“A time for reflection,” says Noah.
Reflection? Camping it up, I studiedly turn to face the looking glass. “Am I drooling, one gobbet at a time, from one side of my mouth?” I ask, with mock concern. “Is there some greenish shnarlie dangling repulsively from my nostril?”
“Stop it,” says Noah, “you know exactly what I mean.” I do. I look for the exit, but it is blocked by my bestie’s burly frame.
“It is Freedom Day. We should be listening to rousing speeches telling us how lucky we are. Perverse as ever, you refuse to do this.”
“I do. Frankly — ‘I’d be equally as willing / For a dentist to be drilling ….’”
“Yes, yes,” snaps Noah. “But Henry Higgins has come and gone, and we are here. Reflecting. It’s Freedom Day and, if you won’t listen to orations, the very least you can do is reflect.”
Pre-transition, Noah was a struggle lawyer who fought apartheid doughtily, if not mightily. The experience has seared into his soul and, for him, the struggle continues. A luta continua, he constantly reminds us by both word and deed, is not a transitional piece in a musical composition.
“Let’s start with the state of the State.”
“Yes, let’s,” I interject. “Here’s a plus. We have a president who is not a Marxist, a cabinet that is communist only in name, and legislators who think Socialism is the ideological name for a system of socialising.
“As far as I can see, they think Johnny Walker Black is an affirmative action beverage, and Carling Black Label too. Too comatose to think, they do nothing, so nothing bad happens. In vino, stabilitas.”
“Glib as ever,” says Noah. “But much has been achieved. Blacks are now well integrated into our commercial and political life. That’s no small thing after centuries of exclusion. The black middle class has grown dramatically.”
“Yes,” I say. “They have achieved this either on merit or by race-based preferencing. The former is admirable; the latter is the government’s doing. Unfortunately, we cannot always tell which is which. The quality of performance and service delivery in many areas remains dismal.”
“Slammed shut for generations”
“I agree performance has often been poor,” Noah concedes, “but you cannot dismiss the structural barriers that still exist. BEE, preferential procurement and the other race-based measures were designed to open doors that were slammed shut for generations. Without some form of targeted intervention, genuine integration would have taken far longer.”
“They are not truly remedial,” I counter. “I’ve looked into this. The law creates no preference for Blacks in general. It favours only citizens who happen to be black — South African nationals. It offers nothing to black residents or immigrants who suffered under apartheid but lack citizenship.”
“So?” Noah replies, a trifle taken aback but recovering quickly. “Citizenship is a reasonable boundary. Every country limits its redress policies to its own people. Extending it beyond that would be unworkable and open to massive abuse.”
“Perhaps,” I say, “but why make citizenship the criterion if the goal is repairing past racial harms? Citizens can vote. This looks like a vote-catching exercise dressed up as justice.”
“Nonsense,” says Noah firmly. “It’s practical politics, yes, but that doesn’t make the underlying need any less real. Every democracy uses policy to build electoral support while addressing historical injustice. The Afrikaners did it for decades in their favour.”
I am on a roll. “Dividing people to garner support is as old as politics. The National Party did it; the ANC has perfected it. Ramaphosa can’t help himself. He speaks proudly of ‘my people’ as though he represents only blacks — those who are not white.”
“Good God,” says Noah. “Non-white. Nie-blankes. I suppose the more things change…” He pauses. “But it’s not the same. The old system enforced exclusion by law. Today’s policies aim at inclusion, however imperfectly. And yes, there has been elite capture — too much of it. But that doesn’t invalidate the broader transformation.”
“No pencil-in-curly-hair test”
“Not quite the same, true,” I reply. “Under the present law, there is no pencil-in-curly-hair test, no appearance test at all. People self-categorise. If I wanted to, I could declare myself black.”
“Surely the inspectorate prevents abuse?” Noah asks sceptically.
“The inspectorate is expressly limited. Only a court can rule on such disputes, and almost no one challenges it. Funnily enough, very few whites try to game the system the other way.”
“Hardly surprising,” Noah says dryly. “Most whites see it as morally repellent to manipulate race for advantage. But the system has worked in one sense: blacks are now ubiquitous in commerce, politics, and the professions.”
“True, but who profits most? The insiders. Cyril is worth about $450 million — roughly eight billion rand at past rates. Many ministers and connected cadres have done very well indeed. Some call them muti-millionaires. I prefer ‘judicious share trading, Cyril-ic scrip.’ Meanwhile, ordinary people pay the price. The country stagnates, unemployment hovers around 31–32% officially — and far higher when including discouraged workers — and inequality remains stark.”
Noah sighs. “Elite enrichment is a real failure, and service delivery has been shocking in places. But painting the entire project as mere vote-catching ignores the genuine progress: a growing black professional class, black-owned businesses that didn’t exist before, and a constitution that enshrines equality. Without some form of redress, resentment could have torn the country apart. The challenge now is to move beyond rigid racial criteria toward need-based and merit-based policies as the playing field levels.”
“Why are we having this discussion?” Noah asks with a half-smile.
“You brought it up,” I retort. “Something in your upbringing, no doubt.”
At the Bar
“So this is your theory,” says Noah, summing up as he once did at the Bar. “Racial preferencing, because it hinges on citizenship and self-declaration, is less about healing old wounds than about opportunistic vote-catching that entrenches division. On Freedom Day, the rhetoric about the ‘previously disadvantaged’ serves mainly to prop up an ailing party.”
“Something like that,” I say. “Though I’ll grant you this: the board is more mixed than it was in 1994.”
“But enough. Let’s play a game.”
“Draughts,” suggests Noah. “At least the board is flat and blacks and whites start evenly distributed.”
“Yes,” I reply, “until someone’s clever moves turn ordinary pieces into kings.”
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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