Black Economic Empowerment, or BEE, was defined in the 2001 Commission Report as an integrated and coherent socio-economic process.
It is aimed at redressing the imbalances of the past by seeking to substantially and equitably transfer and confer the ownership, management and control of South Africa’s financial and economic resources to the majority of its citizens. It seeks to ensure broader and meaningful participation in the economy by black people to achieve sustainable development and prosperity.
In 2007 the new Codes of Good Practice of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment were gazette, which included the definition of the beneficiaries of BEE. This definition states that “black people” is a generic term which means Black Africans, Coloureds and Indians.
There are probably few people who would quibble with the basic standpoint of BEE, namely to give redress to people who were unfairly victimised in the past, in particular by the racist policies of the Nationalist Party government.
However, perhaps the most amazing aspect of BEE legislation is the fact that it is based on a premise which is undefined, namely race. There are also other laws which have this requirement, and one would therefore assume that it is quite important that this characteristic is specified. Nonetheless, it seems that everyone is supposed to know instinctively to what race they belong – an inviolate, self-evident truth.
No official document such as an ID, passport or driver’s licence specifies the holder’s race, and in the 2011 census individuals could choose for themselves if they were black, coloured, white, Indian/Asian or ‘Other’. There was no reference which could be applied, and people could decide for themselves to which race they belonged, or if they wanted they could select ‘Other’. In fact, in 2011 there were 280 454 South Africans who listed their race as ‘Other’.
Race classification
Of course, the legislation assumes that somehow race will define whether a person is descended from the indigenous people who lived in South Africa historically, or else was discriminated against during apartheid. These are the so-called ‘black people’.
On the other hand, even a brief look at history will reveal the manner in which people have mixed over the centuries – and not necessarily by consent. Of particular importance in this context is the slave trade, and more specifically the Arab slave trade, where people were captured along the African east coast.
This Arab slave trade began in the seventh century and continued into the twentieth century – slavery was only abolished in Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962. Mombasa in Kenya was a former slave-trading port, with the major slave trade destinations the Middle East, Arabia and as far east as India and Pakistan. In addition, by the 1850s in Zanzibar there were more than sixty thousand slaves involved in the labour-intensive cultivation of cloves.
Extensive signs of trade
There was also contact with the peoples of India, China and the Middle East for direct trade. Finds of pottery and ninth century glass beads attest to this involvement, and from around 1100 the Shashe-Limpopo basin emerged as a major centre in the networks that brought in such beads and cloth in exchange for ivory, gold, and other produce. Mapungubwe in what is today Limpopo flourished for more than a century from around 1220, with extensive signs of trade through the East African coast. People of different cultural and economic backgrounds mixed and were involved in a complex socio-political environment in the region – most were Bantu-speaking, but also included the San.
Then around 1300 Greater Zimbabwe became the major centre of political power: it could offer traders gold and ivory, as well as copper from northern Zimbabwe and tin from Limpopo. Its contacts extended north into modern Tanzania, and a successful agricultural economy developed to support the sizeable population.
Interestingly, the National Geographic Genographic Project lists the Khoisan as a reference population group containing perhaps some of the oldest populations in Africa, with a unique genetic pattern that sets them apart from most other African groups. However, even here there is a 3% origin listed in Southern Asia.
It is therefore likely that a number of those fighters who run around in their red colonial berets also have ancestry in the East.
The European involvement started in the 15th century after the exploratory voyages of Vasco da Gama, culminating in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck started a refreshment station at the Cape. The lands of the original inhabitants of the Cape, the Khoi and the San were expropriated by the settlers, but mixing occurred at all levels. A particular example is that of Eva Krotoa, whose descendants include such well-established names as Barendse, Basson, De Villiers, Du Plooy, Geldenhuys, Louw, Van Jaarsveld, Van Niekerk, Zaaiman and others.
When the so-called Trekboers moved east from the Cape they continued to mix freely with the Khoisan and later the Xhosa. The Afrikaans language developed, and in 2013, 14% of the South African population chose Afrikaans as home language, with only Zulu (23%) and Xhosa (16%) having more adherents. As a comparison, English was at 11%.
So it is clear that South Africans have a very mixed descent, and this also applies to who should be considered as descendants of the original people living in southern Africa. Many so-called ‘whites’ can trace their ancestry in Africa back to before Van Riebeeck.
A well-known example is Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, or Paul Kruger, President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900. He was a descendent of Catharina van Bengale, also known as Groote Catrijn, one of the slaves from Bengal on the Coromandel Coast of India. FW de Klerk also counts as remote ancestors slaves from Africa, India, Indonesia, and Madagascar, while Walter Sisulu’s mother was a Xhosa domestic worker and his father was ‘white’.
Race as an identifier
The question then is why do successive governments insist on using race as an identifier to benefit sections of the population. The answer clearly lies in the fact that the government in power wants to benefit ‘its’ supporters, who it believes can be identified by race. Hence legislation such as BEE, and previously the whole slew of apartheid policies.
Consequently, advertisements for vacancies specify that African males and females are identified as preferred candidates. As Christian Martin, Khoi-San activist, notes, this leads to ‘the exclusion of Khoi-San and coloured people’, because they are not included in the broad definition of black African applicants. That emphasises the fact that the government is not interested in benefiting the previously disadvantaged groups, but is preferentially advantaging ‘its’ people.
This has also recently been identified in the claim by Glen Snyman, a so-called ‘coloured’ person, that he was an ‘African’. A teacher, Snyman was initially accused of fraud by the Western Cape education authorities when he stated he was an African, rather than coloured, when he applied for a job as a school principal. Apparently he has to request permission to change his race details on the provincial education department system, but it is not clear whether there are any criteria by which this can be done.
With all this racism in government, one wonders whether politicians are capable of looking beyond their own self-interest to the well-being of the country and its inhabitants. Clearly they do not understand what Professor Barney Pityana meant when he said that: ‘race is an artificial construct that should not play a role in our country’s future’.
Or perhaps they do, and specifically go out of their way to benefit themselves.
In the meanwhile, the proponents of BEE should explain how a person who classifies him/herself as ‘Other’ fits into their legislation.
Promoting a better alternative to race-based policy is central to the Racism is NOT The Problem movement established by the IRR recently to confront racial hypocrisy in South Africa, expose the race hustler industry, and slay the myth that racism is the greatest problem facing the country.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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