ANC Today 

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Volume 5, No. 10, 11-17 March 2005 
 
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THIS WEEK:

* Letter from the President: Everything for the emancipation of women 
* Beijing +10: Ten years of progress, lessons and challenges 
* The Sociology of the Public Discourse in Democratic South Africa / Part IX:
Aluta continua! 

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The old order changeth, giving place to new

Three days before this edition of ANC TODAY went to print, the peoples of the
world celebrated 8 March, International Women's Day. This celebration coincided
with the high level 49th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women
(CSW), held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The Political Declaration adopted by the 23rd special session of the UN General
Assembly held in 2000 had stated that all Member States agreed "to assess
regularly further implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action with a view
to bringing together all parties involved in 2005 to assess progress and
consider new initiatives, as appropriate, ten years after the adoption of the
Beijing Platform for Action."

Accordingly, the CSW has been meeting in New York pursuant to this decision in
an important conference properly and popularly known as Beijing + 10, given that
it was convened specifically "to identify achievements, gaps and challenges in
implementing the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents."

The UN further explained that the Commission would consider two themes:

"Review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome
documents of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly"; and

"Current challenges and forward-looking strategies for the advancement and
empowerment of women and girls."

"The review and appraisal by the Commission will focus on implementation at
national level and identify achievements, gaps and challenges and provide an
indication of areas where actions and initiatives, within the framework of the
Platform for Action and the outcome of the special General Assembly session
(Beijing+5), are most urgent to further implementation."

Quite correctly our country has been represented at the CSW Beijing + 10
conference attended by 6,000 delegates by a sizable high level government and
non-governmental delegation, which sought to make its contribution to the
continuing global struggle for the emancipation of women.

On the eve of the 2000 23rd Special Session of the UN General Assembly, Monica
Aleman and Yifat Susskind wrote an article for the US progressive women's
organization, MADRE, entitled "Beyond Beijing: Some Priorities for the Global
Women's Movement". Among other things they said:

"For the first time in history, the seemingly self-evident assertion that
women's rights are human rights is backed by the force of an international legal
instrument. This is perhaps the most essential accomplishment of the Beijing
Platform for Action (PFA), the document produced at the 1995 UN World Conference
on Women held in Beijing. In fact, the PFA represents the most extensive set of
commitments ever made by governments to advance women's equality and human
rights. 

"Five years later, the 'Beijing + 5 Review Process', offers us an important
opportunity to assess governments' progress in fulfilling these commitments. For
the international women's movement, 'B5', as it has come to be known, is also a
chance to take stock of our own work, to evaluate past efforts and build
consensus for moving forward.

"To many, the hundreds of women's non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that met
in Huairu, China, an hour's drive from the official UN conference, represented
the true heart of Beijing. The vitality and efficacy of this NGO gathering
reflected the emergence of a broader 'global citizens' movement' that
successfully occupied political space created by the end of the Cold War.

"Since the 1990s, worldwide networks of NGOs, rights groups and civil society
activists have demonstrated substantial organisational and political power in
battling sweatshops, debt and environmental destruction, and scored important
victories embodied in the Landmine Treaty, the Pinochet ruling, defeat of the
Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the initiative to create a permanent
International Criminal Court.

"An integrated analysis of women's lives and struggles argues for locating the
international women's movement within this broader network. As we move forward
from Beijing, we need to assess the increasingly global context not only of our
own work, but also of a range of new initiatives that offer opportunities and
challenges to a truly international women's movement...

"A worldwide consensus to activate international instruments to protect women's
human rights is emerging. The PFA is a critical tool in the process of elevating
'women's problems' to mainstream international and national policy levels and
using international instruments to leverage national laws advancing women's
equality.

"These accomplishments are the fruits of decades of work by a range of women's
groups worldwide, from small community associations to international legal
consortia. These diverse initiatives have been brought together in a global
movement thanks to the demand for rights and inclusion by women whose historical
marginalization within their own societies has been reproduced within the
women's movement itself. This process of critique and debate has yielded a clear
recognition in the PFA of power disparities between the world's women and
governments. 

"But racism, exclusion and fault lines between the global North and South
continue to undermine the women's movement from within. Meanwhile, escalating
attacks on the rights and resources of poor and marginalised women worldwide
undercut the goals of the PFA from without. To strengthen the integrity and
efficacy of the global women's movement, we must continue to focus on the
perspectives and priorities of those women most threatened by abusive
policies...

"Women from the global South have pointed out that the old slogan, 'Think
Globally, Act Locally', must now be turned on its head. They argue that when
local conditions are so heavily impacted by global trends, community-based
activists must be equipped to understand and impact developments in the
international arena...The project of transforming the world requires the
combined and interactive force of community-based work, national mobilisations
and international advocacy."

In addition to what Monica Aleman and Yifat Susskind said with regard to "an
international legal instrument", referring to the Beijing Paltform for Action,
we must also draw attention to CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of all
Forms of Discrimination, which entered into force in September 1981. Our country
acceded to CEDAW in 1995, making the Convention part of our national law.
Earlier this week our National Assembly approved our accession to the CEDAW
Optional Protocol, which is intended to strengthen CEDAW.

We have quoted the Aleman/Susskind article at some length because it correctly
locates the national and international challenge of the emancipation of women
squarely within the context of the global progressive struggle for the creation
of the people-centred society which we strive for in our own country.

It emphasises the task we face as a movement to ensure that our country
continues to make progress towards gender equality and the genuine emancipation
of the women of our country. Consistent with what Aleman and Susskind said, our
movement has for a long time defined the challenge of the emancipation of women
as an integral part of the policies that define us as a progressive movement.
Put in other words, we could not claim to be a progressive movement if we
excluded or marginalised the objective of the liberation of women.

Because of our seriousness about this strategic challenge, our National General
Council (NGC) scheduled to be held at the end of June and the beginning of July,
will review the progress we have made in our pursuit of the goal of the
emancipation of women since our last National Conference in 2002. This will
include an assessment of what we have done to implement decisions taken by this
Conference. The decisions of the NGC will also help us to prepare for the 2007
National Conference.

The preparatory process that will precede the NGC will involve all our members,
who will consider the Discussion Document on the emancipation of women, among
others. Our membership will also discuss the outcomes of the NGC, which,
hopefully will focus on the further strengthening of our work towards gender
equality. All this emphasises the need for all our members fully to understand
and internalise the strategic task of the creation of a non-sexist society as
one of the central pillars of the national democratic revolution.

Among other things, our membership will also consider the proposal that we
should achieve gender parity with regard to the people we deploy to our
legislatures, starting with the municipal councils that will be elected during
the next local government elections.

In this regard, we must point out that the July 2004 Assembly of Heads of State
and Government of the African Union resolved that all Member States should work
to achieve gender parity in all public decision making bodies. Our movement
should take the lead in ensuring that our country moves forward decisively
towards the accomplishment of the goal set by the AU.

Among other things, the NGC will consider the progress we have made towards the
socio-economic upliftment of the women of our country. In this regard, it will
be assisted by the comments made by our government in its 2004 Report towards a
review of our first decade of liberation.

In that Report, among other things the government said:

"One of the most significant changes since 1994 is the increased participation
of women in governance... The Public Service also demonstrates an improvement in
the participation of women in management although the State has yet to achieve
its targets for women and people with disabilities... In the economic theme, it
was evident that women were making progress in the professional and technical
categories but were still lagging when it came to senior management...

"Other evidence from the social theme indicates that health and education
services are now strongly focused on women and children. Indeed, South Africa
has already surpassed the Millennium Development Goals for Gender in
Education... Progress has been made with regard to the employment of women in
the Public Service. The most recent reports on the representivity targets
indicate that the percentage of women in the public service now stands at 24%...

"In terms of employment, women have seen some slight gains although the changes
have not yet changed the structural gender legacies of Apartheid... In
particular, it can be seen that the proportion of women over 60 with no income
has declined by almost 5% from 20% to 15%, and the proportion of women over 65
with no income has declined by almost 4% from 16% to 12% largely due to the
increased provision of social grants. It is also noticeable that this
improvement is also more pronounced for African women." 

Of course our movement will have to look at much more than this when it
considers the progress we have achieved and the tasks we still face. This would
include an assessment of the impact on women of such interventions as the
provision of free medical health care, clean water, electricity, housing, jobs
through our public works and other programmes, the special focus on violence
against women, and so on.

All this should help our movement more precisely to respond to our continuing
challenges with regard to the central task of the emancipation of women, defined
in our Constitution as the creation of a non-sexist society. As we do this, we
would also have to take into account our international commitments as contained
in the African and UN conventions on women, CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for
Action.

Critically, we must also ensure that all of us work to strengthen the ANC
Women's League, and join in the process of strengthening the progressive women's
movement in our country, including the South African Women in Dailogue (SAWID)
process. We must also reinforce our involvement in strengthening the progressive
women's movement on our continent, including PAWO, as well as extend our links
with the rest of the global movement for the emancipation of women.

Aleman and Susskind said the progressive movement has the task of "elevating
'women's problems' to mainstream international and national policy levels and
using international instruments to leverage national laws advancing women's
equality". We hope that the high level 49th Session of the UN Commission on the
Status of Women (CSW) will help to lay the basis for further advances towards
the achievement of these goals. We are pleased that, after much discussion at
the CSW, the US withdrew its proposals concerning "the right to abortion". 

On the occasion of International Women's Day and the convening of the important
Beijing + 10 conference, we convey our best wishes to the women of our country,
Africa and the world.

Thabo Mbeki

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BEIJING +10

Ten years of progress, lessons and challenges

Ten years after the Beijing World Conference on Women, South Africa has made
important strides in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action. Nevertheless
many challenges remain, demanding greater effort from all stakeholders in
society to improve the status and quality of life of women.

As part of South Africa's input into the UN review, government has prepared a
progress report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action,
outlining in detail the areas where progress has been made and where challenges
still remain. The report places the country's progress in the context of the
first decade of democracy, and highlights the interdependence between the
struggle for the emancipation of women and the struggle to build a united, non-
racial and democratic South Africa.

Over the last decade, the ANC-led government has worked with all South Africans
to address the political, economic and social legacy of apartheid - to build
democratic institutions, ensure equal access to human rights, and push back the
frontiers of poverty. As it has done so, it has worked to improve the lives of
South Africa's women, most of whom have been subjected to triple oppression, by
race, class and gender. This work has been consistent with efforts to implement
the strategic objectives of the Beijing Platform for Action.

Women and Poverty

One of the central strategic objectives of the Beijing platform is to address
the needs of women living in poverty. It calls on member countries to implement
macroeconomic policies and development strategies which address poverty and
inequality among women, to ensure equal access for women to economic rights, and
to provide savings and credit to women.

In its report, government notes that women constitute a priority group in all
aspects of its poverty alleviation and eradication programme. This covers
interventions like social grants and public works programmes, as well as the
provision of education, health care, water and sanitation, electrification,
housing and land. 

As the number of people accessing social grants has dramatically increased over
the last ten years, so too as the percentage of grants benefitting women. Over
70% of recipients of old-age pensions are women, while women are almost always
the recipients (as caregivers) of child-care grants. The percentage of women
receiving disability grants has also increased. Over half the people employed in
the course of the Expanded Public Works Programme between April and September
last year were women.

The Beijing Platform commits countries to ensure equal access to education,
eradicate illiteracy among women, and develop non-discriminatory education and
training. South Africa has achieved a high participation rate of both girls and
boys in primary and secondary school, with as many girls as boys participating
in school overall. Adult Basic Education and Training and the national literacy
initiative have largely been targeted at rural areas, and especially on women
living in rural areas. The overall rate of literacy in South Africa increased
from 83% in 1996 to 89% in 2001. 

Yet gender imbalances remain sharp in institutions of higher learning. Women
make up 41% of instruction and research staff in higher education institutions,
but only 17% of professors. Census 2001 found there were about twice as many
women as men in the social sciences, and about ten times as many men as women in
the engineering sciences.

Women's access to health, another of the Beijing objectives, has been
significantly improved through the extension of basic health care access to
parts of the country and sections of the population which previously struggled
to gain access. As a result of government's clinic building and upgrading
programme, there are now over 4,350 primary health care access points across the
country, ensuring that all South Africans live within a 5 km radius of a health
facility.

Since 1994, health care has been free at public facilities for pregnant women
and children under six years. There has been a marked increase in access to
antenatal care services and reproductive health care programmes.

Violence against women

The struggle to ensure the safety of women in society remains an ongoing
challenge. While progress has been recorded in achieving the Beijing objective
of integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women, gender-
based violence continues to place women at risk.

The report notes the multi-faceted and integrated approach government has taken
to raise awareness and improve service delivery to combat violence against
women. National awareness campaigns, like the 16 days of activism against
violence against women and children, have received growing support from across
society. Victim empowerment initiatives and special Sexual Offences Courts have
improved the response of the criminal justice system to such crimes and have
decreased the possibility of 'secondary victimisation' of survivors of rape and
other gender-based violence. The Domestic Violence Act, adopted in 1998,
broadened the definition of domestic abuse and strengthened the legal protection
afforded to victims of abuse. The challenge is to ensure that in its
implementation, this law - like many other progressive pieces of legislation -
is indeed able to offer sufficient protection and contribute to significantly
lowering levels of violence against women in the domestic environment.

Women in the economy

Alongside efforts to address the challenges of women living in poverty, the
government has pursued the objective of ensuring equal access for women to
economic opportunities. Measures have included issues such as equal pay for
equal work, enhancing women's participation in fiscal and economic policy, and
facilitating women's access to economic resources.

Laws such as the Employment Equity Act outlaw gender discrimination in the
workplace, and place a responsibility on employers to work towards achieving
gender equity in their workforce at all levels. The Broad Based Black Economic
Empowerment Act includes a focus on ensuring black women benefit from the
economic empowerment process. Government's code of good practice for black
economic empowerment, for example, requires that women benefit from at least 40%
of empowerment that takes place. Women have also been the focus of government
assistance to small and medium enterprises and rural development initiatives,
and through government's procurement and licensing processes.

Nevertheless, women - and particularly black women - remain under-represented at
all levels of meaningful economic activity. While there has been some change,
this has not kept pace with changes in the public sector, where the
representation and role of women has been significantly increased.

In great measure due to the policies and positions of the ANC, women constitute
a significant proportion of the country's public representatives and political
leaders. Nearly 43% of national cabinet ministers are women, and over 48% of
deputy ministers are women. Four out of the nine provincial premiers are women,
and just under a third of the National Assembly, and 35% of the National Council
of Provinces are women. The experience of the past decade has shown that the
increased presence of women in these institutions - far from being mere tokenism
-has contributed significantly to advancing the position of women in society and
enhancing government's focus on the needs of women across most of its
programmes.

An overview of the achievements of the first decade of democracy and in the ten
years since the Beijing conference should encourage those who seek gender
equality in South Africa. But it also provides a sobering insight to the
challenges that remain. Emboldened by what has been achieved, and learning the
many lessons of the past ten years, South Africans find themselves in a good
position to take these advances forward.

Writing in the foreword to South Africa's report, President Thabo Mbeki said:
"We are proud of the progress that has been made towards the genuine
emancipation and empowerment of the women of South Africa. Nevertheless we are
acutely aware of the fact that so much still remains to be done. In everything
we do, we will continue to be inspired by the vision that our transformation
will not be complete until the women of our country are empowered and gender
equality in our society has been achieved."
 
MORE INFORMATION:

Beijing +10 Review 
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/Review/english/news.htm

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THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC DISCOURSE IN DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA / PART IX

Aluta continua!

Editor's Note: In our last edition, we indicated that the following article
would be the last in our series. We sincerely apologise to our readers for this
error. This occurred because we underestimated the extent of the issues we still
had to consider. We will definitely conclude this series next week in Vol 5 No
11, with the publication of Part X.

When he explained the core of the ideology of the US neo-conservatives, James
Piereson said that it sought to "strengthen the system of private enterprise and
limited government...It understood that a defence of capitalism required also a
defence of the deeper cultural assumptions that gave meaning and order to a
commercial civilization. Free markets could not be defended without reference to
the rule of law, religion, the family and the evolution of our political
institutions. This task required a full-blown engagement with the world of
ideas..."

Our own rightwing has borrowed and absorbed these ideas about "strengthening the
system of private enterprise and limited government", lock, stock and barrel.
Naturally, it presents them within the context of our national situation and
history. 

It too understands that "a defence of capitalism requires also a defence of the
deeper cultural assumptions that give meaning and order to a commercial
civilisation". It therefore accepts that it has to undertake "a full-blown
engagement with the world of ideas".

In terms of content, regardless of form, the ideological offensive of the
rightwing in our country is centred on three areas. These are:

* the propagation of the neo-conservative/neo-liberal perspective as explained
by James Piereson; 
* the deligitimisation of the conscious and purposive struggle to eradicate the
350-year-old legacy of racism; and, 
* the demonisation of our movement, the principal midwife of our country's
democratic order, as the greatest threat to, and enemy of, the very democracy
and freedoms for which our members and supporters sacrificed their lives.

With regard to these elements of its offensive in the battle of ideas, the
rightwing has been and is both reacting to the ideas and programmes of our
movement, and proactively promoting positions that constitute the core of its
identity as our national rightwing.

We have entitled this article, "A Luta Continua" - The Struggle Continues! 

This struggle must proactively advance the progressive project, as opposed to
the neo-conservative/neo-liberal programme. It must also advance the non-racial
project, as opposed to the countervailing rightwing effort to surrender the task
to build a non-racial South Africa to "market forces".

It must also respond to and combat the daily interventions of the rightwing to
win tactical battles in its war to set a national agenda based on neo-
conservative/neo-liberal precepts and the repudiation of the conscious struggle
to eradicate the legacy of racism in our country.

The rightwing understands that "a full-blown engagement with the world of ideas"
means, among other things, that elements of its overall ideology and programme
may find resonance and acceptance among social formations and individuals who do
not necessarily agree with the totality of the ideology and programme of the
rightwing.

Because of its single-minded focus on its mission that Itumeleng Mahabane wrote
about, the rightwing is not shy to welcome any support it may receive for any of
its individual propositions and programmes. This explains why it is quite happy
to form even temporary informal alliances with individuals and organisations
that would normally be seen as part of the broad democratic movement.

In our situation, because it is determined to participate in "a full-blown
engagement with the world of ideas", the rightwing is permanently on the lookout
for the loosening of "the cement" among the progressive forces that FW de Klerk
spoke about, ready to join hands with any person or formation that differs with
our movement even on a single issue, whatever this issue may be. Of course, this
is provided that the ideas that differ with those of our movement are consistent
with its agenda with regard to the battle of ideas.

In this context and naturally, it becomes very jubilant when individuals and
formations normally defined as progressive adopt its characterisation of our
movement, and seek to distance themselves from the ANC and thus divide the
progressive movement by acting in a manner that makes them handmaidens of the
rightwing agenda to weaken this movement. Indeed, the rightwing openly and
repeatedly states its desire to split this movement.

Regularly it predicts the disintegration of the progressive movement, as FW de
Klerk did, stating that effective opposition to the ANC will come from within
the progressive movement. It does not merely stand by patiently waiting for this
disintegration. In its own interest, it does everything it can, to encourage
this, without in any way hiding its pursuit of this strategic objective. 

The 2 March 2005 edition of the 'Cape Times' reported that COSATU 'shunned the
support' of "the predominantly white Solidarity trade union" and the DA, for its
planned demonstrations against the Government of Zimbabwe. It reported that,
"(COSATU) secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, said the DA and Solidarity were
'jumping on the bandwagon'.

"We went to Zimbabwe and suddenly (DA deputy leader) Joe Seremane led a DA
delegation knowing he would be sent back. (It's) typical opportunistic
action...We can't stop them, but we'll be far more comfortable working with
Cosatu's traditional allies", (Vavi said).

The fact of the matter however is that the rightwing in our country is not a
newcomer to the struggle against the government of Zimbabwe. This rightwing
opposed the struggle for the liberation of Zimbabwe. Even then, it was
forthright in its hostility to and its demonisation of President Mugabe. 

It scaled up its long-standing opposition to President Mugabe and the Zimbabwe
government in response to the forcible process of land redistribution in that
country. This process sought to redress the colonial legacy of land
dispossession that had left the most productive land in the hands of a tiny
white settler colonial population and absentee landowners. 

In this context, our domestic rightwing, which was and is committed to the
defence of white minority interests in Zimbabwe, in its own interest, took
advantage of various negative political and economic elements in the actions of
the government of Zimbabwe to legitimise the struggle it had waged for many
decades to defeat the Zimbabwe liberation movement. As part of that attempted
legitimisation, and in the most sickening fashion, it now presents itself as the
champion of the political and economic rights of the very same African masses
whose liberation it had opposed.

Historically, the reality is that when it expressed its support for COSATU's
opposition to the Zimbabwe Government, the rightwing was not 'jumping on the
bandwagon'. By the time that COSATU decided that 'Mugabe must go', its view
coincided with an objective that the rightwing had sought to promote for some
decades already. 

Understandably, and consistent with their strategy in the battle to set the
national agenda, it was perfectly natural that the DA and Solidarity should
express support for the actions of COSATU directed at achieving objectives the
rightwing had been pursuing for some decades. The DA responded to COSATU's
rejection of its support for a cause it had espoused for many years by accusing
the trade union federation of "political posturing".

In Part I of this series, (ANC TODAY Vol 5 No 2), we tabulated the specific
issues that had been raised by Archbishop Tutu in his Mandela Foundation
Lecture, to which President Mbeki had responded, provoking the considerable ire
of the rightwing. 

Without exception, all the remarks the Archbishop made that were critical of our
movement and government, coincided exactly with the positions taken by the
rightwing on the specific matters the Archbishop mentioned, as part of its
engagement of the battle of ideas to ensure that it sets the national agenda. 

More recently, the Archbishop is reported to have made remarks about
transformation in the area of sport, which again seemingly coincided with the
views of the right wing with regard to this sphere of our national life. 

When ANC MP, Butana Khompela, responded to this by saying that it would be
treasonable for the ANC to repudiate and oppose the objective stated in our
Constitution to create a non-racial South Africa, the media deliberately
reported falsely that Khompela had said the Archbishop's comments were
"treasonous", which he had not done. 

This false report was communicated to deny the public all knowledge of what
Khompela had actually said, to discredit him as an elected public
representative, to present the ANC in the most negative light possible, and to
define the public discourse, with regard to sport in this case, in favour of the
agenda of the right wing. This blatantly dishonest behaviour is yet another
feature of the sociology of the public discourse in our country.

(In our future editions, we will continue to report, in the column, "What the
media says", the extent to which the rightwing is prepared to go, unashamedly to
falsify reality and pervert the truth, to advance its agenda. Editor.)

As has happened with respect to COSATU and its campaign on Zimbabwe, the
rightwing immediately expressed its support for the Archbishop after the Mandela
Foundation Lecture, and continues to do so. In this regard, again it was not
'jumping on a bandwagon', but was stating its long held positions.
Understandably, it was very happy that an icon expressed views it had been
promoting for some time, both about our movement and our policies. 

For its purposes, it was extremely important that these views were now being
expressed by an icon identified and revered as a fighter against apartheid, at
the same time as the rightwing was doing its best to position the ANC within the
public discourse as "having much in common with the Nats", as the DA's Helen
Zille and the Nat ideologue, Denis Venter, said. 

The happy circumstance for the rightwing was that when the Archbishop criticised
the ANC in his Lecture, and then said he would pray for the ANC as he had prayed
for the NP, it could then use all this in the battle of ideas. It could say that
it now had a black Nobel Peace Prize winner on its side, who supported its
argument that "the ANC has much in common with the Nats". We do not know whether
Archbishop Tutu, like Comrade Vavi, shunned the support of the rightwing,
accusing it of 'jumping on the bandwagon'.

The point of all this, however, is that the rightwing will continue to be
greatly delighted to enter into temporary, informal and other alliances with
those who oppose our movement even on single issues, provided that such
opposition reinforces its interventions in the battle of ideas. Again as we have
said before, this is one of the important features of the sociology of the
public discourse in our country.

This is the phenomenon to which Mteto Nyati referred when he wrote that the
issues he identified as constituting the agenda of "the white elite", "are not
unrelated and neutral events but part of a broader white elite agenda. That some
progressive forces find themselves white pawns in this game may be confusing,
but it should never create doubt about the real issues at stake."

Throughout this series we have not referred to a "white elite", except when we
quoted Mteto Nyati. Rather we have spoken of an elite that is opposed to our
movement and its ideas, and which, centrally, pursues a rightwing agenda. We
accept the ideas expressed in the immediate preceding paragraph, without
necessarily accepting Nyati's categories of a "white elite" and "white pawns".

Colonialism and apartheid in our country survived for 350 years. Necessarily,
they did not only define the conditions of existence for the majority in our
country. They also dictated what the democratic forces of liberation had to
fight for, and what they had to do once victory was achieved. What these forces
had to aim for, inevitably, was to do everything possible to eradicate the
legacy of 350 years of colonialism and apartheid, including, and critically,
replacing this with a non-racial democracy.

It is therefore absolutely unavoidable that the public discourse in our country
must, in part, be characterised by the anti-racist ideas and programmes of the
forces committed to the eradication of the deeply entrenched racist legacy of
350 years of colonialism and apartheid.

But because of the pervasive impact of this legacy in defining the very nature
of our society in all its elements, it is also absolutely inevitable that any
serious effort to create the non-racial and non-sexist society dictated by our
Constitution must signify the fundamental social transformation of our country. 

Necessarily, that social transformation must, consciously and systematically,
seek to build an egalitarian society, a society that would be free of the
enormous race and gender imbalances that are a product of 350 years of
colonialism and apartheid.

However, as it pursues its own goals, the rightwing is determined to ensure that
such fundamental social transformation does not take place. This is not born of
perverse ill will on the part of the rightwing. It reflects the objective socio-
economic and political interests of the white minority it strives to represent. 

Its intervention in the battle of ideas pursues the strategic objective to block
transformation, as the leaders of the DA, Tony Leon and Helen Zille, have said
in statements we quoted in this series. This is because it views such
transformation as a threat to the material interests of its "constituency".

Inevitably, therefore, this generalised opposition to transformation forms yet
another important element of the sociology of the public discourse in our
country. But because of our history and consequent social reality, the
intervention of the rightwing must necessarily also address "the race question",
specifically.

Obviously the rightwing cannot intervene in the public discourse overtly to
perpetuate the racist ideas of "the old NP". However, it has also made the point
very clearly that it is opposed to the particular intervention of the
progressive movement on "the race question", and "will never buy into the ANC's
version of transformation that sows racial division", as Helen Zille put it.

The right wing has therefore decided that the objective it must achieve at all
costs is to banish "the race question" from the public discourse. It must de-
legitimise all discussion of "the race question" by presenting the discussion of
this extremely important issue by our movement as being nothing more than an
expression of black anti-white racism.

When he addressed the apartheid court during the Rivonia Trial in 1964, Nelson
Mandela said that he had opposed white domination and was opposed to black
domination. He said that this was an ideal he was prepared to die for. That
anti-racist statement represented a fundamental principle that our movement has
defended relentlessly over many decades.

Our unwavering pursuit of this objective evokes great admiration for our
movement among millions of people in South Africa, Africa and the world. It is
therefore perfectly natural that as it strives to oppose and de-legitimise our
movement, the rightwing must do everything it can to discredit the claim of the
ANC to be genuinely non-racial in its convictions and practices.

In the 2 March 'Cape Argus' letter we cited last week, Helen Zille of the DA
said: "One of the starkest similarities (between the ANC and 'the old NP'), is
both parties' obsession with race. Under apartheid, race determined your life
chances. Although much of apartheid's edifice has been abolished, race is again
playing an increasingly dominant role in government policy. 'Race
transformation' trumps all other ANC policy priorities." 

(Not surprisingly, given the ideological toenadering between "the new Liberals"
and "the old Nats", Leopold Scholtz, deputy editor of 'Die Burger', said exactly
the same thing in an article in that paper, published on 4 March 2005.)

So determined is the rightwing to banish discussion of "the race question" from
the public discourse that it is quite happy to insist on the absurd assertion
that the pursuit of the non-racialism for which many sacrificed their lives, and
which is prescribed in our Constitution, amounts to the same racism against
which our movement fought, which characterised colonialism and apartheid in our
country.

To be continued...

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