Apartheid

198
5. Work
In a wage, a hidden war
(Johnny Clegg) 419
Whereas the hard core of racist apartheid advocates and defenders will never stray far
away from taking ethnicism one or two steps further, i.e. from carrying out or preaching
ethnic cleansing or genocide, the more ‘moderate’ ones realize that hate is not as profitable as
coldly planned and executed oppression, theft, and exploitation. In an optimized equilibrium
between the latter three, profits can be maximized and apparently bring enormous wealth as
well as efficient short-term physical security to those in power. This is common knowledge in
educated Europe since the Ptolemaic era, at the latest. Educated, elite South Africans and
Israelis who had a hand in the apartheid architectures of their societies are unlikely to have
missed this point. A mixed free-market and state-controlled economy in each case of
‘successful’ apartheid also offers further opportunities to divide and rule. Aside from being
prevented by the apartheid state from developing politically or economically, the indigenous
workers must fight each other for the scraps that are thrown at them by the almost perpetually
feasting ethnic-economic elites. Masses of indigenous people, it seems, are kept unemployed
on purpose, and, in this way, the wages are kept at a minimum, or, rather, below it.
The sexes are segregated by apartheid economies, at least by the developed apartheid
economy. The indigenous women are mainly wanted for underpaid domestic work, the men
for underpaid physical work. In South Africa, black migrant male workers were often only
able to meet their families once a year, for a few days. Black women not wanted for work in
white areas and their children were usually literally locked up in ‘Reserves’ or ‘Homelands’
where the poor quality of the land made them less than self-sufficient and dependent on their
husbands’ meagre incomes from mining and other industrial or otherwise menial work.
The economies of Egypt and South Africa almost became colonial in character at the
zenith of their colonial masters’ powers. In economic terms, they started becoming specialized
at the behest of Rome and London. Egypt became the main wheat producer for the entire
Roman Empire, whereas the economy of South Africa became largely dependent on its
diamond and gold exports under British rule a century ago. But, on the whole, we are looking
at diversified economies as hallmarks of independent apartheid countries. We are also looking
at very affluent economies with extremely concentrated and extremely unequally spread
wealth in each instance of apartheid. This second hallmark of apartheid economy is in fact
even more important than the diversity of production and trade. The reason for this is that both
the profiteers and the primary victims remained the same, in generally ethnic terms, during the
exceptional colony-like conditions. So far, they have also even largely remained the same in
South Africa during post-apartheid conditions. In Israel, the pattern is repeated yet again,
although an added element of economic volatility accompanies the economically globalized
Israel, which leaves its economy less independent than those of its predecessors, a weakness
that in and by itself could spell the end of this brand of apartheid much sooner than the other
two countries.
In the occupied Palestinian Territories today, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, there is a new
kind of economy, based on the contributions by international aid organizations, governmental
as well as non-governmental, most of it tied to fulfil conditions determined by the donors, or
by governmental restraints on those donors. Thus, a lid is kept on brewing indigenous
discontent with the more basic, yet entirely unresolved political, economic, social, and
cultural issues. This is a short-term illusion as well as a short-term solution for an ethnicist
economy.
419 Clegg, Johnny: Work for All, first released on the album ‘Work for All’ by Johnny Clegg & Juluka, 1983