This is how the opportunity society is described on the website:
In an open opportunity society your path in life is not determined by the circumstances of your birth, including your material ...
They don't like to use the word wealth or old money; they think that's a bit dirty -
... and demographic circumstances ...
They don't like to use the word race; it's a bit touchy-feely -
... but rather by your individual talents and your individual efforts. That is why, in an open opportunity society, a child born into poverty ...
Clearly, in their open opportunity society, children will still be born into grinding poverty -
... should nevertheless be able to become a brain surgeon, provided he ...
I assume they also mean "she", but they don't say it or maybe they don't mean it -
... has the talent and puts in the effort required to succeed.
There you have it, the open opportunity society. It's a kind of B grade version of Oprah Winfrey's world outlook: If you want it badly enough, you can get it. It's myopic, self-satisfied and ultimately a cruel, illusory opiate offered to the majority of South Africans. [Laughter.]
Now, nobody on this side of the House ... [Interjections.] ... You see, Mr President, it's the same party that treats the HIV testing campaign, not as a campaign of personal responsibility and of collective solidarity, but as a marketplace lottery competition in which you too could become an individual winner. That is the whole outlook which informs this position.
Now, obviously, nobody on this side of the House is claiming that the circumstances of one's birth are absolutely determining. Individual effort is, of course, important. Differences in individual aptitude do exist. Certainly, nobody on this side of the House is arguing that those born into grinding poverty should fold their arms and feel sorry for themselves. All, or most of you, were born into grinding poverty and you didn't fold your arms and feel sorry for yourselves.
The DA - a party without a history, or rather a history that it doesn't want to own up to - is genetically unwilling to recognise the way in which a long history weighs down heavily upon us. It is a history that continues to structurally shape our present South African reality in a thousand ways.
They will tell us: "You have been in power for nearly 18 years. You can't go on blaming apartheid." Of course, we should not blame apartheid for our own shortcomings and mistakes. We accept that. But, it is not just a question of apartheid, and it is not absolutely a question of blaming. Apartheid formally existed for just some four decades - 40 years. But the history that continues to shape our society goes back three and a half centuries.
It is a history of genocidal attacks on the San and Khoi peoples. That is why Deputy Minister Mulder has run away. I mean, it is outrageous. He makes a good point that we need to have a rational clearheaded discussion about land reform. But then he undermines his argument absolutely when he brings this horrible colonial myth that the land was empty when the white colonialists arrived. [Interjections.] He said that we must read the diaries of the Voortrekkers. Well, I have read the diaries of the Voortrekkers and I have also read the diaries of their predecessors, the Trek Boers. In those diaries, they boast of hunting parties that hunted down indigenous people as if they were just vermin. That is the truth and we cannot escape it. But the history is much more than this. The history of the slave system here in the Cape leaves continually a deep imprint on this part of the country. [Interjections.]
It is a history of ethnic cleansing over several decades on the so-called misnamed frontier. It is a history of migrant labour, concentration camp- style compounds, pass laws and racial taxes, put in place not by the apartheid regime, but by colonial governments at the insistence of big mining houses. It is a history of the 1909 Act of Union, of the 1913 Land Act; it is a history of the segregation years under the Smuts government, which laid the basis to our racialised urban spaces, in which the working class was confined to the periphery in dormitory townships. Then, of course, very late in the day came the four decades of apartheid.
To imagine that the structural impact of all of this can be undone in the space of a mere 18 years is infantile. But, if it is not a question of apartheid, it is also not primarily a question of blaming. The point is to try together to understand the deeply ingrained structural features of our society and economy that continue to reproduce racialised poverty, racialised inequality and racialised unemployment. [Applause.]
Mr President, let me give you one small example. It's a small example and it's not about race, particularly, or land; but it's a multibillion rand example of the manner in which our history has continued to shape the structural features of our economy. In your state of the nation address, Mr President, you announced that Transnet's National Port Authority, following the intervention of the National Ports Regulator; we will be rebating the port tariff charges on manufactured goods exported from South Africa to the tune of some R1 billion, this year.
Behind that announcement lies a revealing story. The national Ports Regulator, a relatively new entity, has uncovered a symptomatic reality which talks to this history. The port tariff charges on our bulk mineral exports, our coal and iron ore, are not above the international average. In fact, they are far below - considerably below the charges. [Interjections.] Yes, in Cape Town or in Saldanha, that is where the iron ore and coal go out. Those port charges are considerably below the international average. [Interjections.] That is why we regulate it.
But, the port tariffs on our manufactured goods that are exported out of the country are hugely above the international average. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that over a century the structure of our economy, the deep structure, or the way in which our country and economy was linked into the global economy was, basically, as an exporter of unprocessed raw materials. So, everything has been shaped around the interest of the big mining houses and financial houses in our country that they pretend to speak for. [Interjections.]
So, water pricing, energy pricing, and ports pricing have all been skewed. This is something that we are now picking up and this is one example of the way in which - surely you will all agree that - we need to begin to transform the structure. It is not just about land or race, but about deep structures in the economy.
By the way, talking about mining, hon Morgan, you correctly said that when we embark on unlocking, developing and getting investment on our mining, we need to make sure that we are not undermining our natural resources, including our water resources and environment generally. You are absolutely right. But you are not arguing with us. You are arguing with neoliberals in your own party - the ones who are telling us that we have missed the mining boom, that our mining sector is over-regulated and that other countries are getting the investments. Why are other countries getting the investment? It is because there is no regulation or port regulation around environmental protection.
Let us, together, ensure that we regulate effectively, rather than complain about over-regulation. We must ensure that we have mining and have investment in mining, that we have predictable regulation and that it is also sustainable mining and sustainable activities in general.
In her speech yesterday - I am not picking on you, but you know you happen to be there, and I am being gentler than the hon Gigaba yesterday - the hon Mazibuko gave us a pipe dream of a South Africa under the DA rule. "We will build infrastructure", she said. Okay, another echo, you know, we said we will so they say they will, okay good ... [Laughter.]
What she did not say is that, for instance, the City of Cape Town, which is hugely resourced - it's a very well-resourced city and, fortunately, I'm a Capetonian and I'm proud to be a Capetonian - underspent on housing. It has one of the biggest housing backlogs in South Africa. It underspent by 29% and was reprimanded by the Auditor-General for this failure. [Interjections.] On road transport it underspent by 37%! [Interjections.] So, we are all challenged, including the City of Cape Town.
But, hon Mazibuko, you went on to say in your speech that you would build bridges. By that you did not mean actual bridges ... [Interjections.] ... but metaphoric bridges. You said we would build bridges between white and black, rich and poor, urban and rural; and again, as with the open society, the metaphor of bridges betrays the limitation of the whole DA agenda.
There have always been bridges between white and black, rich and poor, urban and rural. From the late 19th century through the years of internal colonialism and apartheid, the black majority in our country were excluded, yes. But it was never just a matter of exclusion; it was always an exclusion from citizenship, prime agricultural land, resourced suburbs, skills, business premises, in order to squeeze black people back into inferior inclusion, basically as cheap labour for the economy.
So, that was not just exclusion, but exclusion and inferior inclusion. There were plenty of bridges to make sure that there was a continuous stream between rural areas and urban areas, the poor and the rich, black and white. There were recruitment agencies, pass law offices, and there were railway lines that were built. Just to make sure that those migrant labourers actually got onto the bridges, there was a host of coercive motivational factors: hut tax, head tax, and more land dispossession. Later, as urbanisation gathered pace, the same pattern of exclusion to distant dormitory townships and inferior inclusion happened. Mr President, it is not a question of building bridges, it's about abolishing the distance - getting rid of it. That is not their agenda. [Applause.]
In your infrastructure plan that you announced from the Public Investment Corporation, that's what it is. It is not about building bridges, metaphoric bridges, and philanthropic bridges - it is about transforming South Africa, about transforming our space, our urban spaces, our rural spaces, and about massive transformation.
In advancing this line of march, Mr President, you have the support of the ANC. You have the support of an overwhelming number of South Africans, businesses, social movement, the unions, and not withstanding all the "ifs" and "buts"; I suspect you also have grudging support of the opposition parties. That, I suppose, is a good thing. We can do without them, but it helps that, as South Africans, we all pull together behind this united action to develop our country. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate interrupted.