Does a barb wire of racial hate still exist in our psyche?
There is this joke that every racial joke starts by looking over your shoulder.
It is actually not funny the joke, but true, because one shouldn’t be making jokes about any other race therefore you deserve to be paranoid if engaging in such humour.
The fact that I’m penning an article about racism in itself is dangerous, considering how many people this year have landed deep in hot water over racial comments on social media.
Yes, we will be talking about racism, even though one could comment we should rather talk about the 1 700 plus people who have died on the roads during the festive season.
You have read correctly. The number of deaths is simply astonishingly horrific.
Every year a plea is made to motorists to drive safely, not to speed, not to drink and to make sure their vehicles are roadworthy, yet every year the slaughter continues.
Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem was right when he said they are tired of hearing the figures after each and every holiday without any real progress being made, and that presenting road death statistics at press conferences is not the answer to ending road carnage.
Also consider that in Boksburg and Vosloorus alone over this period, 62 motorists were nabbed for driving while over the limit.
This is despite the fact that the EMPD stated once again a zero tolerance approach will be adopted. Our behaviour is therefore shocking.
But I digress, let us return to the racism row.
First there were the monkey comments made by estate agent Penny Sparrow, followed by economist Chris Hart who apparently stepped over the line of political correctness.
Then there was also the comments posted by an officer based at the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation’s offices in Soweto, Velaphi Khumalo, who took to social media and posted that he wanted to “cleanse” South Africa of all white people.
Our President, who has of course denied any part in the Rand’s crash, has also denied there is a problem with racism in the country and yes, we are all exaggerating.
We can agree that institutionalised racism has been addressed, but the sad truth is nowhere in the world will you ever eradicate completely the ‘anti’ attitudes of some or many individuals.
When you talk about ‘anti’, you talk about those who are anti a certain race, or culture, or religion, or ethnic group. Such anti attitudes is the spark of many wars and conflicts, not just now, but for many centuries.
So racism does exist in South Africa Mr President – it is the nature of man. It might be confident to only a few, but then again, it could be brewing in many.
If racism has truly been addressed Mr President, then what about what has been happening outside the courtroom in the Free State town of Parys?
To recap, four farmers appeared in court to ask for bail after a farm attack leading to the death of two suspects that happen to be black.
There was tension outside the building, with farmers and the black residents of the town calling each other names, provoking each other. Even the colours of the old Boer flag as opposed to the yellow-green-black of the ANC and the red of the EFF were waved.
One side sang “Kill the boer, kill the farmer” and the other side sang “Die Stem”. Both sang with the two parties being separated by a barbed wire.
This is reminiscent of scenes out of the 1980s, and such a stand-off should be a great concern and you have to question if racism has even been truly addressed at all.
Regarding the spate of racism and the death tolls, government wants to take clear action.
There are talks of criminalising racial statements, and then it wants to deploy more law enforcement agents to patrol the roads during the festive season.
Neither of these two options will work.
External laws will not be able to govern the internal character of man. Fact is, tradition, culture and social shifts in perception will continue to cast the mould for some people’s character and ill-favour towards others.
This even determine how we drive on the road, because as a motorist we are not just thinking about ourselves but we need to be courteous and respectul to our fellow man who also uses the roads.
If we have no respect for others then this will be translated in the way we drive, which is one of the reasons why a lot of negligent driving is at the root of the high number of deaths.
We need to therefore sort out the character and the mind-set of this country. But no external governance will solve this issue – it starts when each one of us does a bit of introspection and internal tolerant governance.
To construct a building starts by laying one brick at a time.
We can only build a non-racial and peaceful nation when everybody, including all of us here in Boksburg, start to be a brick of respect and love that will ultimately be used to construct this wobbly Rainbow Nation.
