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Mail & Guardian
29-05-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Elon Musk and the irony of calling black economic empowerment racist
For Elon Musk, to call broad-based black economic empowerment 'racist' is to eat at the table apartheid set for you and complain when someone else is finally offered a chair. Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest African-born man and, arguably, its most confident beneficiary of generational advantage, recently called South Africa's broad-based black economic empowerment (broad-based BEE) policy 'racist' — a sentiment increasingly echoed by some local South Africans who view redress through the distorted lens of personal grievance rather than historical responsibility. It's a statement so steeped in irony that even the ghosts of apartheid must be laughing — if not weeping. That is, the architects of apartheid — men like Hendrik Verwoerd, BJ Vorster and PW Botha who designed a nation around racial exclusion, the systems they built that still shape land ownership, education and capital, and the moral stain they left on South Africa's collective conscience, might themselves find it darkly amusing that a billionaire born into their system now claims to be a victim of the modest policies intended to redress their legacy. For context, broad-based BEE is a constitutional corrective measure aimed at broadening economic participation in a country where, until 1994, economic exclusion was state policy, not an unfortunate oversight. In contrast, apartheid's architecture was unapologetically and systematically racist: the Population Registration Act, Group Areas Act, Bantu Education Act and job reservation laws didn't merely discriminate; they surgically engineered white economic dominance. That dominance is precisely what broad-based BEE seeks to rebalance. Musk's claim is not only historically tone deaf, it is philosophically disingenuous. To cry 'racism' in response to redress is to mistake rebalancing for reversal. And it reveals a more unsettling truth — when you've been standing on a platform your whole life, equality can feel like a step down. One wonders whether Musk, who is never short on opinions or ambition, has ever considered the ancient logic of Aristotle or, more pointedly, whether he and others are inclined to understand it. Writing in Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle argued that 'equals should be treated equally, and unequals unequally in proportion to their inequality'. In South Africa, we are not grappling with parity, but with the structural residue of engineered inequality. Redress, then, is not discrimination, it is moral logic. Put simply, treating equals equally means giving everyone the same treatment when they are in the same position. But when people have been treated unequally for generations, justice requires a different approach — one that corrects the imbalance. That's why fairness doesn't always mean treating everyone the same, it means helping those who've been disadvantaged to reach the same starting line. And what of those South Africans comfortably situated, well-educated and often beneficiaries of generational advantage who argue that 'it wasn't our generation' who created apartheid, so why should 'they' be burdened with its legacy? To them, the question must be returned — if you did not build the house, but you live in it, benefit from it and defend it against renovation, are you not still responsible for its condition? Historical accountability is not about guilt, it is about participation in repair. Justice is not a backward-looking punishment, it is a forward-looking commitment to shared dignity — our collective dignity. To be clear, the failure of broad-based BEE to deliver broad-based empowerment lies not in its intention, but in its execution. The ANC-led government bears responsibility for allowing elite capture, fronting and narrow enrichment to undermine what was meant to be a structural rebalancing. Instead of building inclusive economic capacity, it too often reinforced patronage networks. But if the ANC eroded trust through dysfunction, the Democratic Alliance is deepening public suspicion by challenging the constitutionality of the broad-based BEE Act in court. Rather than proposing viable alternatives for redress, the party's actions risk signalling that any attempt to correct historical injustice is, by default, unjust to those who benefited from it. Yet, in typical Musk fashion, his intervention in South African discourse lacks nuance and arrives via tweet. One moment, he decries broad-based BEE, the next, he tweets an old video of Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, as if to say: ' S ee? This is the real threat.' It's a lazy pivot, to be honest. Shifting the conversation from the facts of structural injustice to the spectacle of populist provocation. Malema's often incendiary 'kill the boer' rhetoric is indeed unhelpful, especially in a country still healing from generational trauma. It risks reinforcing fear and feeding narratives that sidestep the real work of transformation. But, to conflate Malema's performance politics with the foundational purpose of broad-based BEE is to mistake smoke for fire. It's not justice Musk is afraid of, it's the rebalancing of power. And all of this plays out while Starlink, Musk's satellite internet venture, is reportedly making renewed efforts to gain access to the South African market. But, instead of partnering with black-owned enterprises, as required under broad-based BEE regulations, the strategy seems to favour proxy arrangements and regulatory pressure. It's the familiar formula — enter the economy, but avoid transformation. Musk's approach to broad-based BEE appears to mirror his business logic — reach the underserved, but on his terms, not the country's. The irony is staggering — decrying exclusion while resisting the very instruments designed to ensure inclusive access. broad-based BEE does not criminalise whiteness. It does not confiscate. It does not exclude based on race, it includes based on disadvantage. It offers no favours, only a fairer footing in a race some were never allowed to enter. To call that 'racist' is to eat at the table apartheid set for you and complain when someone else is finally offered a chair. Yes, broad-based BEE is imperfect. Its implementation has suffered under the weight of bureaucracy, political opportunism and elite capture. But, its necessity remains unquestionable unless, of course, one believes that justice should come without cost or inconvenience to those who benefited from injustice. Ultimately, this moment calls for a different kind of leadership; one that is not afraid of complexity, discomfort or delayed gratification. South Africa does not need leaders who weaponise redress for political capital, nor those who reduce structural injustice to soundbites. We need leaders who are historically literate, morally grounded and publicly accountable. We need leaders who understand that economic transformation is not a populist slogan nor a corporate box-tick, but a long-term act of national repair. In the face of inherited inequality, true leadership demands not defensiveness but responsibility. Elon Musk's wealth may well fund the future. But his view on broad-based BEE reminds us that history has a peculiar way of repeating itself, especially when the powerful feel discomforted by equality. Justice in South Africa was never going to be comfortable. But if the price of transformation is that a few billionaires feel momentarily uneasy, it is a price well worth paying. Dr Armand Bam is head of social impact at Stellenbosch Business School.
Times
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Niël Barnard obituary: Afrikaner who helped to end apartheid
In the early 1980s South Africa's apartheid system appeared granite-firm, but its foundations were shaking. The country's white supremacist establishment faced a stark choice: full-scale military assault on the black liberation movement or a negotiated peace that would inevitably lead to black-majority rule. Niël Barnard, the director of South Africa's National Intelligence Service (NIS), was a key figure in convincing the apartheid regime to plump for the second option. He urged South Africa's president, his close friend PW Botha, to face reality: international sanctions were biting hard, while South Africa was increasingly isolated as popular support for the anti-apartheid movement increased globally. Unrest in the townships was moving towards civil war and as the decade progressed it became clear that the Cold War was ending
The Herald
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Herald
Political murders that shocked the world
In the mid-1980s, SA — especially the Eastern Cape and what was then the Transvaal — was in absolute political chaos, and appalling atrocities were being committed as the country headed towards anarchy. It was the beginning of the end of a tragic and bloody chapter of a racially and deeply divided nation. The defiant former president of the apartheid government, PW Botha, had announced a partial state of emergency on July 20 1985 — and just before this, political activists in the Eastern Cape were targeted in the worst and most violent deadly crimes ever carried out by security police. These included the now infamous abduction and cold-blooded murder of struggle heroes like the Pebco Three and Cradock Four, among many others. These shocking killings would take place in the months preceding the state of emergency, which placed draconian restrictions on the media and which even led to The Herald editor at the time, Koos Viviers, appearing in the Grahamstown High Court on charges of having contravened these laws. Readers recall blank spaces on the front page of The Herald at the time, in a silent protest at not being able to report on certain unfolding political and anti-apartheid protest events happening on the ground. The partial state of emergency initially applied to 36 magisterial districts in the Eastern Cape and the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging area. However, with continued resistance throughout the country, the Act was eventually enforced nationally in 1986. On May 8 1985, three members of the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (Pebco) left their homes in Kwazakhele. They included president Qaqawuli Godolozi, secretary Champion Galela and executive committee member Sipho Hashe. The Pebco m embers were lured to the Port Elizabeth airport by security police on May 8 1985. They were then beaten to death on a remote farm at Post Chalmers near Cradock. Nothing was known of their fate until 1997 when former security police colonel Gideon Nieuwoudt confessed to involvement in their deaths. After years of uncertainty for their families, the remains of the Pebco Three and two Cosas activists were found at Post Chalmers in 2007. Seven weeks later on June 27, Sparrow Mkhonto, Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe and Sicelo Mhlauli, were detained by the security police outside Port Elizabeth. Goniwe and Calata were rumoured to be on a secret police hit list for their active participation in the struggle against apartheid in the Cradock area. The South African security forces murdered them and then disposed of their bodies by burning. Today, four towers stand tall and proud on a hill overlooking the Lingelihle township. In 2019, government leaders officially launched the Cradock Garden of Remembrance after a multimillion-rand refurbishment of the memorial complex. At the time, Goniwe's widow, Nyameka, said the garden was long overdue. 'We as families even thought that it was not going to be done as the space was identified and left empty for years and ended up being vandalised.' She said the garden had been established for a purpose and it should be used to create culture, history and distribute knowledge to South Africans. 'This site should be guiding us as the Cradock Four g uided the country before they were brutally murdered. This must be the light that stands on top of the mountain and sheds light for everyone,' Goniwe said. — Additional reporting by Tembile Sgqolana and South African History Online The Herald
