement is perfectly syllogistic. The voting patterns of white South Africans were such that it may as well be said that white South Africa not only engineered but maintained apartheid.

It is unfortunate that this debate also affects a huge number of people who were not directly involved nor could have been. In this regard one empathises with young white South Africans. A great number were simply too young to vote. However, like with all societies there is a continuum that links the choices of one generation to the options of the next. The life choices of many young South Africans are somewhat circumscribed by the choices of the generations that precede us. This is true for many black South Africans who cannot resurrect their beloved, nor reverse the damage to their families caused by imprisonment, exile, Bantu Education, Job Reservation and such other instruments of apartheid. Yet despite this, those on the receiving end of apartheid are not yet spitting fire. On the contrary it is a black South African once tortured for being a symbol of an imaginary “swart gevaar” that has risen to become the world’s best embodiment of hope and humanity. He mobilised millions of his fellow freedom fighters to embrace an otherwise unpalatable position. His tormentors and those of millions of apartheid victims have palmed their responsibility off to their children.

In the face of growing impatience among young blacks and on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the June 16 Uprising, it seems that the nations needs to take stock. In doing so the choices facing this generation are rather obvious. White South Africans must reckon with history for what it is and not for what they wish it to have been. We can then choose to roll up our sleeves, and occupy our place as citizens of significance who get on with the business of rebuilding South Africa or we can, once more, palm this responsibility off to our children. If we choose the latter, then I am afraid my children will be making these very points many years from now. Only then it may not be through the power of the pen but “by any means necessary.”

Nkosinathi Biko is the Chief Executive Officer of the Steve Biko Foundation. He writes in his personal capacity.