One of the major talking points after the DA’s policy conference at the weekend is the party’s resolve to abandon race as a proxy for disadvantage in SA.
Having committed to the principle of pursuing a non-racial society, the DA will implement redress without reference to race or gender as primary considerations for determining who the beneficiaries of that redress should be.
The idea is underpinned by the party’s long-held commitment to an “open, opportunity society for all”.
According to the conference resolution, “Redress must couple a firm commitment to reconciliation, with a commitment to ensuring that inequality of opportunity, which has been the hallmark of our past, is not a feature of the present or the future”.
The DA believes quotas are counterproductive, particularly referring to those set by BBBEE policy that gives preference to previously disadvantaged groups in accessing economic opportunities, government support and contracts.
The party proposes an approach that focuses attention on merit, competence and on companies’ contributions to the achievements of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The party’s main argument against BBBEE is corruption. The party points to the misappropriation of this policy to enrich a network of politically connected individuals at the expense of intended beneficiaries.
On the face of it, the party has its heart in the right place. The DA wants to realise the ideal of a just and inclusive society where people are treated on the basis of equality. The country’s constitution says as much.
There are however some difficulties with the DA’s approach to redress and nonracialism that betrays that the party’s leaders and members still have a myopic attitude to racism and the effects and implications of the country’s colonial and apartheid history.
Firstly, the DA fails to acknowledge that the systems of colonialism and apartheid, that institutionalised discrimination, established social norms that entrenched the superiority of whites, as a racial group. In addition to promoting social inequality, these systems also created economic and political inequalities, thus skewing power relations in favour of white people – as a racial group.
It is therefore not enough for the DA to merely acknowledge the injustices perpetrated under those systems. In recognising the injustices of segregation policies, one must also identify the people who those injustices were perpetrated against.
Because these injustices were systemic in nature, it is illogical to want to simply individualise their effects. The policies of dispossession and persecution were not propagated against individuals but against entire groups and categories of people, specifically black people.
Secondly, the emphasis on merit and competence further deflects from the systemic nature of the injustices of the past. It puts the onus of escaping the generational nature of poverty, poor prospects for social mobility and unemployment primarily on individuals.
This supports the thinking that rich people are rich solely because they worked hard and poor people are poor because they are lazy.
It underpins the notion that all governments need to do is provide equal opportunities, particularly in education, and success will be determined by individual effort and diligence. This sums up what the DA refers to as promoting diversity.
This view discounts the influence of privilege – access to generationally accumulated wealth, knowledge and social capital – in determining individual success.
Thirdly, the notion that redress policies that focus on identifying groups previously disadvantaged by the unjust apartheid laws are themselves racist, is flawed.
Acknowledging and naming the previously disadvantaged allows us to move from the premise that inequality is built into our society. A claim to equal opportunity that doesn’t acknowledge that blacks and whites do not start on a level plain is doomed to perpetuate inequality.
In the end, discounting historical inequality by emphasising equal opportunities in the present only serves to make the argument for the inevitability of (gross) inequality between groups and individuals in society.
It is true that there will always be differences in people’s status, power and resources. Nevertheless, this must not be used to justify the great social and economic disparities resulting from deliberate policies that entrenched white supremacy at the expense of black people.
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