Subj: #1 :Of Liberals, Eurocentrics and Africans : Some Honest Thoughts

Date: 13/09/97

Subj: Re: Do you really have credibility among Africans ?

Date: 12/09/97

To: hsf@sprintlink.co.za

Dear Mr. R.W. Johnson,

Thank you for your reply. I think though that you may have misunderstood me and therefore I must hasten to assure you that I do recognise your right to think and say whatever you wish.

Thankfully for South Africa, this new government, which as I have recently noticed, you cheerfully described in The Times as " corrupt, incompetent and hegemonic" has not detained or "banned" anybody for thinking or saying whatever he or she wished.

I do myself believe in the democratic right of an individual to freedom of speech and thought.

My bone of contention is the credibility with the African people of South Africa of you and your organisation since your writings - obviously aimed at a European or at least Eurocentric audience - display, even when and where you try or pretend to be even-handed or "liberal" , clear anti-African bias and prejudice - rather like other South African "liberal" institutions and commentators which and whom I do not need to name.

Also those of us who have been familiar with your writings on South African politics in various publications such as The Times over the years will be quite familiar with your many attempts ( thankfully unsuccessful) before the 1994 election to portray the IFP and Mangosuthu Buthelezi as serious contenders for national electoral power.

This was when anyone familiar and honest with South African ( SA) politics - at least politics among the African majority - knew that Inkatha would be mauled in any free election. The IFP was always an ethnic and regional party and was promoted as otherwise by the then government , some western governments, "liberals" , unreconstructed racists, the "white" media and big business as an alternative to the ANC.

It seems to me that you also fail to appreciate or apparently resent the fact that Africans are not and will never be grateful to F.W. de Klerk and the NP for abolishing the laws of apartheid. They never did it out of conviction and they knew it would have inevitably happened anyway. As far as the African people are concerned it was they themselves who defeated apartheid.

It is true, as you said in your reply, that many of the features of the modern state have originated from Europe but what you apparently fail or refuse to appreciate is that , for them to work in South Africa and in Africa in general, they have to operate within an African context simply because the vast majority of people living in Africa are Africans - historically, racially, culturally and socio-psychologically.

This is the reality which the "liberals" of South Africa have always found hard to accept and why Steve Biko argued quite convincingly in his time that these "liberals", the vast majority of benefitted from apartheid as much as , if not more than , the average or even stereotypical "white" Afrikaner, have always been the real enemies of the African people.

The Makgoba affair at Wits University was a clear example. The "threat" of an Africanist academic, who did not accept the supposed supremacy of Eurocentric values and paradigms for South African and wider African economic and political development, exposed many of the "liberal" academics at Wits for what they are and have always been - self-appointed spokesmen for "victims" who get offended and frightened when the "victims" rise above their station and decide to speak for themselves.

The fact remains, obviously to the chagrin of South African "liberals", that South Africa is and has always been an African country. Its past, present and future lie chiefly in Africa. As such given the history, geography and demography of the country, African power - political, economic and cultural - has to increase if the country if the country is to survive.

As such , I am afraid, what you and other "liberals" lament, has therefore only just begun and will not be stopped by the hypocrytical allusions to "crime", "standards" and "qualifications" - as if these were issues that just sprang up after the ANC election victory of 1994 - which only serve to highlight the fact that many of this ilk actually rue the passing of the old order. Even within the ANC, the Africanist tendency, which has always been latently strong, is now clearly in the ascendancy and this obviously has many "liberals" worried.

The Afrikaners at least have been seen off politically and have no alternative but to accept the reality of African rule and maybe grumble in private. Given the things that they did or were done in their interests, even the honest among them realise that they have got off extremely lightly.

The NP's policies of racial polarisation have obviously been supremely effective in cobbling together an anti-African electoral block of minorities ; namely whites, coloured and Indians. Good luck to these groups and the parties or individuals they choose to vote for. However as many of them are beginning to realise, political power is now irretrievably in African hands and they are now realising that the NP is leading them into a wilderness of self-imposed marginalisation.

The unfolding political collapse of both the NP and Inkatha, together with the sterile stagnation of the Democratic Party in terms of its inability to appeal to Africans, means that future developments in SA politics will inevitably have to be essentially about capturing the mainstream and that mainstream in SA is overwhelmingly African. A few enlightened white politicians such as Roelf Meyer apparently do realise this.

My word of advice to you and your organisation, the Helen Suzman Foundation, is that to gain credibility with Africans, you must look for the positives within African culture , perspectives and ways of doing things - and there are very many you will be surprised to know - and also take on a more African character.

There are indeed many challenges facing Africa and the continent has to compete not only in the world of today but also that of tomorrow and the next century. However we Africans will achieve our development largely through our own efforts - much to the disappointment of "liberals" - and not by following blindly European values and perspectives.

That approach presumes, wrongly of course, that Europeans are smarter than Africans. But then many , including myself, believe that that is what the "liberals" have always been trying to say. Politely, of course !

Yours Sincerely,

Ganyobi

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