Letter: Education the key to fighting racism
WHEN Hendrik Verwoerd and his followers in the National Party formulated the apartheid policies they categorised people into different racial groupings. Now Penny Sparrow, Floyd Musekwa (“Vile progeny of privilege”, January 8) and their ilk are continuing these racial classifications, putting people into black, coloured, white and Indian boxes, the assumption being that all the people in those boxes are supposed to think and act the same. Well, it’s time to grow up – people are not like that. Each one is an individual, and a person from any racial group or class structure can achieve at the highest level, and think and act totally differently to others in his/her artificial grouping. There is no connection between a skin pigment and physical or mental capabilities – what is important is opportunity. That is why education is so important and why it is so sad that the present education structure has failed so many, particularly in the poorer communities. Musekwa also carries on about superiority, the idea that skin colour makes some people think they are “better” than people of another skin colour. Again, that is not a racist thing – it has to do with self-confidence.
If a person is confident in his/her capabilities then he/she will come across as dominant or superior. How does one become confident? Again, it devolves down to education, and the sad record of our Education Department condemns many of our children to situations where they question their own worth, where they cannot compete on equal terms with those who were fortunate enough to have received a good education. Privilege also plays its part, but that is also not racist. The most extreme form of privilege is royalty, and of course kings and queens and their subjects generally have the same skin colour. It is always surprising that the populace accepts such situations, and fortunately in many countries kings and queens are now no more than tourist attractions. Unfortunately that is not the case in South Africa, where the ANC government contrives to give tribal leaders special dispensations which allow them to keep “their people” in a state of serfdom for political ends. In that context, Julius Malema’s apparent subservience to King Dalindyebo is particularly sickening – the king is a criminal and must serve his sentence. It is therefore clear that, to get rid of racism, everyone must first be recognised as an individual and second, the educational structures must give each one of those individuals the opportunities to achieve their full potentials. That is a massive task and unfortunately the ones to have suffered the most in the ANC’s disastrous education policies are the poorest communities. A whole generation is affected and now, to deflect attention from their failures, the ANC is contriving to blame a perceived racism for its problems.
