When action speaks louder than words

It is perhaps a classic case of: Being educated doesn’t mean you’re clever.

Ntokozo Qwabe, a leader of the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement at Oxford University — a campaign to remove a statue of the former British colonial leader in Southern Africa from the campus — bragged on social media about how he and a group of friends reduced a waitress to tears.

In a nutshell, when the white waitress presented them with a bill, one among the group declined to give her a gratuity, instead writing on the slip that they would tip her “when you return the land”. The reference was to colonists seizing Africans’ ancestral land and the slow, laboured efforts to compensate communities in many southern African countries for the loss.

His actions invited condemnation from many South Africans, including representatives of the governing African National Congress. And many — black and white — stopped by the restaurant to give her a tip. By some reports, she received as much as $900, after a campaign to assist her took off.

But, as they say on Facebook: It’s complicated. As much as the donations were well intentioned, they did underline an uncomfortable reality. In South Africa, black people are subjected to racism in many different ways everyday — and yet any outcry is often muted. Some commentators rightly asked the question: Does the daily experience of many black people matter less?

Neeshan Bolton is the executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, which works towards deepening non-racialism in South Africa. Speaking to Gulf News, Bolton recalled that his father was also a waiter, who depended on tips to help raise his family.

Bolton’s view is that Qwabe’s actions and the outcry that followed have most probably harmed the legitimate cause of land reform in Southern Africa. “You can’t pick on individuals when trying to tackle problems that society must resolve. Where do you stop?” he asked.