By RAYMOND SUTTNER –
Twenty years into democracy Apartheid has gone but its patterns of oppression live on in many ways. This is not to suggest that nothing has changed, or to deny that there have been significant changes in the lives of many people. But many of the patterns of oppression live on.
The impact of the past in the present preoccupies many people trying to understand conditions in contemporary South Africa. During the national liberation struggle, especially that led by the ANC, structural oppression experienced by black South Africans came to be described as national oppression and class exploitation. While I am aware of the historical and contemporary importance of gender, sexuality, culture and other areas where oppressive conditions prevailed, these are not the present focus.
The argument advanced by the ANC and its allies was that South Africa could not be understood purely through the prism of race nor adequately explained in class terms. It had taken many decades to arrive at an understanding that linked these two forms of oppression and exploitation, but eventually a concept evolved known as colonialism of a special type (CST) or internal colonialism. It was embraced in the struggle against Apartheid, which was being pursued by an alliance embracing all classes and strata that were suffering under Apartheid and all, including whites, who sought to establish a democratic state.
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