I hold no truck with Jimmy Manyi. Since he appeared on the national scene a couple of years ago to spout his inflammatory nonsense, I felt that it would be a matter of time before he was hoisted by his own petard. And so there may be some justice in the latest outcry about his comments on issues of race.
But, Trevor Manuel, on the other hand, is an opportunist. He chooses his battles carefully, with an eye on his own strengths, the relative weakness of his opponent, and the extent to which he can garner votes on behalf of the ruling party. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but it does mean that the outpouring of praise for Manuel for his “principled” outburst at Manyi’s perceived racism must be tempered.
Check back on the sledgehammer that Manuel took to Mo Shaik when the latter dared to suggest that Manuel was an “okay Joe” to have in President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet. It was political “thanks but no thanks” at its best, replete with mock respect, calling to mind Brutus’ shafting of Marc Anthony which masqueraded as a eulogy to Caesar.
Manuel clearly has taken a calculated view on Manyi's strength within the upper reaches of the ANC. He figures that such strength will dissipate when the party weighs the significance of votes in the May local government elections.
Because, despite his vehemence that he is a non-racialist, Manuel cannot deny that the coloured constituency in the Western Cape is critical to the ANC’s election campaign here and that he – apartheid-carrying epithet or not - is among a handful of party leaders regarded as capable of connecting with this constituency following years of dis-organisation. And it won’t do the ANC any harm that he will pull a few white votes too. In this scenario, Manyi is hopelessly dispensable to Luthuli House.
A low point in Manuel’s principled stand on issues was his pithy sound bite two years ago that criticising the Dalai Lama was akin to “trying to shoot Bambi”. It wasn’t so much that Manuel was questioning the democratic credentials of an overlord of a fierce theocracy-in-exile but that he was defending Pretoria’s anti-democratic action in declining a visa to the Tibetan leader apparently at the behest of the Chinese government.
There was also Manuel’s sarcastic retort when he was fingered for splashing out on a fancy government car.
There is no doubt that the minister was seriously needled by aspects of Jimmy Manyi's utterances – including that Manyi did not really apologise for having said or done something wrong but apologised that some people “may have been” offended.
But why should Manyi apologise? I did not hear Manyi refer to coloured people in a derogatory manner as “things” or anything else. And it is pure opportunism to suggest this.
I heard him talk to government policy on affirmative action as it stands and currently proposed amendments. As the most senior government bureaucrat tasked with implementing labour policy, he was acting perfectly within his mandate to talk about local, provincial and national demographics as they relate to affirmative action.
That we are commodities – every one of us who attempts to sell our labour on a national and international market – is an unfortunate outcome of an industrialised, and globalising economy, even in a South Africa desperately struggling to overcome its racialised past.
Historical fiat – the Western Cape was a “coloured preference area” under the apartheid government – and a perceived unwelcoming environment contribute to a labour market that is skewed in favour of coloured employees at certain levels, at the expense of Africans. Employers argue that there simply are not enough African people in the province or willing to relocate from elsewhere, to fill jobs which should go to African candidates in terms of employment equity legislation.
If companies and government in the Western Cape are forced to apply a “national demographic” where the labour force must mimic the race make-up of the country’s population, it will mean that only African candidates for jobs will be employed for years to come. And those coloureds who seek work here will have to look elsewhere – especially in areas where they can maximise their competitive (for purposes of employment equity provisions) racial advantage.
If the Western Cape accepts “local or provincial demographics”, then far more coloureds could be accommodated in the active labour market although my impression is that the percentage of African employees in this province’s economy will still be much too low.
Manuel is right when he refers to the attempts to push back the line on what constitutes “black” or ‘African” in a South African context. The law defines black as including African, coloured and Indian. That is the only definition which is relevant under the constitution, regardless of what anyone, including racists, anti-race classification proponents and even many employers may say.
But if Manuel disagreed with the general policy on employment equity or the shifts which the current amendments envisage, he should have declared them ages ago, certainly at the time that, as a senior ANC leader, he was first briefed on them. Manyi has not said anything which is out of sync with current law.
The issue of whether or not Manyi was speaking as DG or as Black Management Forum head is a matter of governance which, again, Manuel - as a senior Cabinet minister and ANC official - should have been alert to and expressed a view on at the time.
The debate around affirmative action remains a critical one in which all South Africans must participate. At times it will cover sensitive terrain – like how we deal with an “over-concentration” of a particular race group in one part of the country - which will make many of us, including Manuel, uncomfortable.
Indeed, a debate on issues of race must be an ongoing project in our country. But while that debate might not eschew the ideal of a rainbow nation, it must happen on the basis of intellectual honesty, mutual respect and the recognition of each other’s right not only to be part of the debate but integrally part of this country.
It will require that we push aside political opportunism, our intuition to take sledgehammers to each other, and our predilection to engage emotively on substantive issues.
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