All success to our National Science Week!

A few weeks ago, at the invitation of Minister Mosibudi Mangena, I was privileged to meet a cross-section of our national leadership in the field of Science and Technology. During this process we visited the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Innovation Hub.

This interaction with our compatriots who are leading our country in Science, Technology and Innovation brought sharply to the fore the challenge we face to pay greater and sustained attention to this critically important area of human activity.

In 2005, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) published an important report entitled "UNESCO Science Report 2005". Among other things the Report says: "Africa is a rich continent; rich in biodiversity, rich in mineral resources, rich in precious stones. It is also a continent rich in traditional knowledge, especially knowledge associated with indigenous and medicinal plants. But Africa is also a poor continent...

"What accounts for Africa's impoverished state? There are many political, socio-economic and environmental factors: centuries of colonialism followed by decades of home-grown authoritarian governments...However, there is another factor that may not be as visible or dramatic as those mentioned above but may nevertheless play a central role in the continent's inability to participate at the global economic level, protect its environment and devise sustainable strategies for economic growth. That factor is Africa's woeful shortcoming in science and technology...

"Recent assessments of African scientific research communities have detailed (the) prevailing dismal conditions time and again. Universities that once served as beacons of hope, including the universities of Ibadan in Nigeria, Dakar in Senegal, Dar-es-Salaam in the United Republic of Tanzania and Khartoum in Sudan, have been turned into shells of their former selves.

"Buildings are poorly maintained, modern laboratory equipment is rarely available, and faculty and staff go under-appreciated and sometimes unpaid. Meanwhile, external funding for science and joint research initiatives with universities and research institutes in other nations have often declined. Given such circumstances, it should come as no surprise that the continent's best scientific talent continues to leave in large numbers, creating a chronic 'brain drain' problem."

The real impact of this dismal situation on our continent and its ability to achieve its renaissance is underlined by what the UNESCO Report says about the role of science, technology and innovation in the development of human society. In this regard the Report says:

"It is now customary to affirm that knowledge, education, science, technology and innovation have become the prime drivers of progress that is itself targeting that most cherished of goals, the knowledge society. Although a much-abused incantation, the concept of the knowledge society carries a very real and practical meaning. It is thus worthwhile to clarify its meaning.

"Borrowing economists' parlance, we might say that societies produce goods, services and quality of life - the latter being actually a special category of services. These services result in such highly valued benefits as a sustainable environment, good healthcare and different forms of cultural expression. Government policy underlies the services produced by government. Producing these goods and services requires land, capital goods, human capital, information and knowledge capital, and institutions. These are all termed 'production factors'...

"The pervasive impact of science is now often quantifiable. And gradual as the process may be, it is now so far advanced in many parts of the world that being part of the globalised world and nourishing corresponding ambitions leaves us no choice but to develop and use production factors 'transfused with knowledge'. Education (and more general learning by individuals and organisations), research and innovation are the key words for this process of 'transfusion'...

"The situation in Africa is even bleaker (than other regions of the world). The Gross Expenditure on Research and Development as a proportion of GDP (GERD/GDP ratio)...is already low, for both the sub-Saharan countries and the Arab states of Africa, at 0.3% and 0.2% respectively, but even that paints a picture that is rosier than reality: South Africa is responsible for 90% of GERD in sub-Saharan Africa and...Egypt and to a lesser extent Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria carry out practically all R&D [research and development] in the Arab states of Africa."

Throughout the years of our democracy we have identified our central objectives as achieving a better life for all, building a people-centred society and creating a winning nation. Given what UNESCO has said, it is clear that we cannot realise the objectives without paying the closest attention to science, technology and innovation (STI).

However, given the multiple tasks posed by the democratic transition, we must admit that we have not paid as much attention to STI as we should have. This is reflected for instance in the fact that it was only in 2004 that we created two separate Ministries of Science & Technology and Arts & Culture, having combined these under one Minister for 10 years.

By 2004 it was clear that whatever the challenges we face, we had to pay more attention and devote more resources to the important area of STI. To assist us in this regard, our Minister of Science and Technology requested the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to undertake a "Review of South Africa's Innovation Policy".

The OECD has completed the review and issued its report. Our government has begun considering the Review, preparatory to taking all necessary and possible steps to respond to the recommendations contained in the Review. The government will approach this work bearing in mind the various observations reflected in the UNESCO Science Report 2005, including the sections we quoted earlier in this Letter.

In the Introduction to the Review, the OECD says: "The purpose of this OECD report is to review the current level of innovation capabilities in South Africa, and to help the government determine how such capabilities could be increased. The review was tasked with:

• providing an independent and comparative assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of South Africa's innovation system; and,
• formulating concrete recommendations for optimising South Africa's innovation policy and instruments, drawing on the experience of the OECD countries."

In the same Introduction, the OECD makes the following encouraging observations:

"South Africa in the 1990s implemented radical change in the political and economic framing conditions for its innovation system. In contrast to the experience of other countries having gone through revolutionary political changes in the last two decades, this did not lead to a collapse of the system, since many of its basic 'building blocks' remained in place (eg. strong universities, research institutes and innovative business enterprises) while being subject to strong pressures for accelerated changes to reflect new economic and social conditions.

"Although these have been restructured, re-scaled and re-oriented, with new elements being added, the key story since the early 1990s has been about reshaping a relatively strong innovative system serving one set of social, economic, and political goals towards another strong system serving a very different set of goals. Transformations are both furthered and constrained by the legacy of the past: not only the inherited building blocks of the system, but also their wider context of social, economic, bureaucratic and political structures and relationships.

"The way in which these interconnected transformations are being made inevitably raises questions about the tensions between (i) continuity to secure economic efficiency in the short run and consolidate gradually broad and sustainable social consensus and (ii) change to secure political acceptance in the short run and economic efficiency in the longer run (eg. by removing key human resource bottlenecks). Managing such tension is a challenge in all countries, which is however magnified at South Africa's present historical conjuncture.

"OECD countries can thus derive useful lessons from South Africa's unprecedented endeavour. At the same time South Africa can learn from OECD countries how to incorporate universal good policy practices in building a socially inclusive and economically efficient national innovation system."

Later, the Review says: "As in any other country, the overriding objective of South Africa's innovation policy should be to encourage creative responses by the public and private sectors to many social aspirations: increased wealth through job-creation and sustainable economic growth, improved health, security and environment, enriched cultural life, etc."

Within this context, the Review makes a number of important recommendations. We will report only some of these. Among others, the Review says: "This report focuses on the economic aspects of such a broad and deep innovation agenda. From this narrower perspective, the major task of the South African government is to stimulate, channel and empower the forms of creativity and entrepreneurship which can contribute directly to:

• structural changes away from heavy dependence on the growth of resource-based industries (RBIs) and towards more knowledge-intensive production, including through the diversification of RBIs into specialised supplier industries and services; (and),
• close the gap between the first and second economy in order to (i) secure sustained political commitment to science, technology and innovation (STI) by ensuring that STI provides tangible benefits to the majority; (ii) on the supply side, enlarge the pool of human resources that can be engaged in innovative activities; and (iii) on the demand side, increase domestic demand of innovations."

Having made the observation that "the business sector funds 45% of formal R&D and performs 58% of it", the Review says our innovation policy should:

"bring business enterprises ('shorthand' for all kinds of producers of goods and services) much more centrally into the 'map' of the innovation system -both as generators and implementers of innovation and as creators of human resources for innovation. In this regard the envisaged R&D tax incentive could send a powerful signal that reaches deep into the system, including SMEs as well as R&D intensive multinational companies, and induce additional privately financed R&D effort, provided it is designed taking due account of the rich international experience in this field."

The Review also addresses the critically important issue of human capital for STI and says: "Considerable efforts are already being made to strengthen and expand the whole chain of education and training from primary school to PhD, and within that to strengthen in particular the development of knowledge and skills in mathematics, technology and science. The Review team can only endorse the recognised urgency and magnitude of this challenge and suggest that it may be appropriate to review at the highest level in government the appropriateness of the balance currently being struck between increased public investment in physical and human capital. At a more detailed level:

• take steps to offset the high opportunity costs faced by students, especially black students, who proceed through post-graduate and post-doctoral research training;
• identify and address the other factors that affect completion rates at postgraduate level, and consider such measures as a PhD 'completion bonus' to help reduce completion times and drop out rates; and,
• reform the current cost-based university fee system that acts as a disincentive for students to take expensive subjects like engineering."

The Review team consider the STI issue so important that they also recommend that we "establish a body at Cabinet level to provide a holistic overview of (i) strategies, policies and budgets for the development of the system, and (ii) the balance between departmental initiatives that pose competing claims on the system's real resources - especially its human resources. (The relevance to South Africa of the different forms of such arrangement in several OECD countries might usefully be assessed.)"

The above are only some of the recommendations in the OECD Review. They indicate the seriousness with which the OECD team approached its work and the challenge our country faces to adopt and implement what the Review describes as "good policy practices in building a socially inclusive and economically efficient national innovation system". We sincerely thank the OECD team for the work they did, which will undoubtedly help us to evolve good policy practices.

It is very fitting that immediately after the publication of the OECD Review we hold our annual National Science Week (NSW). Minister Mangena will launch NSW in Phuthaditjhaba, Free State, on 7 May. Among others NSW aims to promote career awareness among the youth, parents and educators, especially those from among the previously oppressed, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as help to identify talented young people and facilitate their entry into these fields.

This communicates the unequivocal message that all of us must adopt this as one of our most important national tasks, to inspire our youth and educators at all levels to ensure that we respond with all necessary determination to the challenge to ensure that we develop the successful science, technology and innovation system we need to achieve our objective to build a winning nation.

Policy Discussion Documents V

Strengthening the position of workers in a globalised world

The democratic movement needs to forge a new and more effective response to the position of workers, their unions and the rights of workers within a dynamic labour market. In the last ten years the emphasis has been on traditional collective bargaining within a well developed and favourable body of labour law. It now has to address the challenges posed by a massive structural change in the labour market brought about by globalisation.

A discussion document distributed to ANC structures in preparation for the 52nd National Conference notes that globalisation has profound and complex impacts on all classes within the various national political economies. It impacts on the sovereignty of the nation state. The revolution in communication and computing technologies is leading to observable structural changes in the productive forces, production relations and the workings of the international capitalist system.

The basic changes within the means of production can be condensed into two powerful and dynamic processes: change within the production and technology processes, and the mobility and volatility of investment flows. As a consequence, markets flourish. This is important since the operations of markets are more favourable to the interests of capital than labour. So markets mean that the power of capital will tend to be greater than that of labour.

The power of markets, the weakening of a national bourgeoisie and working class and the speed with which economic relations now change all have a destabilising impact on institutions that try to manage the wider public good.

In the era of capitalism the nature of work and the structure of the skills held by workers have been in a process of continuous change. As technology advances new possibilities for work organisation emerge. How the work process actually is structured is a complex interplay between the possibilities created by technology and the power of organised workers to negotiate changes that are in the interests of the workers themselves. In this later process the class disposition of the state is a major determinant of the outcome of such negotiation.

Divided economies

The dynamism of technological development can lead to the dispersion of the site of production (or work). The accumulation process is global and capital is able to change the site of actual accumulation more rapidly and across more economies than in any previous era. Taken together this has a powerful and divisive impact on the structure of production and of the associated labour market. In South Africa we have come to analyse this as the divide between the first and second economy.

What is problematic about this divide is that productivity, skill and income levels are rising in the first economy and generally falling in the second economy. For unions it is easier to organise in the first economy because it is more concentrated and accountable to modern legislation but each productive activity is inherently more volatile in its location, which is determined by global forces.

This tendency toward exclusion and marginalisation of economic activity -first and second economy type effects - is exacerbated and further entrenched by the changing skill needs of the global economic sector. The production process requires a more educated and skilled workforce. Specific expertise, skilled artisans, unskilled and semi-skilled workers are still needed but in vastly lower numbers and proportions than before.

What are the possible effective responses to this situation for the union movement and what sort of state form can best mitigate the obvious uncertainty and volatility that has accompanied higher living standards in the global component of our economies?

In South Africa the formulation of the struggle has clearly been within the tradition of a national democratic revolution. The confluence of colonialism, particularly brutal racism associated with a large settler population and the dangers of tribal and ethnic divisions has made a national democratic and modernising revolution the most powerful mobilising force.

A national democratic revolution is a crucial programme to transform society and modernise the economy. Feudal structures, racism, colonial oppression and fragmented states (rift by ethnic or religious conflict) are all barriers to economic progress and higher standards of living for the majority. Accordingly building an integrated nation state based on democratic principles is a realistic and essential strategy liberating people from oppression and poverty. In these circumstances proponents of socialism have stressed that a national democratic revolution provides the platform for a further and later advance toward the conditions that would make socialism feasible. There is no short or quick jump from one to the other. A national democratic revolution has to succeed in its tasks before the political economy conditions exist for mobilising for a socialist transformation.

Residing in the policies, and more importantly the history, of the Alliance we find the only basis for mobilising a multi-class political force capable of designing and effecting a strong state that can harness the positives in globalisation and develop defences against its dangers. A united political movement with its roots firmly in mass participation and involvement is the only basis for the decisive, determined and yet patient transformation of our society and economy into a prosperous, stable and tolerant democracy.

Developmental state

Increasingly we have styled the state we need to build as a developmental state. This includes a strong public sector, effective state owned enterprises, strategic investment initiatives, support for small, medium and micro-enterprises and an investor friendly regulatory environment. The state has to be capable of directly controlling vast resources and applying them to strategic tasks.

It needs to ensure that our economy and society remains close to the leading edge in the global development of knowledge, technology and more important that we are able to apply this within our economy and to the full benefit of all of our citizens. Of particular importance, the state must be capable of establishing institutions and processes that prevent the inevitable effects of dynamic change from unfairly falling on those least able to adjust to them.

In organising workers we have to accept that the nature of work, the range of work and the location of the workplace have changed very substantially. The major structural divisions in the labour market are being deepened by the process of globalisation.

The trade union movement has to be capable of advanced analytical and policy work so that it can foresee events and interact in the realm of policy formation with the state and organised business. It has to have at its disposal the same skills and professional capacity as do the state and organised business.

In this environment unions need many more and more skilled organisers. National unions have to become major organisations in their own rights. The more varied the organisational challenge the more multi-skilled organisers will be required and the more varied the organisational methods.

Workers have to be capable of mobility within the labour market. This needs high levels of skill and education but it also needs active labour markets to provide information for workers and to assist them to locate opportunities. Unions have to play a major role in such systems. Unions can play a major role in ensuring that workers receive training and high level education.

Workers should not unfairly bear the costs of change. This is a major challenge for the union movement. The systems and processes that are needed to ensure that this does not happen cannot be left to the state alone. Given the wide social responsibilities that the state has their efforts will fall short of what is required. Unions have to expand their capacity beyond the workplace to assist workers in times of transition.

Substantial programmes need to be launched to respond effectively to the challenges posed by globalisation. Such programmes can involve all the Alliance partners and must become part of the government programmes for the transformation of the economy and society.

** This is the fifth in a series of articles summarising the main points covered in the policy discussion documents distributed as part of preparations for the ANC 52nd National Conference.

More Information:

• ANC Policy Discussion Documents, March 2007

White identity in a changing SA PART IV

A whiter shade of white

"The appeal to let sleeping dogs lie hides the crucial issue of which dogs are still holding onto the bones." - Melissa Steyn.

This week, we examine the fourth of five narratives of "whiteness" as discussed in Melissa Steyn's book: "Whiteness Just Isn't What it Used to Be - White Identity in a Changing South Africa." This narrative is called 'A whiter shade of white', which, Steyn asserts, is a narrative expressive of the denial to honestly confront issues of race, racial identity and, by implication, post-apartheid redress.

Denial is engineered through several complementary appeals, notably 'appeals to: an overarching identity,' 'non-applicability,' 'politically correct ethnicity,' 'transcendent self,' and 'appeals to external forces.'

The interweaving thread to which each appeal clings is the broader narrative (A whiter shade of white) such that the pleas, as with the previous narrative, merely play to complement parts of the broader narrative.

In addition to citing respondents to Steyn's book who fit into this narrative, we cite other examples taken from prevailing public discourse on race, racism and post-apartheid redress.

We conclude by highlighting, the following implications about the narrative:

• The narrative under review appears to have gained currency in a prevailing public discourse attempting to protect racial privilege,
• The apparent popularity of this narrative also appears to have been internalised by some amongst the historically oppressed. Consequently, there may be need for some compelling questions.

Appellants to "an overarching identity" within the context of the narrative "A whiter shade of white" define themselves either as "South Africans" or as "Africans".

We must hasten to add that the ANC questions neither the South African nor Africaness of any of our white compatriots. We know that many of our white compatriots are daily making sustained and honest attempts to come to terms with the legacy of our racist past. The result of this necessary process of introspection leads them to define themselves rightly as nothing other than South Africans and Africans. The present narrative, however, analyses definitions which seek not to deal with issues of racism, its legacy as well as the necessary process of building a non-racial society with the necessary honesty.

In the context of this narrative, both presentations of "South African" and "African" identities date back to the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer war during which sections of Afrikaans and English speaking white South Africans sought reconciliation by forging a unified national identity, which was neither English nor Afrikaner.

Noteworthy, however, is that this nation building exercise, of tragic historical course, excluded black South Africans. In his 1987 essay, "The reconstitution of coloured identity in the Western Cape," Ian Goldin records, among other factors, "a decisive shift" in colonial discourse at the turn of the nineteenth century. Whereas the term "coloured" previously referred to all non-whites such as prevails in North America, the Cape census of 1904 made the hitherto unprecedented distinction between 'white, Bantu and coloured'."

For her part, Steyn notes that some "whiter shade of white" narrators claim "South African" and "African" identities without making a conscious shift to inclusiveness, let alone moving away from whiteness. The motive, she argues, is always certainly one of concealing their racial advantage. And the inability, sometimes refusal, to move away from whiteness prevents the narrators of this tale from identifying with the issues facing indigenous Africans.

A respondent who, according to Steyn, derides the ability of Africans to govern the country "with anything but chaotic tyranny", professes that he does not think that being white has anything to do with his identity. He regards himself as an African, and wants to be judged in such terms.

In his book, "The other side of history - an anecdotal reflection on political transition in South Africa", a text which reflects more the author's psychological anguish with the transition, than an objective appraisal of the transition, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, makes remarks of a similar order. He is an African, he declares - as if that was in dispute. His ancestors came to South Africa in 1670, Slabbert informs his readers. "I had absolutely nothing to do with it," he declares, - again as if this was in dispute.

Slabbert then ventures into what amounts to a lame challenge to the strategic objective of the liberation struggle, ie. the liberation of black people in general and African people in particular. Interestingly, Slabbert, a sociologist by training and a former university lecturer, attributes this position, adopted at the 1969 Morogoro Conference of the ANC, to a paper presented at the 2005 General Council, which he dubs, the "ANC 2005 National Congress". Elsewhere in the book, the General Council is referred to as the "ANC General Congress", not to mention additional errors such as the misspelling of well-known public personalities.

He then launches into a polemic on the policy of black economic empowerment, and stops short of charging the ANC of racism-in-reverse when he quotes his 1995 paper in which he asked the following question: "In the tension between affirmative action and efficient delivery, how far can one go in sacrificing competence and efficiency for political correctness?"

Let us put this question differently to establish its meaning: "Since affirmative action is the direct antithesis to efficient delivery achieved by white people who are genetically competent, how far can one go in sacrificing delivery by pursuing affirmative action in aid of inherently incompetent black people for political correctness?"

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert also alleges that "In the South African context, an African, for purposes of policy, is 'a Black of a special kind'."

But there is an interesting omission in Slabbert's recycling of his own ideas. It is the 1978 Progressive Party Constitutional Commission which he chaired. Although representing a departure from the party's previous 1960 and 1962 Donald Molteno Commissions by, among others, adopting universal adult suffrage for all South Africans, the Slabbert Commission nevertheless recommended minority veto to be written into the constitution.

Even more interesting, is when Slabbert charges: "For most of its existence, the ANC has been an ideology-driven movement." Since all sociologists know that no human being, let alone a political party, is value-free, it must be ANC policies, as issuing from Slabbert's supposed understanding of the movement's ideological conviction, with which he takes issue. His quarrel with affirmative action, which can hardly be described with any reasonable measure of justice as an ideologically laden policy, should be seen in this context.

In an October 1978 interview with Brian Hackland regarding the commission's proposals, Slabbert said, in motivation for the removal of free enterprise from the commission's recommendations: "It is an ideological concept which will become the target of aggression for a whole range of black political organisations." Slabbert is permitted to pursue ideological ends, the ANC is not.

Returning to the present narrative under review, 'A whiter shade of white', Slabbert's assertion of his Africaness, while not in dispute, evidently seeks to prevent debate on racism, its persistent legacy and corrective measures, venturing into what Steyn calls "subtle articulations [that] may disguise, even [obfuscate] complicity."

Appeals to "non-applicability" on the other hand range from attempts to distance oneself from supporting and being recognised as having benefited from apartheid and taking flight from one's colonial settler ancestors (as in the case of Slabbert) while still clinging to whiteness, in a convoluted denialism.

With an all too familiar assuaging tone, a computer analyst says: "I don't relate, somehow to these questions. Whiteness has never been an issue for me. Perhaps it's relevant that during my school days, I lived in the United States." At which stage images of racism in the United States, which would be difficult to escape even the least attentive observer, come to mind.

In addition to attempts to protect one's legacy of racial privilege by seeking to deny the persistence of racism and making false claims towards inclusive identities, fear and guilt once again dog the purveyors of this strand of the present narrative in our discussion. Says Steyn: "Such is the fear of being perceived to be aligned with what is morally reproachable that even to talk about 'race' could implicate one in racism."

Closely related to the foregoing attitude is an "appeal to politically correct ethnicity" which, according to Steyn, is to be found, mainly among English speaking and non-native white South Africans. Such narrators, of which the computer analyst we have just quoted is a part, assert that they cannot be racist because apartheid was presided over by Afrikaners, and not the English or other white ethnic groups.

This tendency or appeal is to freeze racism to apartheid. If they are local South Africans, the purveyors of this narrative seek to avoid the crucial issue of racial socialisation and its systematic moulding of people into racial consciousness. Non South Africans, on the other hand, seek to erase the global nature of racism from the discourse. Accordingly, Steyn argues that "apartheid was a family member of other expressions of Western racisms, and slotted into Western global projects... the fullest expression reveals what more subtle articulations may disguise, even obfuscating complicity."

Thus she asserts that the "appeal to politically correct ethnicity" is constructed "through contradistinction from the other 'others' in the lives of English-speaking South Africans, the Afrikaners, who are seen as the 'real' racists, and from 'their' politics, apartheid. Part of the need to deny whiteness is to avoid being regarded as 'white' in the same way as those 'other' whites. The revulsion ... serves to smudge the commonality of white privilege that he (the respondent) shares with them, and pushes an awareness of his own racialisation further out of reach."

In the case of English-speaking South Africans, their appeal to "politically correct ethnicity" blithely seeks to ignore the role of British colonialism, with its unbridled racism, which prepared fertile ground for the seeds of apartheid to germinate in, and flower.

Listen to another respondent, again: "I find it difficult to answer questions of [race] because I feel I have 'purified' my system of any racial tendencies I may have had due to circumstances. This 'purification' process has been going on much longer than any political change."

We now enter into review of another appeal; the "appeal of a transcendent self". It consists of assertions of being human, despite being white, drawn from modern humanism in order to try to establish a natural innocence of any possibility of racism, that is, of being contaminated oneself, let alone of being an abject perpetrator as such.

Thus, a person presents oneself as outside of any specific social context, transcending their social position. The following are typical representations of self transcendent appeal:

• I never thought to interpret such a thing! I don't regard it as a part of my identity. I just am. (Retiree)
• White is just a skin colour. (Photographer)
• I can't remember ever being aware of the fact that I am white in the racial sense. (Lawyer)

According to Steyn, this appeal is useful for purposes of avoiding "weighing up the implications of real economic and social differences, and encountering the feelings of guilt that ... accompany [racially acquired] privilege [in a society in which economic resources are still largely racially determined]". In true liberal tradition, this appeal asserts that: "Social position is the consequence of personal attributes, attitudes and aptitudes rather than [social] factors like race, [class and gender]."

The fourth and last strand of the present narrative under analysis is "appeals to external forces" at the exclusion of agency. The narrators of this strand of the tale argue that they simply found themselves in a set of circumstances beyond their control. Such is the strength of this narrative that yesterday's active supporters of apartheid, today would fit into a very small living room, if not a telephone booth.

Steyn cites several such responses of this common refrain and notes that they are usually accompanied by a general pattern of denial and appeals to bury the past.

To them she retorts: "The appeal to let sleeping dogs lie hides the crucial issue of which dogs are still holding onto the bones. It is an evasion of the extent to which the past permeates the present, of how the legacy of social injustice continues into the future. It is a refusal to acknowledge that sustaining 'normal' white life perpetuates the disadvantages of others. Complacency, even indifference, is passed off as liberality."

Last week, we referred to an editorial of the Sunday Times of 18 March 2007, in which, criticising the President's online letter in the ANC Today of the same week, the paper's editor, Mondli Makhanya, wrote that racism is now a phenomenon of "[a few] atypical whites who still call blacks 'kaffirs'."

In review, we quoted Steyn's introductory remarks when she spoke of "considerable resistance to talking about race as a social category" by black and white South Africans alike.

We stated that, in our view, the infrequence of offensive remarks such as "kaffir" does not justify the ahistorical assertion made by the editor of the Sunday Times that racism has now become atypical. In this regard, we noted that such conclusions would have us leave, intact, the structural relations that perpetuate racism.

Kenyan novelist and social commentator, Ngugi wa Thiongo, often describes the situation in which Africans look down upon their languages as a "situation in which abnormalities become serious normalities".

In the context of this review and the prevailing tendency of which Melissa Steyn spoke, we are obliged to ask: what has happened to some sections within the African intelligentsia who, in conditions of freedom, seek to use the positions they achieved through the struggles of our people, to seek to convince these masses, with sustained vigour, to accept abnormalities as serious normalities?

Whatever our answer to this question, it underscores the need for progressive forces to renew their commitment to fighting and building a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, fully aware that as before, there will be some in our society who will naturally seek to take us out of voyage, including by ridiculing the very positions that stand to benefit society and humanity as a whole.

** "Whiteness Just Isn't What it Used to Be - White Identity in a Changing South Africa", by Melissa Steyn: State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. 2001.

What the media says

Once more the BBC broadcasts falsehoods

This is the fourth time this year and the fourth during the life of this journal that once again we comment on a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report about our country. The last time we did this was in ANC Today Vol 7 No 10, when we wrote about how the BBC discovered large anti-crime demonstrations in our country that had never taken place.

The BBC has been at it again, once again broadcasting deliberate falsehoods about our country. This time it has discovered that "Fifa makes 2010 Cup back-up plan". The BBC reported that, "Football's governing body has contingency plans in case South Africa cannot host the World Cup in 2010, Fifa president Sepp Blatter has said."

"South Africa's preparations have been dogged by delays and there are fears its stadia will not be ready. Blatter told BBC One's new Inside Sport programme: 'Other countries are ready to organise the World Cup', although he said they would not be needed. Blatter cited a list of countries that could step in, including England. The others he mentioned were the United States, Mexico, Japan and Spain. 'Definitely we have a possibility to go somewhere else if something happens,' said Blatter."

The BBC went on to report that, "Last year, Blatter expressed misgivings about the lack of construction and renovation work on the 10 South African stadiums that are scheduled to host games in the World Cup."

It is true that the BBC spoke to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. It is entirely untrue that FIFA has contingency plans in case South Africa cannot host the World Cup in 2010. Indeed President Blatter said specifically there was no contingency plan, saying Plan A was South Africa, and Plan B was South Africa, and there was no need for any other plans.

But as the BBC itself reported, President Blatter said the 2010 tournament would only be moved out of South Africa if, for instance, there was a natural catastrophe. In this regard, the BBC quoted President Blatter as having said: "It was the same case in Germany. Something can happen. A natural catastrophe or whatever, a big change in society - everybody against football."

If our stadiums and our cities were destroyed as a result of a volcanic eruption, for instance, or, for some reason, the fifty million South Africans decided that they hate football and do not want our country to host the 2010 tournament, obviously the tournament would have to be moved to another country.

It is entirely on the basis of these far-fetched possibilities that the BBC invented a dramatic story that football's governing body has contingency plans in case South Africa cannot host the World Cup in 2010.

In this context, President Blatter mentioned a random group of countries that could host the 2010 Soccer World Cup in the unlikely event that our country suffers from a natural catastrophe, etc.

To sustain the lie it was determined to communicate, the BBC nevertheless went so far as to ask the English Football Association (FA) if it had been approached by FIFA to host the 2010 tournament.

The BBC reported that, "The Football Association said they had not been involved with any plans for the tournament to move to England. 'There have been no discussions with Fifa at this stage,' a spokesman told BBC Sport. 'We do believe we have some of the finest stadia and football infrastructure in the world but it's hypothetical as we understand South Africa are on course to stage the 2010 World Cup.'"

Of course, the English Football Association was perfectly correct. South Africa is on course to stage the 2010 World Cup. FIFA had and has no need to approach the English or any other football association to hold itself in readiness to host the 2010 World Cup, and has not approached any country in this regard.

Nevertheless, despite what it was told truthfully by the English FA, the BBC remained determined to propagate the lie about contingency plans in case we fail properly to prepare for the World Cup.

It therefore told the outright lie that "South Africa's preparations have been dogged by delays and there are fears its stadia will not be ready". To add insult to injury it made the entirely false allegation that last year President Blatter expressed misgivings about the lack of construction and renovation work on the 10 South African stadiums that are scheduled to host games in the World Cup.

The truth is that last year, repeatedly, President Blatter made it a point to say, publicly, that South Africa was breaking new ground in terms of meeting its commitments to FIFA ahead of schedule.

Once again we cannot avoid the conclusion that the BBC finds itself driven to tell lies about our country because it cannot persuade itself to accept that as Africans we are not sub-human and are perfectly capable of achieving everything that other human beings can achieve.

Despite the wishes and the propaganda of the BBC, our country will host a successful 2010 Soccer World Cup. As the English FA said, our preparations in this regard are very much on course.

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