South African Equality Courts

Redress For Generations of Racism and Discrimination.

July 6, 2004

Mail & Guardian -- Johannesburg

I remember the enthusiastic anticipation of young South African students in Nigeria during the late 1970s. They looked forward to the day apartheid would end and they would come into their own with freedom -- free elections, access to good jobs, no more obnoxious pass laws to contend with and equal citizenship for all -- in their beloved South Africa.

It took a decade and more before their dream of a fatherland without apartheid became reality. As for the rest, however, the dividends of freedom without apartheid continues to elude many Black South Africans. The long march to freedom remains a tortuous trek.

Its been a decade since the end of apartheid and people are free to go where they want and associate with whom they desire, but South Africa remains a highly divided society along racial lines. Europeans, Asians and Africans continue to live in their separate solitudes.

In one ironic aspect, the South Africa of 2004 resembles the South Africa of the early 1900s. Then the Afrikaners gained control of government and the English remained in-charge of business and commerce.

Today, the country is under majority Black rule, but business and commerce remain entrenched in White hands. Largely because of this fact and the clear threat of economic disruption implied, change has been slow in coming despite affirmative action programs meant to speed up the process of redress for the many inequalities in South African society and economy.

In other more subtle ways as well, South Africa's racist past refuses to let go.

I was in that country in 2001 for the World Conference on Racism organized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights and was able to see first hand how the legacy of apartheid has continued to dodge South African society.

Despite their new freedoms, certain places, physical and psychical, remain out of bounds for Black South Africans. Some night clubs are designated for members only -- in one case, only seamen were supposed to belong. A typical bank in downtown Durban will have Blacks as cleaners and security guards; Indians may be found at the reception desk, while Whites and Indians are behind the bullet-proof teller glass; behind the tellers, in the executive offices, nine out of ten desks are occupied by Whites and the remainder will have an Indian behind it.

Generations of apartheid has left deep scars in social attitudes. Even as South Africans talk about and try to assume their new freedoms, old presumptions, stereotypes and prejudices continue to block their path.

Many Indians still will not associate with Blacks socially. I had the privilege of working with some young ladies in Durban during the WCAR conference and had reason to visit their parents' business near where I stayed. Their Indian father, though blacker than myself, did not hide his displeasure that an African should so boldly be asking after his daughters.

Many Whites still expect the old deference they became accustomed to through apartheid. They do not expect others to talk back to them and away from the corridors of political power, "uppity" Blacks are still very much disapproved. These conditions remain due mainly to the great economic power that Whites continue to wield.

The Mail & Guardian reports a 40 per cent national unemployment rate in 2003, up from 34 per cent in 1994.

Blacks may speak bravely about their new freedoms, but most remain wary of offending the old taboos. This is true for the poor majority seeking a foothold in the economic system, as well as the emerging middleclass eager to maintain and improve their new status.

Unless one wants to keep him or herself confined to the townships which remain 100 per cent Black or "Colored" with high unemployment, South Africans continue to heed old attitudes; their livelihood -- that hotel cleaning job or desk job in a city law firm -- may depend on it.

The persistence of these conditions has led to the creation of Equality Courts, designed to eliminate racism and associated habits from the colonial and apartheid eras.

According to the M&G, 220 special Equality Courts have been established since June 2003 and 800 judges and magistrates have received training to handle equality cases.

Addressing a Johannesburg conference on Equality Courts in late June, the deputy minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Johnny de Lange told the gathering that "Equal opportunity alone is not enough to address the apartheid-inflicted legacy... we must change the mindset of our people."

That exactly is what South Africa needs -- a change of mindset that categorizes people into racial castes with attendant expectations of privilege and inevitable simmering conflict of disadvantage.