I wonder what would have happened if General Bheki Cele had been called a monkey? There would have been a big outcry in South Africa if the racist slur had come from a white person, that’s for sure.
In our loud-mouthed police commissioner’s case, however, labeling wealthy businessman and murder suspect Shrien Dewani a monkey has prejudiced the chances of the Briton returning to this country to answer charges arising from the death in Cape Town of his bride Anni, but it appears - outrageously - to have left Cele’s career unscathed.
Indeed, some South Africans I’ve interviewed in a random sampling of opinion shrug indulgently when asked about Cele’s controversial remark, saying his use of the word monkey was merely a figure of speech. Although Dewani’s defenders and much of the British media have cited the unfortunate comment and Cele’s “shoot to kill” reputation as evidence of prejudice, the Guardian in London also expressed a long-suffering view recently: “Most observers in South Africa agree that Cele’s ‘ “monkey” comments should not be taken as racist...
Well, forgive me for having a loud moment myself, but this is bollocks. Describing someone you don’t admire as a primate of any sort is racist in South Africa - and in Britain, too, if you recall the hoo-haa a few years back in response to English football fans throwing banana skins at black players.
The fact that most observers in South Africa resent Dewani for tarnishing our bright post-World Cup image more than they condemn Cele’s racist lapse is evidence of our muddle-headed priorities. But Cele is a very important person, a role model, in this society and he should be held to account for his serious breach of our collective, albeit wishful, values.
South Africans are racist, let’s face it. I hear evidence of bigotry all the time from whites, and feel it quite often from others in various contemptuous guises. We all suffered an overdose of this virus of the mind under apartheid, though it occurs to a lesser extent in much of the world. It was the British in the deeply stratified Motherland who taught us former colonialists how to be racist, after all. While waving our Union Jacks beneath their superior gaze, we learnt to look down on others.
Whatever the causes, it is not okay for the police commissioner to mouth off insultingly in a frustrated moment, just as it is not okay for singer Steve Hofmeyr to threaten to use insulting Afrikaans struggle words, which, he claims, “the country is trying very hard to avoid”. These responses went out of the window with apartheid. It may be okay for Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande to use derogatory terms like “darkies” to parody the ANC government as the victim of racial conspiracy (as if it is only the 5-million whites who complain about state education!) though his petulance is embarrassing in a context where neither Nelson Mandela nor Archbishop Tutu ever resorted to such demeaning language. What we have in this country to our great advantage today, however, is a president who is not racist. Jacob Zuma simply does not think in such terms, according to the man who shared a cell with him on Robben Island for ten years, deputy minister of International Relations Ebrahim Ebrahim.
Note, for example, the restrained way in which our president responded to recent DA charges that the ANC relied increasingly on Mandela’s legacy to cover up the failings of the current administration. “Don’t be jealous when we quote him (Mandela). It is a serious matter for us,” Zuma said. “It’s not the kind of thing we must try to politick about, because the scars will show - and we are not angry about the scars because we understood we were to liberate ourselves and the oppressor as well.”
Imagine if he had said instead: Listen, you monkeys: don’t think we darkies have forgotten the wounds of the past. A sorry mess we’d be in if such vulgarities underpinned our national narrative. Which is why, if I ever get up close to the president, I will thank Zuma for his instincts on this most crucial of South African issues. And urge him to make more of his noble non-racialism as it is his very best, and to date unsung, leadership credential. The next time someone of Cele’s rank emits a racist remark, Zuma might find his image hugely enhanced by demanding a retraction or an apology or, better still, a resignation. It is crucial that he rules out such rudeness as unacceptable among the political descendants of Nelson Mandela, who taught us how to talk respectfully to each other.
As for the Dewani murder investigation, let’s hope we can still leave what remains uncompromised by foolish official pronouncements to our experienced police and judiciary.
Fascinating though it is to hear from fellow journalists that the South African hacks reporting the story are almost all convinced of the bridegroom’s guilt, whereas virtually the entire British contingent is convinced of his innocence - suggesting that the ghost of old colonial prejudices may be stalking this case - it ought to be a matter for the competent courts, not the media, to judge.
But since our National Prosecuting Authority chief Menzi Simelane has already publicly presumed Dewani guilty, there is growing and understandable concern about his chances of getting a fair trial in this country.
Even if we manage to silence Cele, we will never live down Simelane’s outrageous remarks and crooked thinking. How tragic (or farcical) it is that South Africa is being condemned anew for racism and prejudice, this time as a result of the attitudes of ANC government officials - albeit two of the president’s political cronies, who were never going to be suitable for high office. Shame on Zuma�s self-centred power instincts for appointing the inept pair and thereby damaging South Africa’s reputation.