White Power Today: Christi van der Westhuizen Chats to Aubrey Masango (Podcast)
Christi van der Westhuizen recently took part in the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA) “Roundtable on Whiteness – Whites, Afrikaans, Afrikaners: Addressing Post-Apartheid Legacies, Privileges and Burdens” where thought leaders like former president Kgalema Motlanthe, Achille Mbembe, Mary Burton, Mathews Phosa, Ernst Roets and Nico Koopman disucssed topics like “Being White Today” and “The Place of Afrikaans”.
CapeTalk’s Aubrey Masango invited Van der Westhuizen, an associate professor at the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS & Gender at the University of Pretoria, on his Late Night Talk show to reflect on what was said during the event. Her topic on the day was “White Power Today”, following up on her 2010 book White Power: The Rise and Fall of the National Party.
“Apartheid has officially come to an end, but white power persists. Whiteness derives its power from operating invisibly. It is an unspoken regime of oppressive norms and so it is absolutely necessary to disturb whiteness by making it seen,” Van der Westhuizen wrote in an article for the Sunday Times after the discussion on whiteness, expanding on some of the things discussed at the event.
Read the article:
Whiteness is not skin pigmentation, but the meaning attached to pinkish, whiteish skin. People with such skin are seen as “naturally” belonging to the top, while darker-skinned people are racialised as black, to be placed as “naturally” at the bottom. This has a wide-ranging effect on the distribution of resources, resulting in white privilege and black deprivation.
Democracy has been good to white people in South Africa. The average annual income in white households was R125,495 in 1996 – in contrast to R29,827 for black households. White households’ average annual income rose to R530,880 in 2013, in contrast to R88,327 in black households. Out of 4.5million whites, only 35,000 live in poverty, according to StatsSA.
Masango wanted to know more about Van der Westhuizen’s article and the MISTRA conversation in general. She opens the interview by explaining: “If there is anything like ‘an Afrikaner’ I regard them as part and parcel of the South African nation. Within the South African nation there is of course different ethnic groups and I regard them as one of them”.
Van der Westhuizen identifies three different groups of Afrikaners: Afrikaans African Nationalists, the Neo-Afrikaner Enclave, and Afrikaans South Africans. Listen to the podcasts to understand this differentiation and for Van der Westhuizen’s fascinating insight to Afrikaners and white power today:
Listen to part one of the interview:
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Listen to part two of the interview:
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For more about the MISTRA Roundtable on Whiteness, read here:
Book details
- White Power: The Rise and Fall of the National Party by Christi van der Westhuizen
EAN: 9781770073050
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