Understanding Privilege

When I was growing up, I lived in a brick house, had my own bedroom, we had running water both hot and cold, and a flush toilet. We had a fireplace with a chimney, and a covered stoep we could sit on and enjoy our large garden.

To be sure, we didn’t have electricity for many years, relying on tilly lamps which threw shadowy gargoyles on the walls, and a paraffin fridge that didn’t cater for treats like ice-cream, but we could have cold drinks on hot summer days. We had a Rayburn stove that worked well and didn’t take too much firewood. Smoke never made my mother’s eyes water when she cooked a meal for us.

I was driven to a school of my parents’ choice with well-trained teachers, had my own desk with a chair on which to sit, the roof did not leak, and the blackboard was large and uncracked. I had all the books I needed, and pencils, and all the paraphernalia that goes with a classroom.

We didn’t have bucket loads of money, we had to plan and save for holidays and treats, but we lived comfortably.

The Swazi children who lived in the police camp next door to us walked to school barefoot, carrying slates to write on. They lived in round buildings with no chimneys, no toilets, no running water, no stoep to sit on, no cars to drive them to work or school, and they played with toys they made from whatever they could scavage.

I had comforts and privileges the majority of my fellow citizens did not. In South Africa under apartheid, Black people had fewer choices. Many could not choose where to live, where to send their children to school, where to find work.

Education was two-tiered: the whites were well educated, the blacks deliberately trained to fit the role designed for them by whites: labourers, workers, and servants. This policy changed marginally in 1972 when the government gave in to pressure from Industry and business to improve the Bantu education system because they needed a better trained and educationally equipped labour force. But not too educated or equipped.

South Africa was not alone in its policy of separate development although it was the only country to give it a name and legalise it. The ethos of privilege and domination was carried throughout Africa, all while the colonialists used African people to loot their own land for minimal wages, with all the profits going to Europe.

Many Africans have been slain in the history of white, or European, domination here in Southern Africa. There is the Herero and Namaqua genocide in Namibia, the wars of liberation in Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, and of course, South Africa.

In South Africa 3.5 million people were removed from their homes and relocated, usually to impoverished areas far from all they knew. The land they believed was theirs, appropriated for use by a ruling class who perpetrated the myth that they and they alone could manage the land. That myth continues today.

It is estimated that 21,000 people were killed between 1948 and 1994 by the South African Government. With very few exceptions, these are all people of colour. Not genocide, perhaps, but appalling figures nonetheless.

In comparison to the majority of people in this region, I lived a life of privilege. I am no better or worse than my friend, colleague, neighbour who did not have a similar upbringing, but much of what life has thrown at me has been easier to handle because I had an easy entry into life. It does not mean I have to walk around in abject guilt saying “sorry” to every person of colour that I meet, but it does mean that I need to acknowledge the past, recognise that it was grossly unfair, and commit to work with my fellow man to ensure a better tomorrow.

I need to be aware of the differences in our circumstances, to recognise the pain for many of their past, and make sure I do whatever I can to make the world I inhabit a better place.

I hate the racism that I encounter every single day, be it in the supermarket, on social media, over coffee with friends. There is no place for bigotry in this supposed world of enlightenment that we inhabit today.

God created us equal, He created us in His image, end of story. Did He make us different? Oh yes, He did, and if we could learn to embrace our differences, we would see the glorious tapestry of His creation as He designed it with all its colours and cultures threaded through the dance of life.

Together we can achieve much, divided, we trip and fall into mediocrity. I am so tired of listening to podcasts and languid white voices enforcing tainted propaganda from yesteryear, pronouncing doom and laying the blame on corrupt officials who are all black. There has always been corruption. Yes, even the Nationalist Government had its tales of corruption but the press were too controlled to report it – not like today where crooked practices are revealed with equanimity. Justice may be slow, but accountability is demanded.

The tales of ubuntu and community spirit exist and when they are told the paint to a future that is different, one that is productive and positive. There was one in the last Sunday Times of two farmers, neighbours who were co-existing and both prospering. Yes, one possibly gave a little more, but he will receive his reward and seems happy to wait for that day.

The Bible says: By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Mathew 12:37 NKJV)

When we speak good, good comes.

Paul writing to the Ephesians says in chapter 4:27: Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

Again in Colossians 4:6: Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

Hopefully, to answer with honest intention to build up, not to break down.