There's a new acronym about to be born. Or at least there could be. It's NWEE.
It stands for non-white economic empowerment and that's what our judiciary appears to believe South Africa should be aiming for, with Chinese citizens now being classified as black.
But, empowerment in SA has gotten so complicated that the acronym could be even uglier. Try NWEEEWW. That would be non-white economic empowerment except for white women. Because despite the fact that the loud Jimmy Manyi of the Empowerment Equity Commission (EEC, or eek as the case may be), reckons that white women are empowered enough, a glance across boardrooms and management meetings will show anyone that women of all races still aren't getting very far in South African business.
Amid the arguments now ensuing, it seems the South African public is losing sight of what it was we were all so keen to achieve not that long ago. We wanted to redress the wrongs of the past. In essence that should mean giving advantage to all who were disadvantaged by the old regime, whether they were minority or majority groups.
But, more than 10 years ago, as our Constitution was being hammered out, equality was seen through race-tinted spectacles. So that while we agreed there should be equality for all, we also agreed that black, Indian and coloured people should be given a special advantage, for a while at least.
South Africa was not the first country in the world to introduce such laws. Ethically they make sense and in many instances we've seen these laws work in the intended way. But those race-tinted spectacles distorted the vision somewhat. Because the ruling about Chinese people now being entitled to share in the spoils of black economic empowerment suggests that what South Africa should have done was to give advantage to anyone who was previously discriminated against, regardless of race.
So let's take the implications further. Gay and lesbian people were discriminated against in the old regime. For many years, English-speaking people were discriminated against as the Broederbond filled the large institutions with Afrikaans people. Young white boys who didn't want to go into the army were disadvantaged. In fact, anyone who thought differently was seen as an enemy of the state. It's getting a bit broad, isn't it? So that while I applaud the judiciary's attempt to stick to the law and the spirit of the law, the precedent now set leaves us in murky territory. How do you advantage all of those people? Do we make empowerment about everyone who isn't white?
SA's main aim should be to make everyone richer
Ren'ee Bonorchis, editor at large, Business
On the one hand, the murkiness is a good wake-up call - discrimination in the past was about a whole lot more than race and we've been too narrow in our application of redress. But if we're now going to say that more than 90% of the population was disadvantaged, then we've got a messy conundrum on our hands.
Before we get too bogged down in that thought, there is an economic answer. As one political and economic analyst, JP Landman, said in the past week, SA's main aim should be to make everyone richer. That's all we've got to do to ensure the future success of the country. "All?" you might wonder. But yes, that's all.
For taxes to be collected and shops to sell their goods and the economy to churn over, people need to have an income, which means having a job. As Landman said, even if our economy grows at just 3.1% (we used to dream of 6%) for the next nine years, we will lift the per capita income of SA's population by 27%. We'll all be richer, in other words.
Although we haven't been very good at creating jobs, the bulk of that growth is already guaranteed, thanks to government's enormous infrastructure spending programmes. So that while we may agonise about what empowerment means and who should actually be empowered, the organs of state and private enterprise are already ticking over to ensure that no matter who you are or where you come from or what race grouping you fall into, a better life for all of us is in store.
If you've been watching the market in the past week, or listening to the deluded leader of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema, such upbeat statements may stick in your craw. But it's about not sweating the small stuff. The real threats to our long-term success are the rising oil price and the possibility that a new government may change South Africa's tack altogether.
In Polokwane, the newly elected ANC leader has committed to even more infrastructure spending, so government may not be any threat. Which leaves us with oil, and I'm afraid no one has any answers there. As the wrangling over empowerment goes on, there is a bigger picture to keep in mind. And that picture is the fact that despite this country's hard-nosed attention to race, it may turn out that everyone will end up being advantaged, whether or not Chinese people are black, white or just Chinese.
* Ren'ee Bonorchis is Business Day's editor at large
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