Johannesburg – Contemporary racism comes dressed in “meandos”. For this reason, we often have to “answer in meandos”. So said former president Jacob Zuma in 2017, birthing a new word during a heated debate in parliament.
Instead of racism, today we speak of “diversity”, “difference”, “intolerance”, “meritocracy”, “prejudice” and “unconscious bias”. Meandos! We are also encouraged to pretend that racism is so rare, we should count up to 10 before daring to call it out.
However, even in these times of racist meandos, paid for by Nandos, the gods do allow for brief moments of biblical revelation when the racist hell in which the majority of South Africans live goes into full-screen and high-definition mode.
The DA’s Phoenix posters in which it compared racists with heroes was one such a moment. For a moment, we saw it doing what it does best – stoking racial fires.
[membership level=”1″]
Of course, many DA leaders would not recognise racism, even if racism came twerking down Adderley Street. Naah. The likes of John Steenhuisen and Helen Zille would probably dance along.
If the recent interview of Steenhuisen and the racist ambushing of One SA Movement spokesperson, Mudzuli Rakhivhane, is anything to go by, then Gareth Cliff would probably join the dirty dance.
Count yourself fortunate if you missed the Nandos-sponsored Cliff and Steenhuisen show in which they attempted to burn Rakhivhane at the stake.
The only decent thing Cliff did in the show was to pronounce Rakhivhane’s name well, pretty amazing for a white man who is not a farm foreman.
Not once did Steenhuisen address Rakhivhane by name. The entire episode reeked of the violence that comes with the purest kind of South African racism.
In his first foray, Steenhuisen blamed the EFF for the DA “manchurian candidate” called Herman Mashaba. As if Mashaba was smuggled into the DA by the EFF. Cliff responded by accusing Mashaba of being on a “mad tear”.
And the bromance of two middle-aged white men was off to an excellent start.
For the rest of the show, the two white males massaged each other’s egos ever so gently, while interrupting Rakhivhane, ever so rudely. Cliff gave Rakhivhane several wrong-headed and condescending mini-lectures about electoral democracy, racism and identity politics.
He also admonished her against being sarcastic – without substantiating how so.
An unconscious acknowledgement of the superiority of her arguments, perhaps? Cliff seemed unable to notice many of the brilliant points made by Rakhivhane, but he was always ready to magnify and amplify Steenhuisen’s.
Characterising the racist posters in Phoenix as “pretty much a non-event”, Cliff emboldened Steenhuisen to issue the most irrational set of non-arguments in defence of the hideous posters.
Rakhivhane stepped in to point out the bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the DA claim to be focussed only on service delivery and not on race like the ANC. Yet, the same DA put up posters in Phoenix which had nothing to do with service delivery and all to do with fuelling racial tensions. Realising that his comrade was losing the argument, Cliff quickly dived into the new laager of South African racists, namely corruption. With a self-assured smirk on his face, he said: “I don’t want … to create a false equivalence between a DA poster and the absolute abhorrent theft of
billions of rands from the coffers of this country.” Cliff went on a rant essentially about how unimportant racism is – when compared to corruption.
Rakhivhane interjected: “You obviously don’t experience the kind of racism that I experience on a daily basis.”
His voice breaking with emotion, Cliff lashed out: “Your personal experiences are completely anecdotal and unimportant to all of us.” Yet Cliff accepted all of Steenhuisen’s personal experiences and anecdotes without a single objection.
Her experiences of racism having been dismissed, Rakhivhane appeared to contemplate walking out.
As she was constantly interrupted, belittled and racially abused, she said to the two white men: “Okay, you can proceed with your conversation then.”
But Cliff lured her back for more abuse. In my opinion, she should have walked out there and then.
But my more honest opinion is that Rakhivhane is an amazing human being, a brilliant law graduate and a great South African woman.
Nandos, Cliff and Steenhuisen have nothing on her.
- Professor Maluleke is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship. Follow him on Twitter @ProfTinyiko
To read more political news and views from this week’s newspaper, click here.
Follow @SundayWorldZA on Twitter and @sundayworldza on Instagram, or like our Facebook Page, Sunday World, by clicking here for the latest breaking news in South Africa. To Subscribe to Sunday World, click here.
Sunday World
[/membership] [pmpro_signup submit_button=”Register” level=”1″ login=”1″ redirect=”referrer” short=”false” title=”Thank you for choosing Sunday World, to read this article for free, please register below at no cost.” short=”true” custom_fields=”true”]
