POTUS and the Buffalo: the old SA shuffle never dies

By Phakamisa Mayaba

The story goes that when Trevor Manuel first got into Nelson Mandela’s cabinet, he could barely work a PC. He must’ve been one of the privileged ones, as some of his colleagues – fresh from whatever dank cells the old regime had consigned them to – might have never seen one, let alone sat at one, and were still making do the old-fashioned way. Pen and pad, or dictating things to secretaries fresh out of exile. From the trenches to the office, out of the guerrilla fatigues into a three-piece suit, some of these guys went from listlessness in the African Bush to holding court in the ruling strata.

Even the open-minded liberal press took a dim view, questioning whether Mandela’s comrades, who almost to a man were encumbered by communist allegiances (in a world where communism was heretical) were capable – in a post-Cold War setting – of running an efficient, economically viable government. It’s a question that continues to dog government, especially when issues around economic policy arise. More so now when dilapidation and sloth  are writ large on every inner city street or public facility, and avarice lurks in every public transaction.

The world is advancing at an unprecedented pace, yet the grim state of our military arsenal seems to suggest a backward regression to muskets and bayonets. For that reason, even pundits who’d cut the cadres some slack have found themselves coming down hard on the country’s increasingly sorry state of affairs. Resonating with the hardscrabble and injustice that spawned the resistance movement, most black opinionistas unequivocally and naturally rallied to the defence of the ANC’s ‘broad church’ — the now-defunct print edition of City Press among the most loyal.

It made perfect sense. With its democratic socialist leanings, the ANC way, paved with redress and black economic upliftment, was far more palatable  than the IFP’s tribalism or the PAC’s call for the land. It was an unoffensive, subtle way of reining in old privilege and roping the marginalised into the formal economy, sans the startling language. Land grabs and expropriation seemed like the shortest route to the tinderbox of civil war, or agitating the aid-granting West. And the talks of reconciliation ameliorated white guilt, as many breathed a sigh of relief that if they could only comply with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, there would be pardons and no come-uppance for past sins.

No sooner had the ANC assumed power were the headlines breathing down their necks. Opinion-makers took umbrage at our equivalents to DEI. Quotas in sport became a swear word, Affirmative Action was quickly seen as a way of purging the public sector of whites, and BEE was perceived as nothing more than a feeding trough for the black elite. Reverse apartheid became a buzzword, a sitting president was reluctantly dragged to court by national rugby boss Dr Louis Luyt, and — gifted as he was — cricketer Makhanya Ntini was still haunted by accusations of being a quota player.

It was a new government, to be sure, but the rules of the game seemed the same. White men had long written the manual for the system and its structures. There are stories of ludicrous largesse being spirited away on the eve of democracy. The hamstrung black government was faced with the unenviable task of saving face with their constituency by reversing the years of imbalance without looking like it had it out for the erstwhile beneficiaries.

By now, the white voice was ratcheting up the counter-argument, with talented writers like Rian Malan, David Bullard, and even our very own R.W. Johnson dissing the revolutionary socialist path (which seemed like code for connected blacks to plunder), and punting the first-world language of merit and capability as the wand that would restore the country to its former glory. Prescriptive, smart-alec white tutelage. Why not? After all, they’d drawn the blueprint.

In front of a Biznews audience recently, the billionaire Rob Hersov echoed these thought patterns. ‘White South Africans,’ he declared, ‘excel at academics and competition, and what we need to therefore understand and acknowledge is that competing with us on merit remains a scary prospect that most black South Africans won’t support.’

In a fair and just world he might have had a point, but there was nothing just or fair about SA in the time of National Party finger-wagging. If he’d been a few shades darker, there would’ve been no privilege or money from dad for a younger Hersov. No opportunity to work with Rupert Murdoch, or a friendly ecosystem for building his empire. A black Rob Hersov during apartheid? Get the f… outta here!

The imbalances were glaring and so deeply entrenched that, standing with his white counterpart, the state-schooled African child was almost always an ill-educated, backward candidate. He spoke with a grating accent and came from schools with no microscopes or planers. At its most merciless, the  NP government is said to have spent up to 15 times more on white learners than those from the townships.

Africans were earning less, and job reservation meant that that was the best they were ever going to get. Black doctors or accountants were as rare as a black pontiff, and if you were white and didn’t make it in the sea of dirt-cheap black labour, you would’ve been a junkie or a moron. On this much, even these dissenting writers agree, but they get riled up when phrases like ‘white privilege’ are brought up.

Indeed, those were the days when white industrialists ruled supreme, and black successes were hardly ever heard of. White multi-millionaires sprang up, so influential that they could rely on their financial clout to arrange clandestine meetings with the exiled ANC in Zambia, while still having the ruling government’s ear. Political credentials were unnecessary. Money talked, so their voice would always be heard, probably first. Then under apartheid, and now (despite what dissenters might try to tell you) in a time of democracy, white men continue to – in the language of the millennials – make the bag.

Elon Musk might have told Ramaphosa to go jump if when he wanted Starlink to grant 30% of its local business to previously disadvantaged groups, and Donald Trump might have put Pretoria on ice, but if there’s one person he wasn’t going to ghost, it’s one of the richest on the ‘shithole’ continent. So when Johann Rupert got word out to Washington that it’d all been a big misunderstanding, no genocide or land expropriation happening here, Potus conceded to grant Ramaphosa an audience. In turn, Ramaphosa’s team had reportedly prepared a sweeter deal for Musk’s Starlink, and Rupert, in Washington, was due to link up with the SA delegation.

The unmistakable language of white capital – clear, unstoppable, gets things rolling. Like De Klerk (not Mandela), it is Rupert, not The Buffalo, who will walk away with the credit for whatever may come of the talks. Ramaphosa’s efforts will disappear under fine prose that will whitewash his efforts. These guys may be a far cry from Afriforum, but their stance on issues like #FeesMustFall and land expropriation doesn’t do them any favours amongst people who are still pining for economic equality. It is this inability to empathise with the plight of those who’ve had the boot to their throats for generations. To walk in your brother’s shoes and really see. Hersov calls it the ‘ideological battle,’ but listen close enough and you realise it’s more a regression to old ways. The ways that things have always been between black and white.

And when you stick to those guns of ‘us versus them’, then what do you expect to find in the other corner? Julius Malema, Gayton McKenzie, even the raving Andile Mngxitama. When the more measured voices – the ones who suffer the slurs of ‘sellout’ or ‘clever blacks’, because they have seen that polarised attitudes do nothing except breed hate and suspicion – have to compete against populism and nationalism, on both sides the floor is opened wide to these separatist elements.

The unacknowledgement of the other is the reason why these elements will find justification in their provocative statements. And so you can expect to hear ‘kill the Boer’ and such chilling chants. The message to the people is clear: these guys just don’t get it, they want things to return to the times when the white men pointed and black men started digging and shovelling with an obsequious ‘Ja Baas.’

I trust the higher-ups will forgive me. This was meant to be a piece about Ramaphosa’s visit to Washington. But the instant social media reactions and the digital op-eds popping up in real time saw the story going from waiting on The Buffalo’s envoy pulling up on the immaculate White House driveway to the controversial poet Ntsiki Mazwai slamming Rupert’s showing alongside Ramaphosa. There were harsh words from various political parties, with former golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen stealing some of The Buffalo’s limelight.

Needless to say, ‘white monopoly capital’ came up alongside questions as to who is really running this country. Ramaphosa is not winning, if the memes are anything to go by. Still, the president did not bring along a Thabo Mbeki but a wealthy white man and a couple of white golfing pros, because perhaps he understands that nothing puts broader smiles on the face of capitalists than a few luxury gifts, a round of golf, and a black president who doesn’t mind the personal attacks. What matters is the wellbeing of SA and all who live in it, black and white. How one wishes the rest of us would learn to play like that. This is a developing story.

FEATURED IMAGE: Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump during their Oval Office meeting. (The White House on YouTube)