Karen

In the new office space I’ve been donated, I ran into a South African woman called Karen. It happens very frequently when I encounter white South Africans that they will lament the current state of the country, using examples such as the power crisis which is resulting in electricity rationing nationwide. The undertone, often not subtle, is that majority rule and black emancipation have damaged the country and it’s on a downward spiral.

Present day South Africa is indeed very complicated. I find these complaints very difficult to stomach because they imply a deep ignorance of how systematic control, disempowerment and abuse of 80% of a population will shape how it operates when equal rights are eventually granted.

I think my point would be typically countered by that standard conservative response of giving an example of someone who has pulled him or herself up by their bootstraps, and saying that anyone could do the same. Of course, they couldn’t, because opportunities are always limited for a group that has been so oppressed. Disadvantage and barriers at a population level are never acknowledged enough by conservatives (both big and little C, in the case of the UK).

It is shoddy reasoning at the best of times but is particularly ignorant in the case of South Africa. I’m reading a refreshing book that tells South African history from the perspective of all groups, not just settlers. Over centuries, non-white people in the territories that became South Africa had their family structures obliterated and were violently oppressed, relocated, exploited, prosecuted, deprived of resources and only allowed to access a tiny fraction of the state’s services. It was all grounded in the racist notion that European settlers were inherently superior and were put in place to tame more savage people. At the end of apartheid the gulf between white and non-white wealth and stability was incredibly high. Any rational person would not have expected the transition to be smooth, but they should unequivocally support the idea of a functioning democracy with equal opportunities for all over anything that came before. South Africa shouldn’t be viewed as a fully functioning country for the period in which the vast majority of its people were deprived of basic dignity.

Of all people, white South Africans should ‘lean in’ to their past and be careful of perpetuating a theory of white superiority. I’ve talked to multiple people in this region where the original settler mindset is barely hidden. If the unjust past isn’t factored into someone’s reasoning, it feels very much like they are wishing for a return to the past system, favouring 24-hour electricity over fundamental rights for all.

This particular Karen also launched into a tirade about how Biden is a much worse option than Trump, citing the same kind of trash that Fox News would spew. By that point I’d well and truly disengaged from wanting to listen to her.

Seeing these election posters reminded me of a related conversation with a young Mozambican. He was lamenting the Mozambican government for its chaos and corruption. Mozambique has significant problems, however, again, the people of Mozambique were oppressed and controlled by Portugal for centuries, and then abandoned overnight. To be fewer than 30 years since its first democratic election and to be making strides forward, is a good achievement. Self-belief will be one of Mozambique’s most important tools. The same goes for anyone battling oppression, who has to listen to the rhetoric of their oppressors, criticising the lack of progress, the day after some hard won battles for legal rights have been fought. The world’s traditional upholders of power are utterly clueless in understanding how easy their journey has been, relative to others.