Over the Christmas period a black family phoned the Azure Restaurant, at the 12 Apostles Hotel, in Cape Town, and tried to book a table. The caller was told that a table was available and was asked for a name. When he gave the name, clearly that of a black, he was told that, well, oops, sorry, there actually was no table available. Suspecting racism, the family asked a white friend to call and make a reservation for six people at the same time. She was told that a table was available. She booked the table. The black family reluctantly went to the restaurant. On their arrival they were told that there had been a mistake and there was no booking under the white friends name. They were offered a table in a private room, away from the main dining area and from other diners. When the restaurant was called to account, the 12 Apostles general manager, Michael Nel, said that the incident was due to an unfortunate reservations error. The answer is ridiculous at so many levels: the first call to the restaurant clearly illustrates that there it has a policy of barring black people. The familys treatment on their arrival shows that such a policy is enforced. The fact that such racist practices still exist in South Africa is depressing. What is worse, though, is this: visit Azure restaurant any time this week and you will find the place packed with ordinary - white, because, presumably, blacks are not welcome - South Africans drinking and supping without a care in the world. Many will know the story I have recounted; it has been carried extensively on radio and in the newspapers. But they will still give their money to this establishment. Late last year the Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr tweeted that, in his opinion, black people were the architects of apartheid. This is the sort of thing Holocaust denialists say regarding Jews. Yet few said much about this outrageous statement until Conrad Koch, in his guise as the puppet political analyst Chester Missing, called Hofmeyr out. Over and above the silence about Hofmeyrs tweet, though, was the fact that corporate South Africa did not mind associating itself with him. Supermarket group Pick n Pay and Land Rover were sponsors of an Afrikaans music festival at which Hofmeyr was to perform. Confronted by Koch about their sponsorship of Hofmeyr, Pick n Pay first said: Pick n Pays reputation for publicly and strongly opposing racism speaks for itself. We are a contracted sponsor of AIG and support Afrikaans music, not individuals. Wow. Only after intense pressure did the company finally say it was reviewing its future sponsorship of the festival. Why couldnt it have done this in the beginning? Because what Hofmeyr said was against everything we stand for in South Africa. It was racist, a description that is non-negotiable. Racism, and the descent of debates into accusations of racism, have taken centre stage in South Africa recently. In Western Cape racist incidents, with attacks on black people in so-called white suburbs, are on the rise. How does one move beyond these racist eruptions to a conversation that helps us solve our most urgent problems - poverty, unemployment, inequality - in the fastest time possible? The new South Africa turns 21 this year. It is an incredibly short time since that glorious day in 1994 when we voted in the first non-racial elections and said goodbye to 46 years of apartheid rule and more than 300 years of colonialism. No one said our journey would be easy. No one said it would be perfect. No one said there would be no setbacks. It seems to me that, first, all of us need to acknowledge the deep effect that apartheid racism had on us. No one should ever tell a fellow South African that it is all in the past. It is with us every day and everywhere. No one should ever make light of what apartheid did to black South Africans and no one should underestimate what it did to the white South African psyche. In my life, every day reminds me of how terrible that system was, how unjust. We are a wounded nation, and 21 years of non-racial democracy has come nowhere close to healing us. That means we should not be scared by the racist attacks, the racial debates, the racist Twitter wars erupting around us. That is part of growing up - if we use these things constructively to extract good out of the bad. Here is what I believe is still the truth of our country, one that we do not acknowledge enough: Do not underestimate the strides we have made in these 21 years. We are in a very different country to the one we entered in 1994. It will be even better in 21 years time if we use these racist outpourings to focus us on building a better South Africa. -- Justice Malala |
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:16:08 +0000
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