President Zuma recently said a debate on race would take South Africa backwards. Although I agree with his intentions, I think South Africa desperately needs such a debate. And judging by this video most South Africans would agree.
Zuma has always been a non-racialist. And he is scared of what some are calling African chauvinism. But as numerous incidents have shown again recently, its pretty obvious that the subject won’t go away. It’s time to engage it.
But to do so properly South Africa will have to reconsider its past.
Related deployments:
You mean South Africans want to discuss white on black racism.
Yes of course
As long as racial discrimination is legal, even encouraged by legislation, how can the consequences and the debate ever go away? It’s an endless, escalating cycle of action and reaction.
It’s obvious something powerfully constructive needs to happen to change where we’re going at the moment. And ignoring problems doesn’t have much of a reputation as being powerfully constructive.
The chicken has come home to roost!
I’m genuinely intrigued: do you really think that affirmative action is indistinguishable from apartheid?
Daniel, do you really think racial discrimination is acceptable?
Affirmative action is clearly different from apartheid in many respects, but they are both subsets of the same disease, justifying differential treatment of people based on their race.
Should access to education be differentiated by race?
Should access to economic participation be differentiated by race?
Is this the society you want to create? Where we look at each other and prejudge one another based on nothing more reliable than the colour of our skin.
I believe racial prejudice (in all its forms) is the enemy. Take a look around you. Giving legitimacy to another form of racism is only perpetuating racial prejudice, not extinguishing it.
Trying to solve our problems in similar fashion to the way we created them in the first place is not the only option. And I suggest the rising polarisation along lines of race shown in current developments show it’s not the best option either.
Correction:
~…on nothing more reliable than the colour of our skin.~
I intended:
…on nothing more substantial than the colour of our skin.
I see nothing wrong with correcting the imbalances of the past. However, if this was the entire agenda of the present AA program, there would be specified targets, such as that the demographics of a particular sector of the economy coincide with those of the population at large.
Since this is not the case, and in the light of statements by cabinet members that AA will NEVER be revoked (implicitly, even when “whites” disappear entirely from certain sectors), we can only conclude that there is an element of vengeance in play. This only fuels the simplistic dismissals of “reverse apartheid”.