PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa “”mdash; Race is still something
almost no South African can avoid thinking about, even though part
of the promise of the New South Africa was that race as an issue
was supposed to fade.
Publicly, the vast majority of South Africans express relief
that the segregation of apartheid is over. But privately, over
cigarette breaks, in bars and over the dinner table, people still
mutter about issues of race.
And 10 years after the end of apartheid ““ a policy of
racial segregation imposed by an Afrikaner government that kept the
country’s white minority wealthy and more powerful than the
black majority ““ race relations are still strained.
Some blacks and coloreds ““ people of mixed descent ““
worry that the segregation of apartheid still exists and that many
whites still think of them as a lower race.
Meanwhile, some whites worry that the changing realities of
South Africa mean they no longer “belong” there.
A number of white people ““ including some students ““
are anxious about finding jobs because of the belief that South
African businesses, which by law must practice affirmative action,
will hire black applicants over them. Already, there is a trend of
white emigration out of South Africa.
Symptoms of the racial divide are evident here, at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. Though
universities are probably some of the most racially integrated
places in the country, it is far from seamless.
Though there are over 8,000 students on campus, people of
different races tend not to mix very frequently, creating an
atmosphere such that to see a racially mixed couple sometimes
causes a double-take.
The dorms are overwhelmingly made up of blacks and, except for
international students, seeing a white face there is rare.
And practically all of the lower-paying jobs on campus ““
the custodians, the gardeners, the handymen ““ are filled by
blacks. This shows how blacks, though now legally equal to whites,
are still much poorer.
It is also not uncommon for white international students to be
taken aside by non-black South Africans and warned not to trust
black people or visit predominantly black townships and clubs.
This is not to say that there is no racial integration on
campus. There are many examples of students of different races
studying, living, working and hanging out with each other, and
there are many black professors and university officials.
University students ““ traditionally more liberal-minded
““ are also not afraid to criticize and question racial
segregation and stereotypes.
But underneath it all is the underlying question: Has South
Africa truly become united around race, or is it still a nation
divided by it?
Rolfe Lawrence, a professor of government and policy who has
been at the campus since 1982, said South Africa’s uneven
demographics ““ blacks make up an overwhelming 75 percent of
the country ““ can foster an “us versus them”
mentality in people of different races.
And this relationship is exacerbated by the fact that whites
still generally form the wealthier middle and upper classes and
blacks the lower.
“Those patterns of social interaction, of “˜us versus
them,’ they persist on campus,” Lawrence said. “I
think it dictates what sports (students) play, what music they
listen to, who they hang out with.”
To some extent, race has even dictated how the university kept
its facilities in order.
According to Lawrence, for years the campus rugby and cricket
fields, ““sports traditionally played by whites ““ have
been kept in better condition than the soccer fields, a sport
played by many blacks.
It wasn’t until the campus became fully integrated at the
end of apartheid that more care was given to the soccer fields.
Many South African universities have always had some degree of
integration, even during apartheid. Lawrence said as long as he can
remember there have been black students and staff in the political
science department at the Pietermaritzburg campus. And many
universities were hotbeds of anti-apartheid activism.
But universities aren’t always the best way to measure how
other parts of South Africa think about race. In some areas ““
particularly rural towns ““ racial hierarchies still
exist.
Lize Oosthurzen, a second-year law student, grew up in one such
area.
She says in her hometown of Scottburgh, a small town south of
Durban (a port city on the Indian Ocean), a mentality of racial
segregation continues, especially among the Afrikaners there.
“They still have that whole stigma that black people are
an inferior race. It’s become a lot better, but they have
it,” she said.
“It’s really stupid. … But we’ve still been
brought up in such a way to assume that we’re still superior
to black and Indian people. Some people don’t realize
it’s over,” she said, referring to apartheid.
Oosthurzen, who is Afrikaans, said when she arrived on campus
last year, her first impression was that it was “very, very
segregated” and that people of different races never
mixed.
But now she thinks this is no longer the case. She points to her
own living situation ““ she rooms with an Indian and a Chinese
girl ““ as an example of how a university environment
encourages integration.
But not everyone takes such an optimistic view.
Winston Groenewald, a 40-year-old student working on a forest
biometry master’s degree, has seen the changes that have
occurred on campus since the end of apartheid 10 years ago ““
and says not all of them have been good.
Groenewald, a well-known resident in the Denison dorms, attended
the university as an undergraduate from 1992 to 1994, before South
Africa’s first post-apartheid elections.
Groenewald, who is colored, remembers when the campus was not
racially integrated and the dorms were predominantly white. Now, he
likens the mass emigration of whites out of the dorms to
“self-segregation.”
“It’s a little bit sad, and it speaks to how people
see themselves as different from each other,” he said.
“It’s indicative of the fact that they don’t want
to integrate.
“I think there’s a belief that whites still feel
superior, that whatever blacks do cannot be as good as what they
do,” he said.
Oosthurzen agreed that the absence of whites from the dorms is
like self-segregation, but said it’s not because of race, but
because of comfort.
She said one girl she knew moved into the dorms her freshman
year, but moved out after a year because she felt uncomfortable
being one of the only white people.
“It’s actually been said among white people that
there’s one dorm you can stay in if you’re
white,” she said. “But if you are black, you would not
feel comfortable staying in a predominantly white area.”
Comfort, many white students seem to agree, is what dictates
race relations in the New South Africa. The bottom line may simply
be that people stick to what they are familiar with.
Tor Andreassen, a graduate student from Norway who has been
studying at the Pietermaritzburg campus since January 2003, is
someone who has challenged this trend.
Also a resident of Denison, Andreassen mostly hangs out in black
clubs and visits friends in the townships, areas many white South
Africans consider to be off-limits. And he said he has gotten
strange looks from whites for doing so.
“Some people in my classes look at me like I’m sort
of crazy because of who I hang out with and because I go to the
townships,” Andreassen said, making a loopy motion with his
finger.
But sometimes, unease with race becomes more than just sideways
glances.
Sometimes, it becomes racial violence.
Groenewald and Andreassen were among a group of about 10 to 13
other students who allege that several white men assaulted them on
Aug. 21 because, they believe, almost everyone in their group was
black.
It was around 8:30 p.m. and they were heading to a party at the
Anglican House, a common and popular party spot about 200 meters
from Denison. Andreassen was the only white person in the group.
Everyone in the group had had “a few beers,” in
Andreassen’s words.
They passed two Afrikaans men standing in front of a house. One
of the men called to them and the group stopped to talk. A third
man, the owner of the house, then came out and told the group to
get off his property, even though Andreassen said they were well
behind the house’s fence.
One student, Tangai Mureka, said he believed the three men were
drunk.
Andreassen said he stepped forward, hoping that if the man saw a
white face in the group, he would calm down.
Accounts differ about what happened next. According to the
students, the man swore at them and suddenly punched one of the
black students.
According to testimony from the house owner, the students tried
to enter his house because they thought that was the location of
the party. He kept them from entering and was punched by
Groenewald.
About five or six other men then came out of the house and a
brawl started in the middle of the street, Andreassen said. One of
the men was armed with a bow saw.
Groenewald said he approached the man with the saw and said,
“I’m not part of this.” The man struck him twice,
cutting him along his arm, side and head.
Denver Besnaar, who was with the group of Denison residents
during the incident, said he distinctly heard the men shouting
racial terms like “kaffir” ““ a derogatory
Afrikaans word for a black person.
Mureka fell to the ground and was kicked and punched repeatedly
before he managed to get up and run.
By then, the rest of the group was already running away from the
house, Andreassen said. They phoned for the police and
ambulances.
Both Groenewald and Mureka had to go to the hospital, Groenewald
for one stitch on his head and Mureka for painkillers and treatment
for a swollen face. Groenewald still displays the scars from the
saw, including a notch on the side of his head where he had his
stitch.
As it turned out, the owner of the house is a police officer who
was off duty at the time.
The students allege that police have dragged their feet in the
investigation because they do not want to implicate one of their
own.
When they went to give statements to the police that night, they
allege the police refused to take their statements.
Police Superintendent Nandhlal, who declined to give his first
name, said police turned the students away because they were drunk.
He said it is normal for police to refuse statements given under
the influence.
Nandhlal said the students had some of the details of the
incident wrong. He said Groenewald had thrown the first punch and
three people had then exited the house.
Nandhlal also said no disciplinary action has been taken against
the owner of the house because he was off duty. Had he been on
duty, his conduct would have been investigated, Nandhlal said.
The police finished their investigation and sent their findings
to the senior public prosecutor, who will decide if charges should
be pressed against either the students, the owner of the house, or
both.
The students believe they are being robbed of justice. They are
currently working through Risk Management Services, the campus
security force, to see how they can continue pursuing the case.
RMS confirmed it was helping students resolve an incident that
occurred on Aug. 21, but declined to discuss any details because it
is an ongoing investigation.
The students blame what they call a “corrupt” police
force left over from apartheid. And they say they’re almost
certain the attack was racially motivated.
“I’m just left wondering what goes on in these
people’s heads,” said Andreassen. “It’s
just like a hatred, and I don’t know where it comes from. …
This was a lot of hate and a lot of aggression from these
people.
“If we weren’t university students backed up by RMS
and university, it might never have gone this far. People who do
this, they do it all the time and get away with it.”
Lawrence said he doesn’t believe racial violence is as
prevalent in South Africa as it was during apartheid, and certainly
not on a place like a university campus.
But the conditions for racial violence ““ the lack of
integration, the idea of race as “us versus them,” the
resentment of apartheid ““ still exist.
And the real test for South Africa may be yet to come. Right
now, Lawrence says, children between the ages of 16 and 18 are the
first generation of South African students who have attended fully
integrated schools all their lives.
How they think and act after they graduate from the university
level may have a chance of changing the direction of race relations
in South Africa for the future.
Lawrence also notes that the conditions which have tarnished
race relations in South Africa ““ the history, the economic
imbalances, the differences in culture, schooling and sports
““ are not all unique to South Africa.
“I haven’t noticed too many African Americans at a
NASCAR race, either,” he said.