By Chuck Stephens
I was born in deep rural Belgian Congo during the colonial era. Whites were a very conspicuous minority and Belgian colonialism over-compensated for it. The Belgians were, in a word, cruel to Africans. Fortunately for me, my parents were medical missionaries from Canada, and for the most part Congolese could make a distinction between colonizing Belgian and Canadian medical missionaries.
I know what it is like to be a minority living in a setting where I was conspicuously different from most people. But we were not afforded affirmative action as a minority. What I mean is, it was not given but taken. Whites ruled, and commanded enormous resources like wealth, education, skills and savvy. Savvy is a word borrowed from French, the lingua franca of what is now called the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). It means know-how.
So there was exceptionalism, but it was twisted. Old Congolese men would a white child as “patron”. That kind of courtesy is not born of affirmative action but of an inferiority complex.
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I have now lived in South Africa for 30 years. I moved here in late 1994, after the first ever free and fair elections. As an anti-apartheid activist living in the “front line states” I could not bring myself to live under apartheid. When I first entered South Africa, I encountered four bathrooms in most service stations. Two for men, two for women. A black and a white toilet for each gender. The missionary affinity that I felt for blacks caused me to use their toilets. This was an issue with me. South African men would chuckle as they realized I was making a statement.
I have toiled for 30 years with nonprofits, mainly in youth ministry. But the toll of affirmative action policies that favour the majority has been terrible. People are not hired based on competency. Aside from “jobs for pals” there is a screening by racial filters that mean blacks have an advantage. Whites are disadvantaged.
I am not an economist, but I have lived for 25 years in Canada as well as almost 50 in Africa. I regularly have to present situational analysis for grant applications. So I watch the trends carefully.
In South Africa, affirmative action is called BEE. That stands for Black Economic Empowerment. It favours the black majority, turning on its head the logic of affirmative action which is to make sure that minorities are not overpowered. What, in fact, happens is that whites – who constitute a dwindling minority – are disadvantaged. This is counter-intuitive.
Politically BEE has been a winner. It is a major component of the ANC’s policy platform. However, economically, it has been devastating. The indicators are all there, staring voters in the face. Potholes in the roads, water taps that hiss and gurgle without delivering any water, ubiquitous power cuts (called load-shedding by the ANC spin-doctors), deteriorating infrastructure and a shrinking tax base. Unemployment keeps rising, as a rate – not just because of the population explosion. Hospitals are in disrepair, schools are in a shocking state, and crime is rampant. Both magistrates and the police are for sale.
Foreigners are especially despised. Outbreaks of xenophobia explode from time to time, but between these episodes, hatred simmers. Probably 10 percent of South Africa’s population of 60 million are immigrants, who are going nowhere.
It seems to me that people can’t see the forest for the trees. They blame foreigners for taking away their jobs, when government policies are not conducive to foreign investment. So economic growth is sluggish. Covid-19 compounded the economic slump, but at the root of it is this counter-intuitive policy of affirmative action in favour of the majority. How can people who think like that ever grow an economy?
So we are coming up on elections on May 29, 2024, and the ANC’s prospects are dimming. The old Clinton slogan could sum up all that the plethora of opposition parties needs to say… “it’s the economy, stupid”. It’s starting to look like what happened in Poland may be repeated in South Africa – the party that wins the most votes being shut out of power.
At the root of its dismal failure is detrimental policy. Starting with affirmative action that favours the majority. It’s the same logic as defunding the police, being soft on crime, or throwing open your border gates and calling illegals “noncitizens”.
I have watched a slow but accelerating decline in South Africa over my 30 years as a resident. I lament this. But I don’t vote. Voters have been very slow to “get it” because they like hand-outs from the proverbial pork barrel at election time. I really hope that voters will see the link between competency and hiring protocols. Unless that changes, South Africa is doomed to go the way of the DRC.
The writer is an author and activist at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Leadership.
