Three days before Allister Sparks expressed his admiration for the intellectual and tactical prowess of apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd, I delivered a paper titled “Reversing the subversion of our humanity” at the University of South Africa.
The presentation was part of the Department of Arts & Culture’s broad strategy to promote cultural understanding and to encourage a pan-African identity.
Its thrust was that we cannot reclaim our humanity without addressing the cultural decimation and psychological damage wrought by both apartheid and colonialism. As can be expected, any discussion about apartheid would necessarily refer to its architect.
So in referring to Verwoerd, Sparks and I might have been orbiting the same space but certainly in different directions.
The effects of Verwoerd’s prescriptions are there for all to see – be it in inequitable provision of education, in poverty levels within the African and coloured communities, limited life opportunities for the majority and economically inefficient spatial patterns of human settlements, etc.
In his apology-cum-explanation Sparks acknowledges that his remarks weren’t that smart in light of Verwoerd’s policies having “inflicted great pain and hardship on millions of black people”. Sparks also conceded that political and tactical brilliance is not a monopoly of whiteness.
For some of us, non acknowledgement of the contribution of people of colour doesn’t come as a surprise. But it would be wrong to lay the blame solely on Verwoerd. Without the support of the majority of whites, including its intelligentsia, Verwoerd’s plan would not have succeeded. Apartheid administrations were voted in time and again by the so-called well meaning and good whites.
It is one of the anomalies of our time that many of our compatriots who routinely express revulsion of Verwoerd’s policies fail to link their currently privileged status to his policies.
Interestingly, it is the selfsame grouping that is quick to invoke the legacy of Nelson Mandela whenever its suits them.
It is opportunistic to quote the Old Man out of context and airbrush the inconvenient parts of his overall message. At the prime of his life, Mandela was crystal clear about the challenges faced by the African majority. Mandela put white supremacy in the dock.
Addressing the judge during the Rivonia trial, Mandela was unequivocal: “We were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority or to defy the government… The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority.”
In the end, the cumulative effect of white supremacy, as reflected in apartheid legislation, land and material dispossession, and the denial of the humanity of black people led to a situation in which Africans were considered children of a lesser God. The psychological impact was devastating.
Steve Biko could not have described it better when he said: “he type of black man we have today has lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging shell, he looks with awe at the white power structure and accepts what he reads as the ‘inevitable position’. Celebrated achievements by whites in the field of science – which he understands only hazily – serve to make him rather convinced of the futility of resistance and to throw away any hopes that change may ever come.
“All in all, the black man has become a shell, a shadow of a man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. This is the first truth, bitter as it may seem, that we have to acknowledge before we can start on any program designed to change the status quo.”
Sparks’ grudging apology has a sting and a warning. He reminds us of Verwoerd’s intention: “We must take the implementation of separate development so far that no future government will ever be able to reverse it”.
Indeed, over time the policy was implemented with dogged determination. And reversing its impact proves to be a challenge. Despairingly Sparks remarks “When I look at Soweto and Alexandra, Langa, Khayelitsha, Crossroads, Orange Farm, Sharpeville, Diepsloot, and then at Sandton, Houghton and Rondebosch, I shudder at that awful prediction. How long will it be, dear Lord? How long before we have a normal society?”
The National Development Plan acknowledges as much. It notes that 21 years later South Africa is far from achieving the goal of “breaking down apartheid geography through land reform, more compact cities, decent public transport and the development of industries and services that use local resources and/or meet local needs”. And that “colonial and apartheid legacies still structure space across different scales”.
However the most insidious and devastating aspect of Verwoerd’s legacy is in education. Addressing parliament in 1956, he promised: “hen I have control of native education, I will reform it so that natives will be taught from childhood to realise that equality with Europeans is not for them.”
To achieve this, apartheid administrations ensured that white children were provided the best facilities and infrastructure. Black children were given inferior infrastructure and the type of education that would sow seeds of self-doubt.
For their part black people became fixated with the idea of proving Verwoerd wrong. In doing so, they unwittingly give credence to his ideology. Being in white spaces and institutions has become an obsession and a mark of success.
To reclaim their humanity, black people must of necessity, address the psychological trauma and damage apartheid has caused. It starts by telling their own stories – narratives not simply of triumph or hardship, but introspective and authentic stories of how they have come to be where they are in the world and what they need to do to get back on track.
Presently, they seem to have lost their bearings, being misplaced and bereft of the required intellectual compass to ground them to the truths of their own conditions.
To change their current marginal status, they cannot succeed without a deconstruction of the logic of the dominant paradigm. This becomes urgent when a case can be made that Africa’s economic underdevelopment and social crises are directly linked to its intellectual underdevelopment.
A point underscored by Christopher Zambakari is that “poverty in the field of knowledge production poses a greater danger to the future of the African people than any other problem; it affects all fields of inquiry and thus directly affects the current generation of Africans and future generations. What seems to be lacking is the ability to produce more thinkers; people who can come up with original ideas capable of uplifting the continent and moving it forward”.
The appropriation of the intellectual space will enable African scholars to reclaim the responsibility of defining their own narratives and telling their own stories. An Africa-focused intelligentsia must be at the centre of such an exercise. Only in this way will the African, or black people, find their feet.
Professor Sipho Seepe is a special advisor for the Ministry of Human Settlements
Intellectual growth key to undoing Verwoerd legacy
The presentation was part of the Department of Arts & Culture’s broad strategy to promote cultural understanding and to encourage a pan-African identity.
Its thrust was that we cannot reclaim our humanity without addressing the cultural decimation and psychological damage wrought by both apartheid and colonialism. As can be expected, any discussion about apartheid would necessarily refer to its architect.
So in referring to Verwoerd, Sparks and I might have been orbiting the same space but certainly in different directions.
The effects of Verwoerd’s prescriptions are there for all to see – be it in inequitable provision of education, in poverty levels within the African and coloured communities, limited life opportunities for the majority and economically inefficient spatial patterns of human settlements, etc.
In his apology-cum-explanation Sparks acknowledges that his remarks weren’t that smart in light of Verwoerd’s policies having “inflicted great pain and hardship on millions of black people”. Sparks also conceded that political and tactical brilliance is not a monopoly of whiteness.
For some of us, non acknowledgement of the contribution of people of colour doesn’t come as a surprise. But it would be wrong to lay the blame solely on Verwoerd. Without the support of the majority of whites, including its intelligentsia, Verwoerd’s plan would not have succeeded. Apartheid administrations were voted in time and again by the so-called well meaning and good whites.
It is one of the anomalies of our time that many of our compatriots who routinely express revulsion of Verwoerd’s policies fail to link their currently privileged status to his policies.
Interestingly, it is the selfsame grouping that is quick to invoke the legacy of Nelson Mandela whenever its suits them.
It is opportunistic to quote the Old Man out of context and airbrush the inconvenient parts of his overall message. At the prime of his life, Mandela was crystal clear about the challenges faced by the African majority. Mandela put white supremacy in the dock.
Addressing the judge during the Rivonia trial, Mandela was unequivocal: “We were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority or to defy the government… The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority.”
In the end, the cumulative effect of white supremacy, as reflected in apartheid legislation, land and material dispossession, and the denial of the humanity of black people led to a situation in which Africans were considered children of a lesser God. The psychological impact was devastating.
Steve Biko could not have described it better when he said: “he type of black man we have today has lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging shell, he looks with awe at the white power structure and accepts what he reads as the ‘inevitable position’. Celebrated achievements by whites in the field of science – which he understands only hazily – serve to make him rather convinced of the futility of resistance and to throw away any hopes that change may ever come.
“All in all, the black man has become a shell, a shadow of a man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. This is the first truth, bitter as it may seem, that we have to acknowledge before we can start on any program designed to change the status quo.”
Sparks’ grudging apology has a sting and a warning. He reminds us of Verwoerd’s intention: “We must take the implementation of separate development so far that no future government will ever be able to reverse it”.
Indeed, over time the policy was implemented with dogged determination. And reversing its impact proves to be a challenge. Despairingly Sparks remarks “When I look at Soweto and Alexandra, Langa, Khayelitsha, Crossroads, Orange Farm, Sharpeville, Diepsloot, and then at Sandton, Houghton and Rondebosch, I shudder at that awful prediction. How long will it be, dear Lord? How long before we have a normal society?”
The National Development Plan acknowledges as much. It notes that 21 years later South Africa is far from achieving the goal of “breaking down apartheid geography through land reform, more compact cities, decent public transport and the development of industries and services that use local resources and/or meet local needs”. And that “colonial and apartheid legacies still structure space across different scales”.
However the most insidious and devastating aspect of Verwoerd’s legacy is in education. Addressing parliament in 1956, he promised: “hen I have control of native education, I will reform it so that natives will be taught from childhood to realise that equality with Europeans is not for them.”
To achieve this, apartheid administrations ensured that white children were provided the best facilities and infrastructure. Black children were given inferior infrastructure and the type of education that would sow seeds of self-doubt.
For their part black people became fixated with the idea of proving Verwoerd wrong. In doing so, they unwittingly give credence to his ideology. Being in white spaces and institutions has become an obsession and a mark of success.
To reclaim their humanity, black people must of necessity, address the psychological trauma and damage apartheid has caused. It starts by telling their own stories – narratives not simply of triumph or hardship, but introspective and authentic stories of how they have come to be where they are in the world and what they need to do to get back on track.
Presently, they seem to have lost their bearings, being misplaced and bereft of the required intellectual compass to ground them to the truths of their own conditions.
To change their current marginal status, they cannot succeed without a deconstruction of the logic of the dominant paradigm. This becomes urgent when a case can be made that Africa’s economic underdevelopment and social crises are directly linked to its intellectual underdevelopment.
A point underscored by Christopher Zambakari is that “poverty in the field of knowledge production poses a greater danger to the future of the African people than any other problem; it affects all fields of inquiry and thus directly affects the current generation of Africans and future generations. What seems to be lacking is the ability to produce more thinkers; people who can come up with original ideas capable of uplifting the continent and moving it forward”.
The appropriation of the intellectual space will enable African scholars to reclaim the responsibility of defining their own narratives and telling their own stories. An Africa-focused intelligentsia must be at the centre of such an exercise. Only in this way will the African, or black people, find their feet.
Professor Sipho Seepe is a special advisor for the Ministry of Human Settlements
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