by Ernst Roets
Also, there are many cases that are widely reported as incidents of racism, despite the fact that no evidence of racism exists. One such case is that of Chris Hart, who lost his job as economist at Standard Bank after a flood of allegations of racism against him. Hart was accused of racism for tweeting the following: ‘More than 25 years after apartheid ended, the victims are increasing along with a sense of entitlement and hatred towards minorities …’19
In May 2016, comments made by High Court Judge Mabel Jansen regarding black people came to light. ‘Want to read my files: rape, rape, rape, rape, rape, rape of minors by black family members. It is never-ending,’ she wrote in a private message on Facebook. She continued that in black culture, ‘a woman is there to pleasure’ men, that women tell their children it is their father’s birth right to be the first, and that gang rapes of baby, mother and daughter were a ‘pleasurable pass time’.20
Mabel later stated that she was referring to specific cases and not to black people in general, but it was too late.21 She resigned soon thereafter.22
On the other hand, we also find grotesque examples of anti-white racism, committed by black people. Generally speaking, there are several differences between the typical examples of white racism and black racism.
A DOUBLE STANDARD
In South Africa, white racism is typically vested in derogatory comments by white people about black people, while black racism is typically articulated as an incitement to inflict violence upon white people. White racism is typically committed by unknown individuals, while black racism is typically committed or endorsed by public figures who have a degree of influence or a following. White racism typically results in a public outcry and extensive reporting by the media, while black racism typically results in a degree of justification by elaborating on the reasons why this person was angry in the first place. Lastly, white racism typically results in severe consequences for the (alleged) racist, while black racism rarely leads to negative consequences for the (alleged) racist.
In the same week in which Momberg was sentenced to two years in prison, the news broke about how the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) dealt with anti-white racism. Major MV Mohlala responded to a vicious attack on Braam van Wyk, an 80-year-old white reverend in Randparkrif, Johannesburg by saying that ‘[a]ll of these old white people think we are stupid when they say they were opposed to apartheid. We will not forget what they have done. Now it is the white people’s turn.’ He added that Van Wyk’s eyes and tongue should have been poked out. In response to his racism, he was reprimanded and asked not to say it again.23 Mohlala was later dismissed, but faced no further consequences.24
Just a few days after the publication of the racist comments that led to Penny Sparrow’s fine of R150 000 ($12 000), an employee of the Gauteng Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Velaphi Khumalo, posted on Facebook:
I want to cleans this country of all white people. we must act as Hitler did to the Jews. I don’t believe any more that the is a large number of not so racist white people. I’m starting to be sceptical of even those within our Movement the ANC. I will from today unfriend all white people I have as friends from today u must be put under the same blanket as any other racist white because secretly u all are a bunch of racist fuck heads . as we have already seen.25
In another post he claimed that ‘white people in south (sic) Africa deserve to be hacked and killed like Jews.’26 In reaction to this, Khumalo was suspended on full pay, only to be reinstated in his government job soon thereafter.27
‘Now note here, the difference (between what Sparrow said and what Khumalo said) is that there is a call to action. What Mr. Khumalo calls for is a genocide,’ says Mark Oppenheimer, advocate and constitutional law expert. ‘What is interesting to note is that, if you had to ask the average person in public whether they have heard of Penny Sparrow, most of them will say yes. They will denounce her. Then they’ll say “Who’s Velaphi Khumalo?” So there is this disparity in the reporting on these two issues.’28 More on the media’s reporting on farm murders in Chapter 16.
Also, during the same week in which the national news media were dominated by a report of a white teacher from Pretoria who had asked a black schoolgirl to trim her Afro, a member of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and of the Student Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Pretoria (UP), just opposite the school in question, said the following on Facebook:
Reasons why I hate white people:
White previllage
White dominance
White arrogance
White monopoly capital
White superiority
Closing remarks: FUCK WHITE PEOPLE, just get me a bazooka or AK47 so i can do the right thing and kill these demon possed humans.29
AfriForum Youth charged Luvuyo Menziwa with hate speech. While Menziwa’s comment was clearly more inciting than that of Vicki Momberg, given that it contained a call to action – to murder white people – it is reasonable to expect that his punishment would be more severe. However, while Momberg was sent to prison for two years, Menziwa was ordered to apologise and to do community service. 30
During 2017 alone, AfriForum filed a total of 113 criminal charges against people who took to Facebook and Twitter to encourage violence against other people on the basis of the colour of their skin. In virtually all these incidents, white people were targeted. In many of them, white farmers in particular were the target.
Here are some examples of the messages, as they were posted, that prompted criminal charges by AfriForum:
@Charleeea tweeted that ‘black students need to stop protesting and start killing. The white supremacy made it clear they aint hearing it’.
A fake profile that goes by the name of Chris Sankara posted a picture on Facebook of a black man assaulting a white woman and added the caption: ‘We Will Hit Them Where It Hurts Most They Will Not Even See Coming’.
Dumisa Ngcai commented on a picture of the bodies of three dead white men: ‘I love this pic, bloody boers killed in cold blood. Hope history repeats itself and more are butchered this way.’
@juphter tweeted: ‘Chris hart and all his family need to be killed for disrespecting the majority .and insulting the sons and daughters of the soil.’
Teddy Maile posted on Facebook: ‘Do I support white farm killings in south africa?hell yeah.we have to protect our land from European colonialists.’
To date, none of these people have been prosecuted by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), nor investigated by the South African Police Service (SAPS).
After AfriForum had been informed by the SAPS in writing that these cases would not be investigated, the SAPS publicly announced that a white man would be charged with crimen injuria for referring to black people as ‘baboons’ and ‘kaffirs’ on Facebook.31
In a report entitled Racism, hate speech and double standards trade union Solidarity found that there is a massive discrepancy not only in the way racism is reported in the media, but also in the reaction of the SAHRC:
Media coverage so widely different based on the race of the transgressor contributes even more to the creation of a climate where minorities are targeted. Ethical, objective journalism is not often found in reporting on matters of race. Indeed, even normal conflict situations are turned into racial matters by the South African media. The fact that open incitement to slaughtering white people did not remotely receive the same coverage as a racially driven description of black people, speaks volumes.32
Solidarity continues:
As watchdog over race relations in South Africa, the HRC appears to be asleep. From its own initiatives and reactions it appears that the HRC is allowing the media and politicians to dictate to it what racial discrimination is. When the HRC does act, such action appears to be one-sided and unbalanced … Low-level white racists are made examples of, while the vertical influence of racist black opinion makers is not addressed. We see the result of this in the social media reactions of white an
d black becoming ever more scathing.33
THE DATA ON RACISM
Despite all the above, the good news remains that racism in South Africa is not as big a crisis as the likes of McKaiser and Mgxitama would like us to believe. This is evident from virtually every opinion survey that has been undertaken on the topic.
In a 2017 survey on racism by the IRR, members of the public were asked what they believed the country’s biggest unresolved problems to be. The vast majority pointed to unemployment and crime, and only 3,2% regarded racism as such to be South Africa’s biggest unresolved problem. What is even more interesting, is the fact that almost four times as many white people (9%) as black people (2,4%) regarded racism as the biggest problem. If the crises of inequality and xenophobia were to be included in the definition of racism, the number of people regarding it as South Africa’s biggest problems increases to a mere 6,4%.34 Furthermore, 71,9% of respondents indicated that they had never personally experienced racism.35 In response to the statement that all this talk of racism and colonialism is an excuse by politicians to divert the attention from their own failures, only 25,8% disagreed.36
These findings correlate with similar studies by other institutions: The so-called progressive think tank Plus 94 Research found that 73% of people reported not to have experienced racism.37 From those who claimed to have experienced discrimination, 80% of white people claimed to have been discriminated against by black people, as opposed to 73% of black people who stated that the discrimination that they had experienced was perpetrated by white people. 38 The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), endorsed by the Struggle icon Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, found that less than 25% of people in South Africa regarded race as the primary source of division among people in South Africa,39 and that 20,7% of people had experienced discrimination in the workplace.40 The IJR also found that white people were more frustrated than black people as a result of the lack of both political and economic power that they had.41
It is therefore fair to conclude that the vast majority of people in South Africa are not racist and do not harbour racist sentiments. Racism remains a problem, however, in the sense that racists have largely succeeded in hijacking the national debate and in convincing us that racism is a major crisis akin to a ticking time bomb. This, while the available data disprove this. The crisis is, however, exacerbated by the double standard in public reaction to racism, not only by state institutions such as the SAHRC, but also in the way racism is reported on by the media – a matter that will be explored in more detail in Chapter 16.
‘One of them brought the laptop in and asked me for the password, which I gave to him. He asked “Is this tracked?” I said “Yes, it’s all tracked. Everything is tracked in this house.” “What about the bakkie?” he asked. “Yes,” I said to him. “Everything is tracked”.’
CHAPTER 13
Land and labour
‘Our pursuit of economic justice through the resolution of the land question can no longer be a dream of tomorrow, but a reality of today,’ writes Ayanda Dlodlo, Member of Parliament (MP) for the African National Congress (ANC). She adds: ‘Our people have suffered too long to stand idle and nurse the feelings of those who hold on to white privilege to the exclusion of the rest. It is therefore more crucial that we seek to restore the dignity of our people who have for hundreds of years been removed from their ancestral land.’1 Once the ruling ANC had adopted a policy that land should be expropriated without compensation at its 54th National Conference in December 2017, its newly elected President, Cyril Ramaphosa, said that taking the land owned by white farmers should increase food production and that ‘South Africa could turn into the ultimate paradise if the implementation of the policy of expropriation of land without compensation leads to higher food production.’ He added: ‘We can make this country the Garden of Eden.’2 On 27 February 2018, the South African Parliament carried a motion that a process had to be started to review Section 25 of the Constitution (the property rights clause) and other clauses where necessary to make it possible for the state to expropriate land without compensation.3
In April 2018, Deputy President David Mabuza made it clear that the ANC regarded land reform as a racial matter when he threatened that there would be a ‘violent takeover’ if white farmers did not agree to volunteer some of their land. Mabuza quoted fabricated statistics that ‘80% of the land was in the hands of a few people’ and stated that ‘the land will come back; do not despair’.4
There are, however, three major problems with the ANC’s stance on land reform. The first is that it is based on a flawed perception of history. The second is that there is no real hunger for land – in fact, the vast majority of black people in South Africa have no interest of owning agricultural land. The third is that where government has intervened with regard to landownership, it has had catastrophic results.
The matter of South African history has already been dealt with. The other two issues will now briefly be addressed.
NO HUNGER FOR LAND
The Restitution of Land Rights Act5 allowed for people to institute claims for land of which they had been deprived of as a result of racially discriminatory practices such as forced removals. By the time the cut-off date was reached in 1998, about 80 000 land claims had been filed. Government was not satisfied and opened the process again in 2014, claiming that they believed that 400 ٠٠٠ land claims would be filed in total.6 What came as a source of frustration to government was the fact that 93% of those who had instituted land claims indicated that they did not really have an interest in owning agricultural land and that they would prefer to take money as compensation. Government responded angrily to this, stating that it was ‘hurting land reform’. Bheki Mbili, Chief Director Land Restitution Support in KwaZulu-Natal, explained what black land claimants say:
Many of the claimants already have small pieces of land and some don’t even live in those areas where their forefathers were removed from. Some say to us that they don’t want more land than they already own and the risk involved if they ask us to buy them those huge pieces of land that will go out of production.7
He then explained why this was a problem for government:
The problem with this is that if you look at the outcome of [the] first phase of the land audit, the amount of land that is private land particularly that is owned by white people in this country is still in the region of between 70 and 80%. We can only change the land ownership pattern if people opt for restoration. If they opt for financial compensation the pattern stays the same. If you take the money you don’t dent the problem that currently exists.8
Notwithstanding the fact that the figures of white landownership provided by Mbili are inflated (at least 34,5% of all land in South Africa and 26,7% of agricultural land are black-owned),9 the problem is therefore that the South African government is dedicated to reducing the amount of land owned by white people, while this is not regarded as a priority by the majority of black South Africans.
The notion of a large-scale hunger for land is a myth – at least with regard to rural or agricultural land, this is further supported by the fact that 58% of land claims were filed in urban areas10 and that 84% of land grabs occur in metros.11
This is also evident from the rapid pace at which urbanisation among black South Africans is taking place. Black South Africans, more than any other group, seem to want to live in cities, rather than in rural areas. From 2000 to 2015, the population of so-called black Africans in Johannesburg increased by 76,7%. The corresponding number for Cape Town is 122,4%, and for Pretoria 71,6%. During the same period, the number of white people in Johannesburg declined by 8,1% and in Cape Town by 0,7%. In Pretoria, the number of white people increased by a mere 2,7%.12
With regard to the intention to enter agriculture, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) found that only 2,8% of all university students enrolled to study agricultural science and similar courses.13
Furthermore, when the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) sur
veyed South Africans and asked them what they believed had to be done to improve their lives, a mere 1% indicated that they believed that land reform would improve their lives.14
The survey also found that a mere 0,6% of people in South Africa regard land distribution as South Africa’s most serious unresolved problem. It is noteworthy from this survey that white South Africans regard land reform as a more pressing issue to be resolved than black South Africans.15
FAILURE OF LAND REFORM
According to the South African government, about 9% – almost 8 million hectares – of agricultural land has already been distributed to black African people.16 However, it was admitted that more than 90% of farms distributed by government to black African communities failed and usually reverted very quickly, either to subsistence farming or to squatter camps.17 A study by the Land Bank found that approximately 4 000 farms had been acquired since 1994 at a cost of R10 billion ($800 million), of which only 10% were productive.18
Roelf Meyer, director of the In Transformation Initiative (ITI) stated that government already owned 4 323 ‘farming units’ (presumably a combination of smallholdings and farms) that had been bought as a result of successful land claims, but that had never been transferred to the new owners.19
While the South African government has already spent more than R45 billion ($3,6 billion) on land reform, only 6,3% of the land that was acquired by the state has been transferred into private land.20