Opinion | Umm Abdillah, Radio Islam Programming, 2016.02.19 | 9 Jumadal Ukhra’ 1437 AH
You don’t have to be a racist to be unsupportive of “Anti-Racism Week.” You may just have acute protest fatigue. Or you think it’s about time we tried to show South Africans not only what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for, writes Umm Abdillah.
This week marked South Africa’s first “Anti-Racism Week”, a nationwide campaign that sought to create public awareness and facilitate engagement around the issue of racism in South Africa.
Some 80 civil society organisations launched the Anti-Racism Network South Africa (ARNSA) to tackle racism on a national level. The initiative, spearheaded by the Ahmed Kathrada and Nelson Mandela Foundations, aims to fight racism and related forms of discrimination – using a collective weight of multiple organisations.
#TakeOnRacism – hashtag fatigue
South Africa is openly documented as the protest capital of the world. As a nation we’re adept at expressing what we don’t stand for. We stand against poor service delivery; we stand against Rhodes; we stand against university fees; we stand against Afrikaans, we stand against drought; we also stand against racism. This type of negative activism – the protest –for what we don’t want- is so entrenched in our psyche; we may soon become oblivious to what we actually DO stand for. It’s like asking a young woman what personality traits she wants in a spouse, and she begins by saying “Oh, I don’t know.” And rather begins to list all the things she doesn’t want. We know with a sense of surety what we don’t want – how about a sense of surety in what we DO want?
And given that precedent, I believe things need to change. Enough of these placebo commemorations for all the things we stand against. Rather, instead, we educate and enlighten in what Human Rights actually include. For this we have a public holiday, Human Rights Day on the 21st of March. On this day we can add any angle or thrust to our discussion. An anti-racism week adds fatigue to the already long list of things we don’t stand for.
Further, any fact-finding missions that declare racist attitudes have hardened since the fall of apartheid may be misguided. It is obvious that social media, something we didn’t have as a measuring tool in previous years, exposes inbred prejudice more widely. We now have a window into what has long been the thread of racists’ dinnertime conversations.
Also, these campaigns highlight the temerity in the hard sell of the ‘Rainbow Nation.’
I am not alone in my summation.
Racism isn’t the ACTUAL issue
Mienke Steytler, spokesperson of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in Johannesburg:
“There is a leadership crisis in this country. This leadership crisis is fueling increasing social protests and in reality the unequal society is at the root of this dangerous scenario that is playing out in day-to-day life.”
According to Steytler, the latest IRR-poll shows that most South Africans do get along well, but the main concerns are rather about crime and unemployment. Only 4.7 percent felt that race is an issue.
“We live in a pressure cooking environment that is all connected to the weakly growing economy. 65 percent of young people are unemployed. We will continue to see these flames of unrest and as a result also more xenophobic incidents if the majority of South Africans are not empowered and if they continue struggling to find jobs and find it hard to put food on the table,” said Steytler.
Politicians are using the current state of the country to divert people’s attention from the real issues.
“Instead of paying more attention to the economy, government spending, and job creation, politicians are using racism as playing card in the political game,” she said.
“The situation is worrying, and unless the black middle class is not growing, there can be many more anti-racism weeks for the next few years, it will just be a drop in the ocean,” Steytler said.
Neo-racism
Harms inflicted in accordance with racism range from day-to-day socioeconomic discrimination, or local rules enforcing such discrimination, to national rules of exclusion from all social, civil, or political rights.
There is a trend within the Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance movements that excludes those who are not black or white from being part of a reclaimed South Africa. “Go back to India” has been a large part of this neo-racism discourse. Academics and political leaders manipulate this rhetoric so astutely that the ‘brown man’ feels obliged to join movements of anti-racism, even if he is the victim.
What do we stand for?
On Monday, 21 March in 1960 police opened fire, without order, on a crowd that had gathered at the Sharpeville station to protest pass laws, stipulations that required Africans to carry books and produce them for law enforcement officials on request. 69 unarmed people were killed and another 180 were injured.
Today, the South African constitution protects individual rights, like the right to move freely without a passbook, with its inclusion of the Bill of Rights, and all our citizens are entitled to basic human dignity, and more, in our country’s current democracy.
What is the more? Do we even know? What more does the Bill of Rights afford us?
Having an anti-racism week prior to commemorating this historic day to celebrate how far our nation’s progressed and still need to progress is a red herring. In my opinion it is intended to captivate the media, intended for political posturing and to ensure enduring relevance by key role-players.
You can’t lead people into change until you first win their trust. And, to do that, you need to look like you know what you’re doing, present a strong vision for where you’re going, and behave in ways that people find inspiring. Are our politicians doing that? As they say, the fish rots from the head.
Civil society and government responses to racism usually amount to little more than rhetorical appeasement, and certainly no major reforms. Clicktivism, Hashtagism, and Slacktivism creates a feel-good illusion that undermines the activism that effects due change.
And finally, as part of activism that isn’t negative, which part of ANTI-racism week focused on the Human Rights Charter, and the South African Bill of Rights, to educate South Africans what we DO stand for?
Stand for something, or fall for everything. In this case, every well-intentioned, but ultimately – impotent, verbose and very costly campaign, like Anti-Racism Week.
Umm Abdillah is part of development and strategy at Radio Islam’s Programming department. Catch her on air hosting The Reminders Programme on Wednesdays between 10-11am and Between the Cracks at 8.25am on Tuesdays. She can be contacted at zanah@radioislamlive.com or @zanah_za on Twitter.
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