The question of how to move power from those who hoard it to those who don’t have it without a violent rupture is one that should occupy all reasonable people in this country right now.
Can a negotiated settlement, where the relations of power are not altered, be sustainable? I do not have the answer.
But what I do know is that the two biggest risks to this country arise from the manner of African accession to political power in 1994.
The first risk is the current levels of engineered inequality that condemns the majority of black people to the quiet violence of poverty. No human being should experience such a life, and these levels of poverty should keep everyone with a conscience awake at night.
The second risk is that a minority, whose loyalty to the country is at best uncertain, completely controls the economy.
These risks not only stand in the way of nationhood, but present a real danger to the future stability of the country. The notion that a racial conflagration in South Africa was avoided in 1994 is a fallacy. It was not avoided; it was merely postponed.
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I believe reparations to be a precondition for the remaking of South Africa. Without it, there is no possibility of moving forward. Reparations are neither a favour nor a gesture of goodwill.
It is about justice. If we accept colonialism was a crime, then justice demands restitution be made.
And, no, paying tax is not restitution; it’s the duty of every citizen to pay income tax for services rendered. Nor is it the post-apartheid government’s duty to pay for crimes that it did not commit.
A reparation fund should be formalised through legislation after consultation with all stakeholders.
The question is not whether it should be done or not, but rather the quantum and how it should be operated. South Africa has enough skilled professionals to calculate the price of land taken from Africans from 1652 and what that value would be in today’s terms.
Ideally, white-owned companies and individuals will voluntarily offer to pay for a specific period a percentage of their profits and/or salaries.
In the absence of such voluntary contributions, there would probably be constitutional difficulties as the government would not be able to impose taxes on only one section of the population. The Reparation Fund should be controlled by an independent group comprising private- and public-sector stakeholders, including government, and run by skilled individuals.
