He is my favourite cleric. I’m not in the camp of those who’ve been baying for his blood since he first spoke at a funeral of an anti-apartheid activist or called for international sanctions against the country.
Maybe it’s the puckish sense of humour. Perhaps the ability to straddle the intellectual, theological and spiritual divides within his own denomination and the wider church, an approach which advocates the inclusion of the disaffected rather than sending them into an enemy camp. But there is also the authority figure, calling to order young ’uns and chastising elderly statesmen who step outside accepted ethical and moral parameters.
All these go into what makes him a down-to-earth ordinary mortal yet a leader of extraordinary quality. How come he is getting a bad press again when he should be seeing out his dotage basking in our love and the glow of his track record?
Reflecting on the achievements of the TRC recently, Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he is disappointed with white South Africans’ unwillingness to acknowledge how lucky they are that they were not driven into the sea at the end of the National Party’s reign, or words to that effect.
And then all hell breaks loose, as every conservative and reactionary commentator takes umbrage at these pearls from the arch.
I have two questions. Firstly, what has changed for white South Africans specifically since the fall of apartheid, apart from the obvious fact that, as a racially homogeneous but politically pluralist group, they no longer have political power?
Secondly, at what stage do white South Africans get redemption for their action or lack thereof under apartheid and how will we – all of us, black and white – know that they have atoned and achieved redemption?
The first question is an interesting one in that, on the version of the reactionaries, the country has gone to the dogs since whites sacrificed by giving up the seat of government 12 years ago. Crime and corruption have increased, as has poverty. Housing, jobs and concerted social intervention to create a better life for all, have not materialised. The reality is that the impact of these issues has been felt by all.
Whites are no more prone to the effects of criminal activity than blacks, except to the extent that where crimes might be driven by poverty, those with more will feel themselves more exposed to criminal activity. But, as a proportional reflection of the country’s demographics, it is simply ridiculous to suggest that there might be more white rape victims than black, more white murder victims than black, and so forth.
So whites are no more or less under siege in terms of crime and a range of other common social issues than blacks. There have been no land seizures, nobody marched out of a job or hounded by police simply because they are white, as happened under the previous dispensation. To the extent that affirmative action and black economic empowerment have been successful, it could be argued that there has been some impact on whites, but it has taken place within prescribed parameters.
And the cynical and slightly racist black will say that, not unexpectedly, the boere have made a plan to get past AA and BEE, whether it’s fronting or any other solution. So it can be argued that the arch has a valid point. Whites sacrificed little and generally have adopted an ungrateful attitude.
The corollary of the arch’s position is that second question: What must whites do to atone and how will we know that they have been redeemed? In a similar vein, people ask when we will know that affirmative action has played its role and we need to move away from it. Is it enough for a solitary white person to apologise, as some progressives have, for apartheid injustice? And is that individual excused from the criticism levelled by the arch and others? Or does guilt by association or by race last forever?
Because the God the arch follows always makes provision for a wayward follower to be brought back into the fold. The way it should be.
