The ANC keeps begging the white people who despise it, while disrespecting the black people who put it into power.

The ANC would rather squander the power black people gave the party, by governing with the DA as cajoled by ‘the markets’ — the euphemism for white economic power.

If that cajoling by ‘the markets’ is what matters most, then what is this talk of democracy in aid of? Is democracy something that big money can buy and sell? What do the struggling majority count towards as a measure of the will of the people when big money can easily hold sway? ‘Capital’ is another name for it, meaning the same thing.

‘Capital’ is a polite name in the sense that the uninterrupted and recurring subjugating intent and purpose of whiteness escapes specific mention. By this form of naming, the identity of this enduring and subjugating economic power is as sealed as the CR17 donor list from instant public recognition. The donor motives remain sanctified by concealment. There is a message in concealment, dear citizens: Remain not knowing what hurting motives of donors lurking behind the generous gesture but pleading anonymity and be happy.

The essence of who is behind the elongation of black suffering enjoys cover. Similarly, black suffering is denied immediate recognition of its source.

This is how, black people were negotiated out of existence. Out of sight, out of mind, of colluding power that is anti-black liberation.

Effectively, we, Black People, were long displaced from being the starting point and centre of political concern. In that consequent erasure, the black condition would not even be spelt out, in name, in a hallowed document reputed as the world’s best.

We, Black People, were negotiated out of existence. What was of primary concern was how the system secures its legitimacy for CAPITAL to continue ‘business as usual’.

The low-hanging fruit was giving a vote to the voteless.

With legitimacy in the bag — there was no voters roll for the 1994 elections by the way — the outcome unavoidably had to reflect majority sentiment. Next was ‘representativity’ and ‘inclusion’ to ‘sell to the world’. ‘Inclusion’ became the syllabus to teach the South African political settlement. And it worked. The political settlement was called ‘a miracle’.

Blacks did not matter enough to test their wishes before negotiations. Whites’ wishes were tested in the form of a referendum held on 17 March 1992.

The 1994 outcome was a picture of what whites had expected: 1. African National Congress (ANC); 2. (National Party) NP; 3. (Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP); 4. Freedom Front; 5. DP (Democratic Party). In a black majority country, it was not curious why a white party would be number two. For the record, Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) abstained from the first all inclusive general election. How the picture could have been, had AZAPO participated, is open to speculation.

Emerging in position six in these elections was the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Minus an auditable process, in the absence of a voters roll, a pattern of believability of that order of electoral showing was planted.

Blacks’ wishes were not tested by any referendum during or after the storm. White concerns were paramount. Once white wishes were eased, nothing else mattered. The ‘non-racial’ language was basically about the question: ‘what about white people?’ White people were assured — the constitutionality of white privilege was sealed under ‘the protection of minority rights’. Who are these specifically? That question was not encouraged.

The ‘new’ order had to show white ‘representativity’ at both leadership and civil service levels. This was by way of a specified period to secure the jobs of civil servants of the oppressor state.

How did ‘representativity’ illustrate itself? Then NP leader FW De Klerk and Thabo Mbeki of the ANC becoming joint deputy presidents to Nelson Mandela was the stamp of this ‘representativity’.

If the ‘white world’ asked where are white people, De Klerk’s deputising was the answer.

On the strength of the ANC’s electoral showing, the ‘new order’ also had to show substantial presence of those the ANC could have been elected by — black people. The schizophrenia is that the ANC would from time to time remind all and sundry that it is not a black organisation.

But the white people who undermine the ANC see it as a black organisation whose unfitness to govern typifies black ineptitude. They say: they came, they saw, and they squandered. If these were really black people, they surely would not have conducted themselves in a manner that negates Steve Biko’s spirit.

The storm on the basis of which people had embarked on a struggle had hardly died out, when it was soon dressed in the robes of reconciliation to sell the idea of a rainbow nation. It pointed to ‘Representativity’ and ‘inclusion’. Give them, black people, the crown of politics but not the jewel of the economy. That is what it basically all boiled down to in the premeditated plans.

As blacks, read ANC, toyed around with power and disrespected the black majority that voted it into power, whites did not play around with the power of ‘representativity’.

As the very power they squandered kept slipping away, economic ‘inclusion’ through legislative, policy and regulatory measures came under assault by the white world at home and abroad: in the UK by the Institute of Race Relations and the Helen Suzman Foundation/Oppenheimers, and in the United States by Afriforum/Solidarity/FF+/DA.

This is where the centre of attention is: white people. Black people are at the periphery.

Black people and poorest in hard to reach parts of the country are inundated with door-to-door visits at election time. Prime time goes to white concerns and capital in between elections.

Tuesday 18 August 2026

Today marks 49 years since Steve Biko and Peter Jones were arrested at a roadblock in Grahamstown on August 18, 1977. That was the last time Biko was seen alive.

Oupa Ngwenya is a writer and corporate strategist.