Seth Allot, dear man, has been staying with us for more than a fortnight. In private, I dub him Professor in Residence, which is false. In public, I call him Professor Emeritus, which is true. Personally, I would like him to stay for as long as he can. I think my Bestie agrees, but, as we say, only Noah knows.
The learned professor is not just clever; he is funny, too. Over dinner, Terence (my son, you may remember) vaguely wondered why Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality had been renamed in this way.
“Every city, every road, every park will, with the passage of time, be renamed after him,” said Seth. “Renaming is what they do, and who better than the sainted one to supply the inspiration? We’ll have Mandela City One, Two, Three, and so on. Streets will follow a similar pattern, being distinguished by the direction of travel: Mandela St W-E or N-S – you get the picture. Streets on the diagonal may cause a problem, I suppose, but they can be called after Winnie.”
The professor pauses. There is reflection in the golden eye. “Actually, I lie. Not everything. Thabazimbi will not be renamed, and nor will Cyrildene. They are commemorative enough and will continue to bear witness when memories dim with time. False prophets can profit us too.”
“Well,” says Terence, “why should we object? I mean, to the victors go the spoils.” Terence has begun saying things like this. They are symptoms of a wokeness yet to be cured. He has had the dread condition since school, where they jeeringly called him “Twat”. Schoolboys can be unkind.
Horror of horrors, the talk turns to “Race Relations in South Africa”. I give it this portentous title, though it is hardly warranted; by doing so, I mean to convey only that this is not the usual chit-chat, peppered with “they” and “thems”, you get at the average braai in Cyrildene or shisanyama in Thabazimbi. This is a serious discussion.
Terence is to blame. That politics, sex, and religion are taboo at meals is a principle I drummed into him from birth. But Terence the Woke, aspirant Hereward the Wake, is unplayable, and not the frostiest of glares from me will stop him.
The prof, you see, is a Black person, and Terence wants to know what Black people think. Terence believes that affirmative action is “a good thing”, and says as much.
The prof is an obliging Black person. Some might say he is so obliging as to be an Uncle Tom. Not I. For me, he is a great guy, and the Tom he deserves to be compared with is the revered American intellectual, Tom Sowell. “Sowell, No Fine” rings feelingly in my ears.
“Not remedial, but racialist”
Obligingly, the prof says, “Terry, you may be right. Maybe affirmative action is a good idea. Maybe we do need measures designed to remedy the wrongs of our apartheid past. But the laws now in place are not designed to do this. They are not remedial, but racialist.”
“Racist? Surely not!” cries Terence.
“No, I said ‘racialist’. ‘Racist’ is pejorative, implying an intention to denigrate. This is precisely not what I am suggesting. What I am saying is that the measures are racialist. Racialist measures are neither good nor bad, morally speaking, but simply ones that use race as their touchstone.
“Let me give you an example of racialism. Singapore is a racialist society. Its constitution divides its people into four groups – Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others – and mandates a distribution of benefits by reference to the size of each group. The underlying concern of this social engineering is to create and maintain societal stability in an island once riven by inter-racial strife. The system can work, and it certainly has worked there. Worked so well, indeed, that a country which was previously the world’s second poorest is now one of the richest.
“Sounds good,” says Terence. “Why don’t we employ it here?”
“Strictly speaking, we can’t. Our Constitution expressly forbids all race-based measures except those designed to remedy past race-based discrimination. Plainly, a system that contemplates preference for whites when demographically underrepresented cannot be brought within the exception. I mean, whites were never the subject of systemic racial discrimination in this country.
“Not that anyone is much troubled by the Constitution. Within the field of race relations, our rulers do much as they please.
“Take, for instance, the Employment Equity Act. It compels employers to divide the workforce by race – Black, white, coloured and Asian – and strives to ensure that each group proportionally reflects the national demographic. This system, a replica of the Singapore model, is social engineering par excellence and completely unconcerned with past disadvantage.”
Clanking sound
“Why do you say that?” asks Terence. When the scales begin falling from a man’s eyes, the clanking sound can be perceptible.
“Forgive me,” says the ever-obliging professor. “Under a social engineering system of this sort, each race must be proportionately represented at every level in the workplace. Incidentally, the same is true of the sexes and the disabled, but I am concentrating on race just for now. It follows that if whites fall below the applicable percentage in any given echelon, they must be given preference in hiring and firing.
“Since whites were not disadvantaged by past discrimination … um, but I have made my point.”
Terence looks unhappy. When you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, being forced to vomit it up again is an unhappy experience. “But if, as you say, the Constitution forbids such a regime, why don’t the courts act to stop it? Why don’t activist groups like Whatitsname – yes, that’s it, AfriForum – challenge it before our judges?”
“They have, but without much success.”
“So, you must be wrong!” says Terence triumphantly.
“Perhaps they are, but their fidelity to law is a matter for another night,” answers the ever-obliging Professor.
He is politic enough to ignore Terence’s rudeness. I am not. Later that evening, I take Terence aside and upbraid him. “How could you?” I expostulate. “Surely I have taught you to behave better than this.”
“Oh my!” he wails. “Was I really so rude? And to a Black man, too.”
“You are a lost cause,” I exclaim. “It’s bad enough that you have the Woke virus, but to suffer from negrophilia too is just terrible.
“The cure is well-known, at least to crones like me. It consists of two pills, white in colour, to be taken with a glass of milk, white in colour, after breakfast every day for a month. This is not black magic.” I smile wanly. Telling off an adult member of the family, especially the fruit of my loins, needs a sugar-coating to the bitter pill.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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