IT’S NOT RACIST IF I SAY SO
Introduction
This past weekend the Sunday Times reported that, while delivering the 1976 Memorial Lecture at Wits University, ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula told the audience that the transformation of higher learning institutions had turned the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) “into nothing but Bombay”.
“When you get into that institution you can think it’s an exclusive university of Indians only,” he said.
His comment was widely condemned.
The Democratic Alliance responded by saying that members of the ruling party continually made statements that were racially prejudiced, and yet the ANC never holds those people to account.
SABC News reported that a “democracy expert” (Rama Naidoo - the executive director of the Democracy Development Programme) had condemned the remarks: “If this statement is exactly as reported, then nothing less than an unconditional apology must be made”.
And the Daily News reported that various UKZN members had expressed their contempt for Mbalula’s statement. UKZN spokesperson, Professor Dasarath Chetty, said the comment was cause for serious concern although, interestingly, UKZN vice chancellor Prof Malegapuru Makgoba said he did not want to comment.
Political veteran Fatima Meer said: “To call it Bombay is being very racist”.
And ANC veteran Phyllis Naidoo described Mbalula’s statement as “xenophobic”.
There seems, then, to be a consensus - that what Mbalula said was, at worst, “very racist” and at best, “cause for serious concern”. And (taking for granted that the ANC, as a party, never does anything about this kind of thing) an apology is in order.
So it was quite surprising then, to read in yesterday’s Cape Argus that Mbalula denies he said anything racist at all: “It is not racist or anything of that sort. It relates to how generally we respond to issues of transformation and the affordability of education.”
“It's a non-issue,” he continued, “It's just that it's blown out of context to peddle on racist undertones”.
Racist or racist?
Mbalula’s explanation was that he was trying to make a point about transformation and demographic representivity:
“It is not an attack on Indians, but is a reflection of the demographics of the diminishing numbers of African students. These days you are seeing the shrinking of actual numbers of African students and when you enter the institution, you can actually think that you are in India or Mumbai, or whatever the case.”
It’s a novel defence, but one that ignores intent.
No one would disagree that the intent behind Mbalula’s statement was to highlight the fact that what he saw as a high proportion of Indians at UKZN was problematic – that it was in some way bad.
To put it another way, according to Mbalula, UKZN had so many Indians it resembled Bombay, and this was a bad thing.
Well, that’s the problem right there. So what if it resembles Bombay? Why is that a bad thing?
The assumption that too many Indians at UKZN is a bad thing, is racist. End of story.
And it’s a damning indictment of any political party when it regards a particular race as inherently problematic (as the ANC does for any race that is not ‘African’ – by which it means black).
But what about Mbalula’s defence – that demographic representivity and tran
| Posted on 21/6/2007
 |  | |