#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #SOUTHAFRICA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) anarkismo.net: Eradicating Racism from Its Capitalist Roots: An African, Anarchist Communist Approach by Bongani Maponyane (ca, de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]

 Racism has been a curse in South Africa and remains embedded in society. But how

scientific are racist ideas? Where do they come from? And how can we fight racism
and create a truly equal and just society? What do we as revolutionary anarchists
believe? ---- Different races? ---- The idea of "race" implies that there are
different basic types of people, with different appearances and different,
embedded abilities, cultures and attitudes. This is connected with ideas such as
the following: tribes have unequal abilities, each member of the tribe always
acts in a certain way, tribes can not coexist peacefully without special rules
and some tribes are born to rule, while others are born as "woodcutters" and
water carriers ".

Even though these ideas are not so openly supported nowadays (leaving aside
people like Penny Sparrow), they still exist in common ideas such as the
following: some races are better at sports, some races are tougher, some they are
more greedy or that "races" are always in conflict or that you can not trust
people of different "races" or that inventions are made by different "races".

But these ideas are wrong. It is true that people look different. The fact is
that there is only one humanity. All people are of African descent. Nature does
not repeat itself, it never creates the same thing twice. Different races were
not born in different areas. Evolutionary evidence indicates a common origin
("monogenesis"). This means that humans are a species, with a common origin, a
set of common abilities, but also a common human nature.

As people migrated around the world and around Africa, there was some difference
in appearance and body. No one survived in these hot sub-equatorial areas without
dark skin. Where the temperature is extremely high, from 35 degrees Celsius and
above, very dark skin with a lot of melanin is the key. Also, people had to be
lighter in colder and less sunny climates. People become whiter in such climates.
Restricted movement created greater isolation between regions, so there were more
pronounced differences in some cases.

Science and society
Therefore, there is indeed a specific species that moved from Africa to Europe,
Asia and the Americas, but this did not lead to new species. Instead, we can
think of a common family of African descent, with many children, but with great
involvement due to immigration, wars, and trade.

Science clearly shows that all races have the same abilities, which is obvious,
because all humans are in fact one race. Evolutionary and biological data show no
difference between what people consider to be races, in terms of brain or other
abilities, but show many differences within "races".

So even talking about "races" is actually a problem. What is the meaning of the
word? In fact, people do not even agree on what exactly a "race" defines. For
example, some people considered white in South Africa, such as Jews, were not
considered "real" Europeans in much of Europe. Adolf Hitler's racism saw the
whites of Eastern Europe (Slavs) as subhumans. People of any black African
descent are now defined as "black" or "African" in the United States, but the
exact same people would be defined as "colored" but not black Africans in South
Africa. The "Caucasian" racial category includes white Europeans, but also Arabs,
Berbers, Lebanese, Turks and Indians.

The racial inequalities we see in many countries - with black Africans often
being victims of extreme racism - do not come from nature. It comes from the way
society is structured. I will show below how racism is built by capitalism,
colonialism and states.

Development
Unfortunately, racist ideas have abused the theory of evolution. This theory
explained why people are all basically the same, but also why some groups look a
little different from other groups. Humans today all belong to one species, the
homo-sapiens or modern man. This is very different from older species, such as
homo-erectus. It is completely wrong to think that some people are somehow less
advanced than others or closer to monkeys.

This horrific abuse of evolution by racists has led some people to reject the
idea of evolution, claiming that blacks are inferior to whites. In fact, the
theory is that people are the same! Charles Darwin, who pioneered the theory,
insisted that all people were of common African descent and formed a group.

Inventions?
This development is a very strong challenge for racist ideas. The theory of
evolution proves that we as human beings come from one source and that we are all
basically equal in all areas of ability.

It is nonsense to say that a "race" invented something or to try to claim credit
for an invention in the past simply because we look like an inventor. Inventions
are made by individuals who exist in a particular society and are made possible
by certain types of social structure. They always draw on old ideas and
innovations, as well as from different societies. All the achievements of people
in the past are a common human heritage, which does not belong to any group.

The roots
When we see racism in modern society, we must realize that it does not exist,
because what we call "races" is a condition either in flesh or in mind, but
because we live in a society based on domination, exploitation, hierarchy and
oppression. .

In South Africa we can clearly see how modern racism arose from the way society
developed. During the apartheid era, blacks (that is, black Africans, people of
color, and Indians) suffered systematic racism, wage levels, services,
neighborhoods, racism, and rights were affected. The white population (about 15%
of the population) earned 65% of the total income, while black Africans, ie 75%
of the population, received 28%. Poverty was closely linked to race and
persisted. For example, while 8 out of 10 white children completed high school,
only 2 in 10 black Africans managed to get their diploma.

Racist work system
This is because capitalism in South Africa developed in the context of the
European colonial framework, expropriation and a system of white supremacy. Land
loss and a series of repressive racist laws and practices have consolidated an
economy based on cheap black labor. Black African farmers who managed to grow
crops were ousted from business and turned into salaried workers.

The British Empire played a central role in many of these processes. Also,
foreign investors, mainly British, have played a central role in creating a huge
commercial mining industry since the 1870s, based on cheap and free (oppressed)
undeclared work. Commercial (capitalist) farms appeared around the mines and also
relied on cheap black labor. Mass exploitation in a racist system was the
foundation of South African capitalism and helped finance the state through
taxation and state-owned enterprises. The state built railways, roads, and large
industries, which increased state and capitalist power.

As manufacturing developed on a massive scale from the 1920s, the racist system
of cheap labor continued. The state imposed racist measures - low wages, rights
abuses, hostels and immigration labor, the city system - which reproduced the
cheap black labor devoured by capitalism. Racial and ethnic divisions between
blacks, as well as between blacks and whites, contributed to the disintegration
of the working class. The unions usually followed racial lines. Black Africans
were not given full trade union rights until 1995.

The future
The legacy of this system is found everywhere in South Africa. The racist crimes
of capitalism and the state were not erased in 1994. Racism was institutionalized
for many, many years. Today the system of townships 1, the system of migrant
labor and the system of cheap black labor continue to exist and shape the class
system. Poverty, unemployment, low wages and poor conditions are still closely
linked to race. Today, the old white capitalist sector is collaborating with the
new black state elite in order to suppress the predominantly black working class.
Ongoing inequalities perpetuate racial strife and also create new forms of
racism, such as the mass xenophobia that has plagued South Africa since 1994.

In conclusion, racial conflicts, inequality and hatred are not natural. All
people are equal. Racial conflicts are not caused by people who look different.
For the last hundreds of years racism has been fueled and nurtured by capitalism
and the state. To really change the system, we need a massive program to upgrade
education, health, housing and services, an end to the racist and shameful
working system, a challenge to the ideological control that divides the working
class and a radical redistribution of wealth and of power in the working class
and the poor - which in South Africa mainly means the black working class and the
poor - as part of a social revolution.

1. This is the name of the areas where the colored population lives based on the
neo-colonial social conventions and Apartheid.

Source: zabalaza.net

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32497
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