Vários sul-africanos responderam ao post [en] de Sentletse Diakanyo, chamado “Não somos todos africanos, os negros é que são!” Há outro post no Global Voices sobre o assunto aqui.

Marius Redelinghuys, um professor de ciência política no Midrand Graduate Institute que se auto-intitula “Afrikâner Alternativo”, culpa a Wikipedia e o Google [en] pelas “ideias originais” de Sentletse (“wikadas” ou “googladas”):

I blame Wikipedia and Google which have instilled in some the arrogance to think their Wiki’ed or Googled “original thought” places them on par with leading academics in their various fields.

O post de Sentletse se parece com um trecho de um livro didático do tempo do apartheid:

The most recent perversion, near-rape, of paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology and population genetics is done by none other than our very own Sentletse Diakanyo. His latest rant entitled “We are not all Africans, black people are!” reads like an excerpt from an apartheid-era history textbook.

Marius aponta que todos os seres humanos modernos têm uma ligação ancestral direta com a África [en]:

All studies of global mtDNA divergence have shown that African populations have the biggest mtDNA divergence (followed by Asian and European populations). The fact that Africans have the greatest mtDNA sequence variations proves they have amassed the most mtDNA mutations, providing compelling evidence for the idea of African origin of humankind because the population with the most diversity is almost certainly the ancestral population and all other population groups seem to be subsets of the diversity found in Africa, further buttressing the argument for an African origin.

Ele conclui dizendo a Sentletse que, quer ele goste, quer não, todos somos africanos:

Continents, countries and race are social constructions, and underneath it all, we’re all humans: humans who came out of Africa. We are all Africans, Mr Diakanyo, whether you like it or not.

Jason van Niekerk, um professor do departamento de filosofia da Wits University, responde ao post de Sentletse [en] com a discussão do problema que existe na definição do termo “africano”:

There are a couple of problems here, but the essential one is that his argument rests on what’s called the fallacy of equivocation, a sleight-of-word trick that takes a word with multiple meanings, makes a point about one, then substitutes the other, like this: the rich are the enemy of the people. Cheesecake is rich. Therefore, cheesecake is the enemy of the people. In much the same way, Diakanyo shows that “African” has at least one accepted meaning, picking out black people, then insists that this should be its only meaning in all contexts. But, of course, we use the term in many contexts, and collapsing all of them to the racial one wouldn’t work (here’s the party-trick reason: African Penguins are black AND white, but African all over). As many of Diakanyo’s respondents have noted, the sense in which some white people contend that they are African seems to pick out some sort of relationship to Africa and Africans, rather than an insistence that they be considered black.

É suficiente usar o termo “africano” no sentido geográfico?:

….note that exactly the same fallacy shows up in the most common white whine generated in response to Diakanyo’s claim: “I’m South African, I was born in Africa, so I’m as African as anyone else born here.” See the trick? We can use “African” in a geographic sense, so that must settle the question of whether we’re African in all senses. That’s the same fallacy Diakanyo used.

Ele diz, “Note-se que isso não necessariamente significa que brancos não podem ser africanos, da mesma forma que eu, como homem, não estou proibido de ser feminista”:

But however much I subscribe to the radical notion that women are human beings, however much Steinem and Sontag and Greer I read, being a man insulates me from the impact of women’s experience in a way that being a woman never could. Now, it may well be that I cannot, as a matter of principle, opt out of a commitment to feminism, even if it’s an option, but I’d be a bit of a whiny git to pretend I can’t see why being a man might make it harder to prove my commitment. And in the same way, many white South Africans want to claim an African identity not because they think they deserve it by default, but because they really do care about Africa and Africans, because they feel proud when this continent outperforms racist expectations, and deeply hurt when it seems to embody them.

Sua conclusão:

So where does this leave us? White South Africans can’t insist that they are automatically African, because that undermines the value of a hard-won identity. But when black South Africans deny the possibility of white Africans, they cut off the possibility of a non-racist post-apartheid identity that millions of white people want (so badly that they insist they already embody it). And nobody wins by insisting on what African means, while others who have a stake in that identity disagree, because this identity depends on mutual recognition.

The way out is for South Africans, black and white, to try to work out what our consensual understanding of “African” really is.

Chris Roper refuta [en] o argumento de Sentletse que brancos querem ser classificados como africanos. Ele diz que os brancos querem meramente se identificar com a construção ideológica do que é a África:

This is a lie, of course. White people, and everyone else who was born on this continent and loves it, for all its many faults, have merely wanted to identify with the general ideological construct that is Africa. Which means embracing its many contradictions, and being willing to be part of the ever-evolving understandings of what “Africa” means in the world.

O termo “africano” sempre foi ambíguo:

That's the point of these terms, they're always contested by various interest groups seeking to use them for their own ends. In your case, apparently to antagonise South Africans who are trying to achieve some sort of commonality with their fellow citizens, both national and continental, so that they can work together to build a viable life.

Don't get me wrong — I'm also nauseated by people who claim to be African when we're hosting a World Cup, but mysteriously become South African when asked to account for kids having their hands lopped off in Rwanda. It's bad enough being asked to believe in a country, but a continent? And there's nothing more irritating than some white oke who thinks that the Castle beer ad is “moving”, and who claims to love African music because he owns a Juluka CD.

Sua conclusão: Zumbis Verwoerd atacam a internet e o país. Hendrik Verwoerd foi Primeiro Ministro da África do Sul de 1958 até seu assassinato, em 1966.

The spirit of Hendrik Verwoerd still haunts this country and the internet, a zombie stumbling around feeding off the grim life force that is intolerance and racism. Every time we get bitten, or as in the case of this column, take the bait, we create more hate-filled zombies. Ah well, at least when we have all fed off each other's pain, we can then, truly, say “We are all zombies”. But we won't be human.

Sarah Britten, que retirou a amizade de Sentlese no Facebook e o bloqueou no Twitter, se preocupa com a atenção que a mídia dá a ele [en]. Ela diz, “Ele é só um blogueiro, e vamos combinar que blogar não é o mesmo que aparecer na coluna de opinião dos jornais de domingo”:

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge a range of views, and it’s important that they be aired so that they can be challenged. But let’s be honest here: is Sentletse actually worthy of being quoted in the serious media, the Mail & Guardians and 702s of this world? He’s not an academic or a politician, and there’s no clear platform from which he speaks. What exactly is the source of his authority? I don’t see it. He’s just a blogger and (let’s face it) blogging is not the same as appearing on the opinion page of the Sunday papers.

All this media coverage is serving less to promote debate and more to create a potential monster. Knowing Mo, he is chuckling throatily right now, enjoying every minute of it.

Sipho Hlongwane responde [en] com uma leve cutucada, parabenizando o “Presidente Sentletse Diakanyo” que “lutou contra uma mídia feroz e hostil, tribunais, intelectuais e brancos, indianos e chineses raivosos”:

He even battled against leaders from other countries in Africa in the famous “Most of You Aren’t Really Africans” debate at the 2012 African Union summit and reasserted South Africa’s position as African Country Most Full of Shit.

Ele conclui:

The convenor of the Friends of Sentletse, Samora Castro Afrika (who is now rumoured to have a R9 billion telecommunications tender from the government) said they wouldn’t stop at changing the Constitution. “If only black people can be Africans, it naturally follows that only Africans can have any claim to African land. We will not rest until it is only Africans who are allowed into African malls, African gyms and African suburban swimming pools. Aluta continua.”

So, congratulations again, President Sentletse. Your wise and effective leadership has finally laid to rest the ghost of our un-African past. Long may you continue to define us.

Khaya Dlanga, um blogueiro premiado, diz que brancos podem ser africanos [en]:

What does the dictionary define an African as? “Noun: African – A native or inhabitant of Africa.” Since we have established the definition of an African perhaps we should also define what a native is. “Noun: native – 1. A person born in a particular place or country. 2. An indigenous person who was born in a particular place.”

What do we conclude from this? If a white person is born in a particular country in Africa, that white person is a native of that country. Since they happen to have been born in a country in Africa that means they are African.

Ele diz que Sentletse não define o que é um africano:

The writer of the blog doesn’t really define what an African is. His answer is a simplistic “if you are black you are African”. There is no acknowledgement of the complexities of blackness. He has not considered the black people of Papua New Guinea for example. These people did not really originate from Africa, yet they look as black as Sentletse and me. The question then needs to be asked, are people from Papua New Guinea considered African? Scientists claim that these people have their origins in South East Asia some 70 000 years ago.

Não há nenhuma raça pura:

Scientists today claim that there is in fact only one race, the human race. Separating ourselves by physical appearance has no scientific basis. In 1943, Ruth Benedict and Gene Wetfish published “Races of Mankind” in which they claim that there is actually no race because most people in the world have in-between-skin colour. Therefore there is hardly any pure race if one wishes to use race. Even Africans aren’t pure because of the mixing that has taken place over time.

Seguindo as reações online ao seu post, Sentletse Diakanyo escreveu um outro post [en] entitulado “A ameaça imaginaria do ‘swart gevaar'”:

Swart Gevaar [en] (em africâner, ameaça negra) foi um termo usado durante o regime do apartheid sul-africano para se referir à ameaça de segurança que a maioria da população africana, negra, representava para o governo branco sul-africano.

Ele diz que ele não ficou surpreso ao ver “a reação de pânico” ao seu post:

It was actually not surprising to see the panic-stricken reaction to the article I wrote that “We are not all Africans, black people are!” People responded not to the salient features and actual content of the article but to their own irrational fears of what could be implied and the motivation behind whatever it is they imagined was implied in the article. This is a problem with living in a paranoid society that is still haunted by its demons of its racist past.

There was a deliberate intent not to discuss the issues raised in the article, but rather to embark on mindless attempts at character assassination in order to distract other readers who had full control of their mental faculties and the ability to regulate their emotions

Ele continua:

These hysterical respondents seem to believe that because racial categorisation was used in the past for nefarious ends, that because the apartheid regime enforced through brute force the preservation of white privilege and entrenchment of white supremacy and Afrikaner Nationalist ideology, these very same things would be repeated by liberated Africans. Africans are not the “barbarians and savages” they had been portrayed to be in the past through “die swart gevaar” propaganda or through collective brainwashing of minorities back then.

Ele argumenta que documentos oficiais na África do Sul são bem claros em como definem africanos:

After all the noise, the kicking and screaming, the fact remains what they were and what will continue to be in the near future. The Broad Based Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act is unequivocal in its definition of black people, who are “Africans, coloureds and Indians”. The mid-year population estimates by Statistics South Africa clearly distinguishes the population in terms of how it’s racially defined: Africans, whites, coloureds and Asians (Indians and Chinese). What’s with the hysteria?

Those who see their commitment to Africa as being defined by the identity — “Africans” — should refocus their energy towards understanding and embracing all that is African; closing the racial gap and making a concerted effort to not merely tolerate other races but be part of them. That today we still have the majority of whites in South Africa who struggle to pronounce African names, never mind speak fluently at least one African language, is a shame. It raises questions about the claimed “Africanness”, commitment to national unity and general patriotism.

Respondendo ao segundo post de Sentletse, Marius Redelinghuys diz , “Não somos todos africanos, somos judeus!” [en]:

In his subsequent response it becomes clear that it in fact is not a scientific discussion of human biological origins but is instead, as I argued, an empty political argument that used “science” as a crutch: “That today we still have the majority of whites in South Africa who struggle to pronounce African names, never mind speak fluently at least one African language, is a shame.”

So it’s really not about human evolution, but rather a political statement about identity. Fine, I thought as much, so please leave science out of it.

Beyond this lack of conceptual clarity there is the issue of cognitive dissonance, selective reasoning and even inconsistencies in his argument (which makes me wonder who is guilty of an emotional and irrational outburst).

These inconsistencies are rather sad, considering the man on the one hand held that white people are of Chinese origin, therefore not black and especially not African. In his follow-up he switches from arguing from science to arguing from legislation (which is not, by the way, scientific or dependent on evidence) and informs us that “[t]he Broad Based Economic Empowerment Act and the Employment Equity Act is unequivocal in its definition of black people, who are ‘Africans, coloureds and Indians’ “.