How successful has racial redress been so far?

Saturday June 14 2008
16: 30 – 18:30
Entrance to the event is free
All are welcome

The single biggest question of the 21st century is how to build bridges of solidarity that enable a common citizenship and a cohesive human community. South Africans are burdened with an extra challenge – how to build this solidarity in a context of inequality. Our society is divided by a historical legacy where one section of us oppressed and exploited another. The consequences of that determine the life chances of different sections of the citizenry, and cannot be ignored.

South Africa is thus confronted with a central political dilemma: How to advance redress to address the historical injustices of the past, while simultaneously building a single national cosmopolitan identity?

There is a school of thought that opposes redress on the grounds that government should not be involved in initiatives that recognise racial differences, and assumes that post-1994 provides a level playing field. However, there is significant empirical evidence to the contrary. The discrimination suffered by black people in the past crucially influences their life choices in the present. As such, there is both a moral and pragmatic rationale for programmes such as affirmative action and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). The challenge is how best to implement this, while benefiting those most in need, and still promote a unified national citizenry.

Against this backdrop, the filming of an anti-integration video on a university campus and the refusal of a sportsperson to represent his country as a “quota” player are examples of uneasy tensions simmering across the landscape.

This begs the questions: how successful are the current redress programmes, such as BEE and employment quotas, in terms of both building nationhood and addressing historical inequalities? Or are there alternative methods which may have more beneficial consequences?

Panellists include:

Professor Adam Habib (UJ), co-editor of Racial Redress & Citizenship in South Africa (HSRC Press);

Professor Jeremy Seekings (UCT), co-author of Class, Race & Inequality in South Africa (UKZN Press);

Dr Thiven Reddy (UCT), author of Hegemony and Resistance: Contesting Identities in South Africa (Ashgate Publishing) and contributor to State of the Nation: South Africa 2008 (HSRC Press);

and Dr Ivor Chipkin (HSRC), author of Do South Africans Exist? (Wits Press).

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