Apartheid might have ended many years back in South Africa but the racist idea about white supremacy in South Africa has remained a major issue in the country and Zimbabwean President, Roberts Mugabe wants to know why. The 93-year-old Zimbabwean President launched an indirect attack on whites in South Africa, drawing attention on white supremacy in the country meant to be striking a balance between its racial differences. In a short clip, the nonagenarian said he asked a member of the African National Congress (ANC) why whites still had so much power in South Africa and in reply, the member reportedly said it’s because of Nelson Mandela. “I asked one ANC Minister how come the whites have been left with so much power, and he said it was because of your friend Mandela. That was an ANC Minister who was saying that…” Mugabe said.
Mugabe was speaking at the national shrine during the burial of the Southern African country’s two heroes, Moudy Muzenda and George Rutanhire over the weekend.
White supremacy, which is an ideology based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore white people should be dominant over other races, has long been argued to be one of the major issues hindering the growth and development of South Africa. White supremacy in South Africa implies black inferiority and Nelson Mandela blamed it on “lack of human dignity experienced by Africans. Communication Minister, Faith Muthambi had also opined that South Africa is still paying a heavy price for having overlooked this historical challenge. She said this has consistently affected the country’s political and economic agenda. “Where necessary it enlists the services of the oppressed for the perpetuation of their own oppression. Our first responsibility should have been focusing on the task to dismantle white supremacy. We chose not to,” she said. The dominance of whites extends into every aspect of the economy. For instance, the Commission for Employment Equity Annual Report 2012-2013 found that at “the top management level, whites at 72.6%, particularly males, still continue to enjoy preference over other race groups in terms of representation, recruitment, promotion and skills development at this level”. These are known facts. Thus, when Professor Chris Malikane observed that “the power of white monopoly capital could be seen in the private sector, in all apparatuses of the state, such as government, the universities, the courts, the press, the security forces and political parties”, he was stating the obvious. White supremacy in South Africa had its beginning in the initial Dutch colonial settlement of the Cape. But today, at the death of apartheid, the discrepancy between the country’s democratic evolution and the parallel but slower rate of economic and social change is becoming a source of growing discontent. Though the income and wealth gap between whites and other races in the country has decreased somewhat since 1994, overall income inequality has increased with fewer but rich white controlling the wealth of the country while the majority, mostly blacks still wallow in poverty. Recall that recently, Statistics SA published its report showing that over half of the South African populations are living in poverty. This population which is mostly blacks are said to be food hungry. However, President Jacob Zuma, who had also hinted on the issue of White Supremacy in South Africa, vowed to eradicate this issue through his Radical Economic Transformation.
Zuma said insisted that though the contentious radical economic transformation concept was not something new in the country, his administration is bent on using this to ensure the blacks gain all they deserve in their country, starting with land and wealth redistribution. “South Africa continues to suffer the consequences of apartheid policies today even as the government led by the African National Congress (ANC) has expanded access to education for all. “That is why we speak of radical socio-economic transformation: the fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and control of the economy,” Zuma said, citing several reasons for changing the structure of the economy.
Source buzzsouthafrica
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