Facebook Djavan Arrigone allegedly urinated on taxi driver Michelle Puis Nomgcana's head from the balcony of the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Claremont.In its current state our democracy has little capacity to afford those being urinated on from above racial and economic freedom, writes Tinyiko Maluleke
In my humble opinion, the only thing that seems to tolerate being urinated upon is the good old outside toilet. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see innocent walls in suburban street corners and in front of township ‘big-houses’ becoming targets of repeated urination.
Such walls usually emit a repulsive stench. Similarly, patches of grass and shrubs in the firing line wilt and shrivel as a result of being frequently sprayed with adult, mostly male, human urine samples.
What is wrong with us?
Could it get worse? You bet!
At about 3am on Friday, January 24, Michelle Pius Nomgcana, 41, a male taxi driver from Khayelitsha, was waiting for passengers below the balcony of the Tiger Tiger Nightclub in the leafy suburb of Claremont in Cape Town.
Suddenly, it started to rain, or so he thought. Moments later, he found out, to his horror, that the modern-day ‘rainmaker’ was one Djavan Arigone, 19, a university student urinating on him from the balcony above.
The matter, which is yet to be finalised, is before the courts.
Mine is a social rather than a legal commentary.
The courts of public opinion are likely to have a field day determining the verdict.
It is likely we will hear arguments to the effect that this was merely an extreme case of teenage drunken stupor.
Allegedly, when confronted, Arigone swore at Nomgcana, calling him stupid and saying words to this effect as reported in the media: “I don’t care if I pee on a black man” and “I’m white, you’re black. I’m rich, you’re poor”.
It is alleged that Arigone also said he was a foreign national with powerful lawyers on his side.
Some may latch onto the alleged foreign nationality of Arigone and seek thereby to classify this incident as ‘non-South African’ in both origin and character.
Unfortunately, mitigation arguments as summarised above and similar will not suffice.
Face it, South Africa, you still have a race problem and the Arigone incident is only a symptomatic tip of the iceberg. The Arigone incident must not be isolated from the context of several similar happenings since our democracy.
To illustrate my point, let us randomly recall a number of them over the past 20 years.
We recall the so-called ‘Waterkloof Four’ white high school pupils, Reinach Tiedt, Gert van Schalkwyk, Christoff Becker and Frikkie du Preez, who beat a homeless (and nameless) black man to death in Pretoria barely 10 years after the advent our democracy.
Why? Because they thought the homeless man a potential burglar.
We remember the UOFS racist video made by four white students, Schalk van der Merwe, Johnny Roberts, RC Malherbe and Dane Grobler, in which at least one of them is seen urinating into the food which is then fed to black workers.
Do you recall how we were all later told to ‘relax’ because the boys were only play-acting and did not really urinate into the food?
Think also of the case of Mark Scott-Crossley, who literally fed Nelson Chisale, a father of three, to the lions in Phalaborwa.
Reflect on Jewell Crossberg, the white Limpopo farmer who allegedly mistook Zimbabwean, Jealous Dube, for a baboon and shot him dead.
How can we forget another homemade video of police dogs feeding on the begging and pleading Mozambican nationals and brothers – Alexander and Gabriel Ntimane.
In that video the dogs are under the active and vociferous urging and agitation of six young white policemen. It later emerged that this was part of a police-dog training exercise.
These are random examples of the grisly and grim face of racism in South Africa since 1994. As others have noted, what we have in South Africa is a rainbow nation that lives in our heads and not a rainbow nation that lives out there.
And yet South African racism is not fully accounted for by merely looking at the grim and the gruesome. Racism remains the pervasive logic of South African society.
It is racism that has ensured that while blacks are the majority in Parliament, they are not the majority in the boardrooms and shareholder meetings where the big economic decisions are made.
How else should we understand the reality that black professors still remain less than 10 percent of the South African professoriate 20 years after democracy?
And yet these same universities have not failed to produce a constant supply of white professors.
The total logic of our racist present prescribes whiteness (especially male whiteness) as innocent, good, clean, safe, fashionable, normal and standard to be aspired to, preserved, defended, enriched and protected by all and any means necessary.
This is the crucial logic around which present South African society revolves. In basic and higher education this appears in the guise of ‘high standards’ located in former whites-only suburban private schools and former whites-only universities.
Our racist present manifests in the black desire for a house or flat in formerly whites-only suburbs, the supposed prestige attached thereto and continued government neglect of rural and black townships.
In the criminal justice systems the racist logic shows up in the frequent presumed innocence of white males while blacks in general, but males especially, tend to be presumed guilty. The same logic shows up when black economic empowerment becomes a massive fronting sham that fails to disrupt the white economic stranglehold.
In conclusion, what do we say to Michelle Pius Nomgcana? Shall we console him by saying: “It is not as if Arigone has murdered you. He has only urinated on you.”
We all know that those who stand below the balconies of the rich cannot urinate on those who stand above them.
This time, we shall not urge Nomgcana to wipe the urine off his face and hair and march on to the future with a spring in his step!
What future?
The least we can do for him is to be truthful. Being urinated upon by another human is one of the worst forms of humiliation.
We must confirm unequivocally the doubts he and many located below the balconies of the rich already harbour. Namely that, in its current state, our democracy has little capacity to afford them racial and economic freedom.
The first step towards our healing is to acknowledge that we still have a race problem and tackle it.
In fact we all, black and white, must go back to the spot below the balcony of the Tiger Tiger Nightclub.
There to stand with Nomgcana for a moment. It is not just Nomgcana, but our nation’s dreams that are being urinated upon.
* Maluleke is professor of African Culture and Spirituality at the University of Pretoria. He writes in his personal capacity.
Follow him on on @ProfTinyi
** The views expressed here re not necessarily those of Independent Media
Sunday Independent
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