According to the DA, black people must first be empowered in the classroom and thereafter in the boardroom.
This is the view of the party's discussion document on black economic empowerment (The Times, September 10), but it is a view rooted in the neoliberal fallacy that believes political emancipation and economic emancipation are somehow mutually exclusive.
Genuine black economic empowerment will only happen when the promise of the Freedom Charter is turned into reality.
The Freedom Charter simultaneously opens the doors of learning and culture to all while guaranteeing that the "people shall share in the country's wealth".
What has been implemented post-1994 is not BEE but crony capitalism. It is only the ruling elite who benefit.
The current trajectory of BEE is not sustainable.
What is needed is for black people to become real shareholders in the economy.
For this to happen, the government must break the current economic monopoly.
At present, the government is basically in cahoots with big business .
What we are witnessing is apartheid economic relations being reproduced under the guise of transformation and BEE.
The forces that toppled apartheid coalesced around the Freedom Charter.
Inevitably, those same forces will disintegrate if they fail to implement the basic demands of the Freedom Charter.
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