the zone of non-being

Clocked 3 decades of black majority rule. Just a month ago, the “Rainbow nation” commemorated Human Rights Day (21 March 2024). South Africa remembered the black bodies that were ruthlessly shot dead by White policemen during a peaceful protest in defiance of the Pass Law by unarmed civilians in Sharpeville on 21 March, 1960. The killing of black people in cold blood on this day was not the first time, neither was it the last time black lives were considered less of human, and therefore not deserving to exist even on their own land. On 27 April, the most southern part of Africa celebrated 30 years of “independence.” This is basically the official abolishment of apartheid in South Africa. It is this belief that apartheid ended on April 27 1994 that has inspired the penning down of this article. It is believed that 27 April 1994 marked the day when black people started to be considered humans, for they were now afforded the rights they were formerly denied. Racism might have been declared over, but it’s impact on black lives has outlived this declaration for it is still felt today in the way a black person relates to a white person. In 2024, black people still do not live dignified lives, the white other, for some reason still thinks it is superior because it has the economic power and more access to the means of production, the South African soil, education sector and all vehicles of production one can think of. One would think I am going out of topic by writing on something that ended 30 years ago when Apartheid was formally abolished, which is not true, for racism is still alive and breathing amongst us, just that these days it has a subtle way of expressing itself. For this, I claim that there is no black person in Cape Town who has never been a victim of racism. A black person who claims otherwise has either internalised it, or experienced it but just did not recognise that that was it. In the next series of articles, starting with this one, I discuss ways in which racism plays itself out, since it is something we are living with – its implications on black-white relationships, and later on give a balance and the way forward.

In writings of European scholars, Africa is and has always been presented as a backward, inferior people that lack reason, a race devoid of culture, morals, religion, identity and language. Reason in European scholarship means the ability to think. It is an idea born out of a French philosopher Rene Descartes who is known for the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” So the African, because he lacks reason, does not think, therefore he is not human. Enabled by the assertion of possessing reason, the European is a man of superior logic. According to the retrospective telling of the narrative of modernity, reason is trans-historical, trans-cultural and universal, it knows no bounds (Lushaba, 2020). Anyone possessing this reason can offer an opinion about anything even a culture, experiences and countries they know nothing about. A good example of this is the Western scholarship of African history. It can be noted that European scholars, because they presumably possess reason, claim the monopoly to knowledge on everything about Africa. Hence there are scholars such as the German philosopher Hegel, who writes about Africa even though he has never been to Africa. The problem is not his writings, but the detail which only a person who has been in Africa before can. One of the features of white hegemony that stands out is that whiteness pretends to know everything, even something they know nothing about.

Because the White man knows everything and is more human, he becomes a master in everything whom the African slave must emulate. Whiteness becomes the standard of beauty, cultural norms, language, etc. Thus, white hegemony gives power to Europe’s standard of living and presents those of Africa as barbaric. Not only did black people lack reason, but they were thought of as lacking everything the white person has, for example language and intelligence. Hence, and unfortunately, fluency in English language is a measure of intelligence, bleaching the skin to be lighter in complexion, and putting on weaves to look like a white man’s hair is a definition of beauty among African sisters. Thus, Sartre (2001) notes that black people try by all means to conform to Europe’s ideologies, hence he writes that to be black is to be in succession of nothingness. This means that everything that a black person has, he got it from the colonial masters. And no matter how much a black person tries to look like a white person, he can never be white. This mirrors the creation of black people who suffer from internalized racism where they desire to be white. Fanon (1952) asks, “what does a black man want? To be white.” He extrapolates this kind of internal racism through a black woman who desperately wants to marry a white man, not because of love, but to have a proximity to whiteness, to be close to be human. It is this kind of internalized racism which makes it impossible for friendship to exist between black people and white people, because society is structured in a way that pushes black people to strongly desire to associate with whiteness, not because of love but just to feel closer to humanity. The fact that it is not love but internalized racism that pushes people to associate shows that it is impossible to have friendship between white people and black people.

As Fanon rightly puts it, to be black is to be in a zone of none being. This means that in the world that is grappling with systemic racism, the humanity of black people is barely recognised. I would like to think that being a black person post 1994 South Africa would correlate with one being a beneficiary of one of the best Constitutions in the world, the Constitution of South Africa, 1996. But alas, even after Apartheid has “apparently been denounced” a black life in south Africa is in second class, after that of the white colleague. Black people live under degrading conditions which I do not think black people signed up for when they gained the so called independence . Ironically this is the case even in what is regarded as the best run city in South Africa. Clearly, when they talk about the best city in service delivery, they are not talking about delivering services to black communities, these are human rights which must only be enjoyed by humans, I do not think black people fit in that category in the White DA run city. In February 2024, Allan Winde, the DA Western Cape Premier, bragged that the DA government is the government that delivers. I agree, they deliver but for white people. Let me prove this: the Western Cape province has been ranked the best and one of the best provinces in South Africa from 2024. Obviously these statistics are ignorant of the sewage all over Gugulethu, rampant crime at the Cape Flats, poor to no housing in Khayelitsha, ambulances that arrive to fetch an ill black body after hours. When white owned media houses talk about the DA government being the best, they are obviously not talking about how the DA is promoting the lives and rights of black people in townships, why?-because those people are not human enough to deserve the right to dignity, housing, education, etc under a white-man run government. On 22 March 2024, residents of Khayelitsha dug a trench across Baden Powel Drive to protest for service delivery. Why do people always have to take it to the streets to have their rights realised? For me it is a form of provocation. The powers that be know of this form of reaction, they want that so that they can demonise black protesters and justify that black people are barbaric. Any form of protest serves the powers right for they cannot insult people and then prescribe ways in which they should respond to your insult.

Post 1994, racism as a social structure has managed to keep black people victims and white people beneficiaries of white privilege. White privilege refers to historical and contemporary advantages that white people have in accessing quality education, home ownership and decent jobs. In terms of education for instance, in South African classes, students learn in English, which is a borrowed language. This is an advantage to a white person in the same class because they are learning in their own language, which will probably make the content easy for them to understand. It does not only end there, the education system becomes guilty of advancing English language as the normal language that everyone in that educational space should use. The sabotaging of other indigenous languages gives a white person room to be ignorant of, say, Xhosa or IsiZulu in South Africa. This privilege of being allowed to be ignorant of black people’s language, culture and identity make it impossible for friendship between black people and white people. Surely, there cannot be friendship where a black person has to compromise their identity for a white person who is ignorant of the black person’s identity. The fact that it is a black person who is forced to adjust to the norms of white people shows that friendship cannot exist between blacks and whites. Before one even gets to that institution, they are subjected to exorbitant fees, which is a clear sign that the masters of these institutions, which happen to be white people, are ignorant of the historical poverty a black child comes from. It is this ignorance that is evidence of the institutionalised racism that is entrenched in South African communities even after “independence.”

I do not mean to sound like I am targeting white people. There are really good white people in South Africa, but here is a fun fact which makes it difficult to have a difference: Racism does not depend on individual predilection. It does not depend on the behaviour of one individual. Whiteness is a constituted identity which every white person should protect, expressly or tacitly. Let me demonstrate this: A black man B, can find themselves in a situation where they are discriminated against by a white person W. Then there is a white person N, who is “not racist’’ and is friendly towards black people. N sees the treatment B is getting from a fellow White person. N then stands up to W to save B. Suddenly, one is forced to think that simply because N is friendly towards black people, he is not racist. But what if I tell you that N stood up for B because N realizes his power? N is a product of a race that thinks that they are saviours of black people.  This group of white people is aware that the problem is that of white racism, but they never confront each other about that, they insist on being “friends” with black people just to show that they are not racist. The reason they do this is to appease their own white conscience. Thy are willing to associate with black people only an extent that they do not risk their own relationship with their fellow white world. I had the privilege of listening to Eddie Cross (an opposition politics white veteran, who later turned to support the ruling party ZANU-Pf) narrate his contribution to the liberation of Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia under the White Racist government of Ian Smith. One thing that strikes me is that Eddie mentions that him as a Christian, was was opposed to getting the gun and fight against white people in defence of Black people. Any reasonable white person can only do so much. White people are only prepared to support black people as long as they do not compromise their relationship with their fellows. Biko would say that that is not true friendship, for the white man is only seeking to sanitise his conscience and make him look “not racist” and says, “I am not racist, look I have black friends and I can even stand up for them.” But like I said, that is just how far they can go, so long it does not cost them their relationship with their white world; they can befriend you but will never marry you, because then that means there is equality. Some might say but what about interracial marriages that we have seen? Those just prove my point. In most, if not all of those, the black partner is the one that compromises his culture so that he/she can “fit” into white family and its culture. First of all, you compromise your language, among other things, which is a key tenet of culture.

By now we can agree that modern ontology of the social gives primacy to an individual (a philosophical standpoint that is in contrast with African philosophy which prioritises the community over the individual). This individual is one who is possessed of reason. This reason is not attached to persons, one either possesses it or not (Lushaba, 2020). And like I have already mentioned, according to the modern world, black people do not possess it, only white people do. It is for this reason that black people were colonized. According to Descartes (2013), reason is the basis of humanity. The fact that black people were thought of as lacking reason justified colonization and brutal treatment because they were though of as less human. They were put in what Fanon (1952) calls a “zone of non-being” and therefore not fit to deserve dignified human treatment. That is why a black person has to prove everything he says he can do. For him to have equal opportunities as a white fellow, he has to work more than twice as hard to get there, which is something that is not even guaranteed, and sadly in “post-apartheid” South Africa.

Share the Post:

Leave a Reply

Join Our Newsletter