Unfinished Liberation: The Specter of Apartheid

Mechthild Nagel, SUNY Cortland, nagelm@cortland.edu

Martin Matustik's Specters of Liberation: Great Refusals in the New World Order gives a novel framework for thinking about the vital role of dissent in national liberation struggles. Following Marcuse's call for a “third way” or a “great refusal” he delineates carefully, and at times playfully, a dissenting voice in the midst of sycophants of procedural, liberal democracy. The rise of the New World Order, the successor ideology of the Cold War, makes manifest that the racial contract was a hidden modus operandi in the staging of the Cold War theatre. As Phillip Nicholson (1999) suggests, "The final irony may be that the real struggle of the Cold War years was not between communism and democracy, but instead for the global achievement of the Western racial and nation-state system" (12). In this paper, the South Africans' struggle for decolonization will serve as the theatre stage of great refusals, instead of the Berlin Wall--the customary Cold War symbol.

In the crevices of the Great Refusal one needs to carve out existential spaces for survival, for particularized dissent and concrete ethical freedom as well as for collective struggles of resistance. "Democracy for our times calls for a revolutionary multicultural enlightenment," Matustik writes (xiii). Thus, one must refuse "the ways of pseudoradicals espousing linguistic and conservative forms of revolutionary idealism; …the ways of publishing houses or politicians profiting from postcolonial texts within neocolonial academy and society" (Matustik, 192). The struggle for Black self-determination, takes on new clownings after the end of codified apartheid, and for former freedom fighters it is all the more difficult to refuse complicity in deepening the stranglehold of neo-colonialism in South Africa.[1]

How are we to understand the specters of liberation when "the value of white life continues to be superior and the value of black life continues to be inferior," according to Jody Kollapen, a member of South Africa's Human Right's Commission?[2] I will discuss the unfinished project of de-colonization in the context of human rights struggles. Liberation takes on a new masks in the aftermath of a disappointing “truth” borne out by the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). What does the Great Refusal mean when an entire populace which was brutalized under apartheid and like Benjamin's Angel of History cannot turn its gaze from past trauma? That angel’s gaze is frozen in time mourning the dead--fixated on the past, trying to make whole again what has been smashed.[3] For survivors of a collective traumatic experience, Benjamin’s Angelus Novus might bring metaphysical comfort, be it for my mother's recurrent traumatic recollection every February 14, the remembrance of the Dresden firestorm which she survived[4] or be it for Lehlohonolo Moagi, a participant and survivor of the June 16, 1976 Uprising by Soweto school children who protested Afrikaans as language of instruction. But the angel cannot make whole what has been broken: “…a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel no no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress” (Benjamin, 1969, 257-8). While some may herald the TRC’s deeds as engendering “miracles” in a new South Africa, for others a melancholic assessment of the past is the only possible pursuit.[5]

The crisis born out in 1990 in South Africa is of different magnitude than that of the German Democratic Republic being absorbed by its capitalist neighbor. Yet, both East Germans and Black South Africans cope with profound betrayal, the former for being made irrelevant and fired (abgewickelt) from certain professions, such as philosophy, the latter for their ruling party’s complete abandonment of socialist principles. Neo-liberal principles and universal abandon of the “third way” (Marcuse, not Tony Blair!) have raised havoc--particularly in South Africa due to the ANC’s speedy compliance with privatization schemes (cf. Saul, 2001, passim).

The West as a Specter

It is the postcolonial moment that has different salience and bears out schizophrenic realities. How does one “mete out” the West which condoned and furthered the cause of apartheid at the same time that it harbored exiles? With the paradoxical claim "the West is against us, yet the West is our savior," Emmanuel Eze (1997) wishes to question a simple malediction of the colonial past in the subaltern's quest for (unbracketed) healthy postcolonial African identities (343). What is our view of the West, Eze asks? "[H]ow does our sense of the West distort our sense of ourselves and our traditions?" (341, his emphasis). Part of the anti-colonial agenda is to scrutinize any new psycho-tropic means offered up in the name of progress: The pharmakon donated by the West may be poison in the disguise of much needed medicine. This Faustian pact is clearly played out in the recent AIDS politics: On the one hand, "The West is against us" when multinational pharmaceutical companies sued the South African government over local production of cheaper generic anti-retroviral medicines; at the same time the West provides that "magical elixir" of capitalism (Mandela's words to the US Congress in 1994; cited in Saul 2001). Clearly, we see Eze's dictum of the janus face of the West, part savior, part devil, played out in this toxic formula. Does Mandela forget that this capitalism he praises is laced over with structural racism, with sexism, and economic exploitation of the already dispossessed? Why is it that in all anti-colonial struggles, the new democratic African governments were forced into payment of debts incurred by their previous colonial regimes and forced into structural adjustment agreements, burdened with high interest rates, whereas the Germans walked free from Nazi debt and were awarded with a Marshall plan to lift them out of misery? Clearly, Cold war justifications for such Keynsian capitalist measures granted to Germans but not Africans is not a sufficient explanation, since Africa was deeply mired in the Cold War theatre as well.

What kind of memory work ought to be done? Could it be accomplished in the form of truth-telling as undertaken under the auspices of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? As Pieter Meiring, a TRC member, emphasizes such a Commission needs to be founded on the common trust and willingness of the people. He notes that it was set “in motion at the beginning of 1996 with the support of all the political parties” (194, my emphasis). Meiring conveniently forgets that AZAPO (Azanian Peoples Organization) was opposed to the “truth” process and even filed a lawsuit to stop the broad criminal and civil amnesty provisions for the apartheid perpetrators. AZAPO lost the case in the Constitutional Court.[6]

What (future) role is accorded to Biko's Black Consciousness Movement which engendered resistance amidst ferocious repression? Will it be able to “repair” the national psyche in the midst of government utterances of a non-racial struggle for unity? Adorno's dictum (1972) about the longevity of nazism after 1945 could easily hold true for the neo-colonial, neo-apartheid reality in South Africa: "National socialism is alive and well, and up to today we don't know whether it exists merely as a specter of that which was so monstrous, so that it did not die [am eigenen Tode starb], or whether it never had to die at all" (555).

As More (1998) argues, following Sartre and Lucius Outlaw, formal, democratic rights do little to alleviate apartheid structures, and at best, such abstract rights are complicit in bad faith: "the non-racism enunciated in the Constitution seeks to destroy race as a reality in order to preserve … only individuals” (370). The appeal to dissent is enshrined in the new South African constitution and Bill of Rights, resulting in one of the most progressive human rights language in the world. Its equal rights language famously stresses sexual orientation in addition to "conscience, belief, culture." The ANC handbook to the constitution notes that given the party's non-racial, democratic commitment, individual racists ought to be prosecuted yet a racist party ought to be tolerated because if it were repressed, it would undoubtedly be driven underground. However, the government's Human Rights Commission has come under fire in the last year, for its zealous pursuit of racism in white-dominated media, which has amounted to a “witch hunt” according to many western and white observers. The following comment by U.S. critic Tracy Kuperus (2000) is fairly representative in its condemnation of HRC: "the HRC's recent investigation…can be viewed as a step backward for creating a tolerant, independent, democratic environment" (95). Sadly, Kuperus ignores the crucial point that whites control the mainstream media when she critiques the government of a totalitarian gesture.[7] But her comment is shaped by the on-going debate in the US whether racist hate speech ought to enjoy first amendment protections.

As many postcolonial writers have noted (e.g., Kalanda, Ngugi, and Eze) independence guarantees merely nominal or abstract freedom. In a deliberate effort to obstruct the dismantling of apartheid, e.g., by affirmative action policies, whites are accusing Black South Africans of “reverse racism” (sic). According to More, they have a case in point. After all, formal equality under law gives all races and ethnicities equal political standing which annuls claims of racial exclusionary practices. Affirmative action, which is sought to rectify past racist injustices and atrocities has hardly any legitimation in the government's colorblind liberal democratic ideology (cf. More, 372). Affirmative Action as means for seeking redress was instituted by the Employment Equity Act of 1999 and is "one of the most powerful legal measures for accessing opportunity and working towards the development of ‘positive peace’" (January-Bardill, 2000). This act was strengthened by the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (February 9, 2000) which recognizes "the existence of systemic discrimination and inequalities, particularly in respect of race, gender and disability in all spheres of life as a result of past and present discrimination brought about by colonialism, the apartheid system and patriarchy" (quoted in Asmal, 2000). Black South Africans' struggle for formal and substantive notions of freedom is impeded by repressive structural adjustment policies which were enthusiastically put in place by ANC’s GEAR program. By the late 1990s, nine million live in shacks, eleven million lack electricity in their households (Kuperus, 2000, 95). We can surmise that all of the marginalized people living in shacks are indeed Black South Africans, as Dullah Omar (former minister of justice and architect of the TRC) reminded his audience at a recent international reparations conference in Cape Town.[8]

This is why it is important to heed Matustik's call for "[joining] wholesome yet open communities formed in solidary resistance yet capable of globally regional, flexible, and multifaceted coalitional struggle for liberation" (130). To some extent this has occurred with the new cross-border, global organizing since November 30, 1999 (the siege of Seattle)[9] which culminated in the endearing slogan “Teamsters and Turtles forever together!” More strikingly, an international coalition of AIDS activists has culmulated in a victory against the US pharmaceutical industries which had to settle a lawsuit against the South African government in April 2001 or be shamed for putting “Profit over People!” [10] Yet, it is another battle to do “poverty alleviation” in a global economy. In the U.S., one of the most effective struggles around economic justice has been spearheaded the Kensington Welfare Rights Union from Philadelphia. They have raised international awareness about their squatters’ movement in the city of brotherly love. The group is focused on community action, organizing the truly marginalized (such as, ex-prisoners, welfare recipients, homeless people) and importantly, they are women-led and racially integrated. Some of their key actions were a Poor People’s Summit and a poor people’s march to the UN from Philadelphia to New York City in 2000. KWRU has politicized US poor people about UN convenants, especially on economic rights, and has put a spot light on the lack of substantial democratic rights in the US.

Given the attention paid to global trade agreements (MAI, GATT, WTO, and FTAA) which highlight the near-obsolescence of sovereign sovereign immunity of nation-states with respect to Chapter 11 protection and general trade agreements, what is left of “national interests” and national sovereignty? Does Matustik’s call for postnational identities require a new reading of demands for self-determination, as articulated in the Cuban, Sandinista, or Zapatista revolutions? Matustik writes, "Existential democracy as anticolonial politics and postcolonial community requires a detribalized identity" (263). But isn't it the case that colonial politics, e.g. the Berlin Conference of 1885 in its "Scramble for Africa," did its share of detribalizing the continent? Is detribalization necessarily a progressive gesture? Bismarck's conference ensured that tribes were torn asunder by arbitrary colonial boundaries that were inattentive to local, traditional maintenance of water rights, land tenure, and linguistic "imagined communities." This is not to say that "tribalism" has not been used by the colonial regimes to pit people against each other; the European origins of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda are well documented. Similarly, in South Africa, the apartheid regime orchestrated an internecine violence with its help-mate Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the primarily Zulu Inkatha movement in Natal.[11]

Renaissance or Reparations?

In the South African context, rallying cries for self-determination have surfaced in President Mbeki's call for an "African Renaissance." Yet, not all parties are content with the eurocentric undertones of such a call, as it seems to negate any artistic, cultural expression of resistance during colonial occupation. Far from describing an postcolonial, democratic empowerment project, many critics surmise that Mbeki’s goal is Black embourgoisement instead. The nouvaux riches are tired of being taunted for their wealth, he complains to a group of Black managers last year. Mbeki lamented that “Because we come from the black oppressed, many of us feel embarrassed to state [the] goal of [deracialization of the ownership of productive property] as nakedly as we should” (quoted in Saul, 2001, 27).

Perhaps echoing the demands of the Black Consciousness Movement, Eze (1997) states a project of "mental reconstruction" is needed, a tarrying with the negative which reigns in the "Absolute West" or the "West in us" (341-3). Such reconstruction or rewriting of the past has taken different forms. Far from relying on a retreat into an authentic traditional past--unadulterated by Western liberal rights notions--hybrid contestations arise. Spivak (1996) notes that Black South African feminists have rewritten customary law in the wake of the new nonracial, nonsexist constitution in such a way that tradition actually serves as a catalyst for change. In the aftermath of the UN conference on women in Beijing 1995, sexist interpretations of customary law are increasingly challenged by feminists in the Global South (cf. Narayan, 1997, Rothschild, 2000). Spivak notes further, "In order to confront the internalized gendering of the subaltern female, in order for their entry into citizenship, that effort is really something that all so-called global feminists should look at very carefully, without confusing their own internalized gendering for the lineaments of the feminine as such" (Spivak, 1996, emphasis in original, 308). Yet, Brigitte Mabandla (1995) who took part in the constitutional negotiations notes more cautiously: "Customary law, distorted along Calvinistic lines by colonial powers and interpreted by chiefs who were arms of the colonial administration, helped to hold women firmly in a subordinate position within the African family" (p.69). She recounts that women living under customary law during the constitutional debates in the early1990s. Despite the fact that it was an enormous struggle to gain equality protections for women, state feminism is not quite a reality in the new South Africa. In December 2000, in the aftermath of a major AIDS conference held in Durban, South Africa, the Mbeki government finally agreed to make available anti-retroviral drugs to HIV positive pregnant women. They were denied treatment before, because of utilitarian concerns--why, after all, give more than palliative care to a terminally ill patient? It is impossible, and at times undesirable, to "write out" the West in toto. The subaltern subject still faces grave challenges for seeking affirmation of her human rights.

Another demand of mental reconstruction is undoubtedly the call for reparations from the colonial empires. Despite pressures from US delegates, the African regional preparatory committee (on the 3d UN conference on racism) put forth strong language that condemns slavery, the legacy of colonialism, and the need for former colonial powers to pay restitution in addition to issuing apologies.[12] In the end, the United States walked out of the conference over the Palestinian question, and soon the entire conference fell into oblivion because of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

South Africa is complimented for its pursuit of reconciliation not vengeance against the apartheid oppressors. In the spirit of a negotiated peaceful transition, the ANC leadership agreed to a commission that would be committed to granting amnesty. In a way the Truth and Reconciliation Commission turned out to be a brilliant carrot and stick strategy; it promises relief to victims at the same time that it manages dissent. In fact, G-7 countries demanded the formation of a TRC before they would commit any loans to the ANC government. The Commission heard testimonies from over 21,000 victims and some 7,000 people applying for amnesty; interestingly enough, the majority of those petitioning for amnesty were ANC members and not whites who served in the security apparatus of the apartheid regimes. Originally, survivors were told that they may get reparation grants ranging from R17,000 to R21,000 per person per year, for six years, according to TRC member Pieter Meiring (2000, 193-5). Yet, in 2003, the government distributed a lump sum payment of a mere R20,000 per person to some 18,000 people. Meiring highlights the promises of the process, of “healing” and thus gives account only of testimonies of heroic forgiveness by many mothers: “The aged Xhosa woman who in East London told the terrible story of her fourteen-year-old child’s being tortured and killed, spoke on behalf of many others: “Oh, yes, Sir, it was worth the trouble!” (194). Critics of the process prefer to tell another tale: Charity Kondile is asked for forgiveness by Dirk Coetzee. Kondile’s lawyer responds to his quest: “You said that you would like to meet Mrs Kondile and look her in the eye. She asked me to tell you that she feels it is an honour … you do not deserve. If you are really sorry, you would stand trial for the deeds you did.” To which Mrs. Kondile adds, importantly: “It is easy for [Nelson] Mandela and [Desmond] Tutu to forgive … they live vindicated lives. In my life nothing, not a single thing has changed since my son was burnt by barbarians … nothing. Therefore I cannot forgive.”[13]

Clowning and Refusal: Writing Critical Histories

New traumas are piled up daily in front of the Angel of History. 1) Black empowerment means Black embourgeoisement, according to Thabo Mbeki, a self-described Thatcherite who continues to carry out the negotiated settlement between G-7 countries and former President Mandela to pay all of the apartheid debt and to make South Africa "investment friendly" (Saul, passim).

2) Neoliberalism reaches its tentacles into all facets of government, including prison management. Wackenhut corporation secured a $250 million deal for a new private prison in Louis Trichardt (Martin, 2001, 1).

3) Dissenters will be punished if they cannot be “bought.” Mzwakhe Mbuli, an anti-apartheid freedom fighter, has been arrested and imprisoned, because, as many suspect, of his outright critique of Mbeki's abandonment of the plight of the poor. From prison, or as Angela Davis has put it aptly, "from the slavery of prison," Mbuli has released a new EMI album entitled "Born Free but Always in Chains."[14]

So we must ask again, how much worth is a Black life in the liberated South Africa? Despite availability of condom dispersers in prisons, HIV infection rates are shockingly high among prisoners. In the streets of Cape Town, men who suffer from Tuberculosis sell their saliva to healthy, unemployed people, who willingly infect themselves--in hopes to collect welfare grants from the government.[15] In the international, mainstream press, one reads about a “new apartheid” taking shape: The German paper, Der Stern, ran a feature story on South Africa’s cops running amok. It noted that anti-black racism is alive today and worse than during Apartheid. Between 1960 and 1994 the police tortured to death and/or shot at capture 2700 Black Africans; between 1995 and 2000, the police killed over 2000 people (Frank, 49/2000; p.100).

What is left of the militancy of Cosatu (Congress of South African Trade Unions), the AFL-CIO equivalent of South Africa’s union movement? Are they a pawn of the government to be used at their leisure for mass demonstrations? Is the government divided over its relationship with the union? On May 10^th 2000, the union organized a national strike against new taxation and, ironically, ANC's secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe not only supported the strike but encouraged the unionists to "hate capitalism" (cf. Saul, 45). Yet, as one commentator put it, cynically “The [communist] ministers have … gone beyond speaking left and acting right. They are in fact increasingly both speaking and acting right."[16] It is no longer clear whether the ANC or the Communist Party enjoys mass electoral support given that 50% of the populace didn't vote during Dec 2000 municipal elections, and in Soweto, the Democratic Alliance, which includes the Afrikaner National Party, received 7% among Black voters! A widespread voter disaffection and profound sense of disillusion occurred when the former oppressors, who ran a racist anti-crime campaign, get more than 5% of Black votes in a multi party election.

Yet, one can’t help but note a certain clowning: In recent skirmishes over payment of electricity in the township of Soweto, Eskom, the monopoly company, is desparately attempting to control non-payment of bills and illegal reconnections done by residents and bribed electricians. Eskom's debt collection problems have a long history dating back to the early 1990s when township residents boycotted rate payments. The tactics of resistance are difficult to unlearn: “It is the African National Congress that put us in this mess when they told us to boycott rates payments ... now they are not coming forward to help us,” says Virginia Setshedi, deputy-chair of the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee.[17]

To conclude with Matustik’s poignant remark: “There is time for clowning and refusal, performance and determinate action, singular transgressions and agencies in coalitions and solidarity, play and revolution. Their joint venture (a multidialectic) conserves subversive hope for justice, indeed, raises specters of liberation” (xi). Nowhere does this concerted effort have more salience than in the new South Africa--among those who are resisting the “second enslavement.”[18]

Notes

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[1] Undoubtedly, this is a complex issue for the South African Black elite, the Talented Tenth, many of whom were anti-apartheid activists in exile or in the country. Nobody examplifies this dilemma (of uplifting the community at the same time that one is annointed as race manager, as buffer) more than Mamphele Ramphele, who was recently appointed as Managing Director of the World Bank in Washington DC. A former Black Consciousness activist, Ramphele opened health cliniques which were routinely shut down by the apartheid government; she endured banning and continued harrassment while fighting to keep her community cliniques open (cf. Duley Moloi, “Building the Community” Tribute 2000, pp. 58-63). On a Black feminist critique of the Talented Tenth, see Joy James Transcending the Talented Tenth (Routledge, 1997).

[2] Quoted in "Was it a racist lynching?", NYT 9/2/2000. For a good discussion on the effects of neo-liberalist policies in South Africa, see John Saul, "Cry for the Beloved Country," Monthly Review 52, (January 2001), pp. 1-51. According to a mid-1990s survey, the gap between the poorest and richest groups is widening, at the same time the gap between Blacks and whites are somewhat narrowing. Expenditure shares give a telling picture: the poorest 60 percent of the households spends a mere 14 percent whereas the richest quintile spends a whopping 69 percent (cited in Saul, p. 12).

[3] See Walter Benjamin, Thesis IX. “Theses on the Philosophy of History” in Illuminations (edited and introduced by Hannah Arendt, NY: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 253-64.

[4] February 14 really stands synecdochically for the trauma of bombardement and invasion of her beloved city by the Soviets--whom she never could quite accept as liberators even though she looked sufficiently Russian to the Soviet soldiers, and thus she didn't have to fear reprisals.

[5] In his keynote speech at Cornell University, Desmond Tutu proclaimed that the TRC was a miracle and South Africans’ gift to the world, April 2000.

[6] See Darrel Moellendorf for a critique of the court’s decision, “Amnesty, Truth and Justice: Azapo,” South African Journal on Human Rights, 2000?, pp. 283-91.

[7] Despite Black empowerment policies, white South Africans control most of the print media. Anti-Black racist (in overt or exoticized, covert form) messages on bill boards are displayed on highways in major urban centers, such as Johannesburg or Pretoria.

[8] “Into the 21^st Century: Reconstruction and Reparations,” sponsored by the International Third World Legal Studies Association, New York and the Community Peace Program, School of Government, University of the Western Cape, January 5, 2001.

[9] On the South African radical viewpoint on seattle and its aftermath, see Patrick Bond “The Two Trevors go to Washington” (??) and “Globalization from Below” (Znet, March 18, 2001).

[10] It is however not clear whether the SA government will make retroviral medicine available at no cost. See Rachel L. Swarns, “Despite Legal Victory, South Africa Hesitates on AIDS Drugs,” New York Times (www.nyt.com), accessed April 21, 2001.

[11] Saul notes that the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission names Buthelezi as carrying responsibility for gross human rights, yet this was of little consequence. He continues to enjoy the support of the ANC government and has acted at times as Acting-State President during the absences of President Mandela and his Deputy President Thabo Mbeki (Saul, p. 11)

[12] Onaje Mu’id, personal communication, February 2000. Mu’id is International Commissioner for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA).

[13] Quoted in Moellendorf, p. 286.

[14] Elie Libro, "Mzwakhe Mbuli: People's Poet Busted on False Charges" Blu 4, 1999, pp. 4-5.

[15] Dr. Nono Similele, AIDS campaign director for the SA Health ministery, personal communication (January 2001).

[16] Ebrahim Harvey, “Communist ministers: Friend or Foe?” The Mail & Guardian, April 6, 2001. www.mg.co.za (April 19, 2001 accessed). He notes further: “President Thabo Mbeki's purpose is to strengthen the SACP's ability to exercise executive control over Cosatu on behalf of the government. Mbeki has tied up the party to this end. As a result, the SACP has been central to carrying out the programme of neoliberalism in South Africa. With such communist leaders the working class does not need capitalist enemies.”

[17] Glenda Daniels, “Soweto Power Cuts to be Challenged” The Mail & Guardian, April 11, 2001. www.mg.co.za (April 11, 2001 accessed).

[18] I am indebted to Lehlohonolo Moagi for the coinage of this term.