I try not to get involved in day-to-day bickering among the nattering class. Beside the fact that there are people better qualified, I just have no appetite for it. The most recent noise generated by a single question put to a politician by the editor of a newspaper caused me to rewrite this column – quite considerably.

The Twitter exchange between the editor of Beeld, Adriaan Basson, and the Minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, brought forward, again, the spurious claim that all criticism of a black person, by a white person, is racist. This strengthens the hands of identity brokers and people who would tell us how to be black… Nonetheless, when I first read Mbalula’s response, I let out a series of expletives which I cannot fully share. It may be construed as being rude. I am, after all, from Eldorado Park. In short, though, I suggested that Mbalula take his nobody-can-touch-me attitude, and rend and torture himself anally.

As one of the neo-sub-altern peoples of the post-Apartheid order and, because I am not in the ANC, it is probably dangerous to confront Mbalula directly. Apparently anything intelligent causes his yellow-green bile to rise… So, let me try to be nice and elevate the discussion, briefly, as I have tried over past couple of months in this column. Let me first lift the discussion away from the name-calling, personalised attacks, and baiting that characterise our politics.

I sincerely hope there will be a time, someday, when the tug of moral sentiments is laid bare as the grand money-making racket it has become, and we can discuss our hopes and dreams, our fears, and the future we want for the next generation without reference to ‘white people’. I hope, also, that we will, someday, discuss our own failings, our shortcomings and our insecurities, without reference to or relative to ‘white people’. I hope, then, that ‘white people’ cease to be the reference point in our present, and our future; that we can see ourselves for who we are, and for what we are. Intelligent readers will, I imagine, not read this as an appeal for an atomist and ahistorical existence. The rest can make up any stories they like.

Let me bridge, then, the public and personal sociological divide. On a personal note, two points of clarity are in order, here. First, I have nothing against white people. This is not to say that I have forgotten about Apartheid, European slavery and the structural violence of migrant and indentured labour. Actually, the ruling elite are the only people who seem to believe that ‘the Struggle’ and South Africa’s history, in general, started when the ANC was launched in 1912, and that nobody else’s history has any meaning or relevance.

Second, I don’t need white people (or anybody, actually) to validate me. I don’t need special (favourable) consideration just because I am black. Most importantly, with specific reference to the topic discussed, here, I am not paranoid or neurotic about a white person criticising me. I will not reach for that deck of cards that says: ‘Use one of these when you have nothing better to say, when you run out of excuses, or when you’re caught in flagrante delicto’.

I am as flawed and insecure as the next person, and will not consider myself to be beyond criticism. I have also not arrogated to myself the benefit of eternal innocence. I did, however, take quite seriously the words of Steve Biko, relayed to me by Muntu Myeza, more than 30 years ago, when he said, liberate yourself, first, don’t look to white people to liberate you. To which I added, later: “Don’t allow yourself to be validated by anyone”. I am, therefore, perfectly capable of walking across a room and engaging another human being as an equal. Again, I hasten to add, this does not mean that there are not millions of South Africans who have unimaginably difficult lives because of purposeful and thoroughly oppressive policies, and not the result of untouchable ‘market forces’.

If, however, we continue to use ‘white people’ as a convenient crutch, or to prop up the cash register of ‘transformation’ and ‘liberation’ we’re setting ourselves up to fail – horribly. The signs are already there. Being black, and wielding our blackness as a weapon, or a shield from criticism should not absolve us (eternally) from any and all misconduct. To suggest that any and all criticism, or any questioning of our conduct is always necessarily driven by racism, conveniently reproduces myths about our primordial (and eternal) innocence. The implication that others cannot ask critical questions (and only our own kind may) strengthens the validating powers that our ‘others’ have over us. It suggests that we cannot possibly be guilty of anything (good or bad), unless someone or the right people validate/invalidate us. This is the most toxic of inside-outside politics; it is what has historically led to pogroms, genocides, the holocaust and ethnic cleansing.

The question that was put to Mbalula by Basson ought to have been unexceptional and inconsequential. All politicians can be questioned about what may seem like excessive spending – especially in poor countries and societies with vast inequalities all the way through, as in South Africa. Mbalula’s response became, simultaneously, a Shakespearian protest, exceptional and expedient. He created a ruse.

Mbalula protested a bit too much, and he placed himself beyond scrutiny and criticism, only because the questioner was white. Actually, Mbalula made a bigger deal of his being black. In doing so, he allowed Basson to validate him, as a black person. I am quite sure that Basson never intended to do that. He had every right, as a journalist, a citizen and a taxpayer, to question a Cabinet Minister’s expenditure. Basson was not ‘policing black wealth’ the convenient ‘out’ to defend public displays of greed, and the acquisitive society we have become – in the face of unspeakable poverty and inequality.

You see, for as long as the ruling elite have ‘white people’ they have access to that deck of cards. For as long as we, black people, in general, have ‘white people’ we will remain innocent and eternally persecuted. We have secured a monopoly on persecution, and everything that is said to us, or about us, is necessarily racist. Based on Mbalula’s logic we are able to see ourselves only for what we are not; we are not white. By accident or design, then, we allow ourselves to be validated.

It makes one wonder what would happen if all white people, and those whom the ANC considers to be ‘non-African’ disappeared tomorrow. It makes me wonder what would happen if the ANC and its followers removed from South Africa everything that white people, and ‘non-Africans’ did, good or bad, and what type of country we would have. Imagine a country where corruption, crime, violence, greed, nepotism, prebendialism, creeping tribalism, failing state services, and just about everything that besets the country can be placed at the door of the ruling party. Imagine a country where the ANC actually takes responsibility for what has gone wrong in the country over the past twenty years. Imagine that.

For now, though, the innocence of Mbalula and his colleagues is what keeps us from resolving the problems of the country. I daresay that white people are not the problem with South Africa, we black people are; not because we’re black, but because we allow ourselves to be validated by the others in our midst. White people like Basson have no fear of a black country; they have embraced it. A marginal few would retreat into an exclusive white enclave; as evidenced by the Orania experiment.

Sadly, Mbalula is nothing without the presence of white people. He cannot stand on his own, without reference to white people. He is a pathetic man, surrounded by pathetic people whose only redeeming features, by their own account, is that they are not (those) whites. I sincerely long for the day that we, black people, will refer to ourselves and the things we do – the good things and the bad things – without reference to white people. That is what Steve Biko (through Muntu Myeza) taught me, all those years ago. DM