South Africa's race obsession

By Ernst van Zyl

The end of Apartheid was meant to signal the end of systemic racial discrimination in South Africa, however under the almost three decade rule of the African National Congress (ANC), destructive and immoral race-based policies have continued into the 21^st century with no end in sight.. Naturally the ANC’s racially discriminatory policies are concealed behind flowery names, the first several of which were introduced just a few years into their reign. For example, the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 stipulates that equitable racial representation must be achieved in all occupational levels of the workforce. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003 further laid the groundwork for decades of racially divisive policies which fall under the misleading banner of “black economic empowerment” (BEE). In 2020, investigative journalist James Myburgh wrote a comprehensive essay that detailed this history of race-based policies in post-1994 South Africa.

The overarching goal of the South African government’s affirmative action or BEE policies is to categorise people according to their skin colour in order to provide preferential treatment to some of these categories or to exclude other categories – regardless of their socio-economic circumstances. Consequentially, race-based quotas have been pushed into almost every facet of South African society, from university enrolment and job appointments to sports team selection.

Explicit racial quotas are enforced on all levels of sport in South Africa, from primary school to national level. In 2019 the Gauteng province’s netball trials became mired in controversy after evidence revealed that several white children between the ages of 12 and 18 years had not been selected simply because of their skin colour. In 2019 qualifying white athletes as young as nine years old were almost left behind because South African Schools Athletics declared that only one white child per team would be allowed to represent their province at the national championships. In June, a Western Province Under-16 rugby team was disallowed from playing in the Grant Khomo Week's main game against Free State because last-minute injuries meant that they no longer met the strict race quotas. Furthermore, students at most South African universities are registered on a racial quota basis. In many cases, there are different admission requirements for different races.

A striking example of race obsession that is cloaked under a thin veneer of justice is the South African government’s 2020 Tourism Relief Fund. Race criteria such as the racial composition of a business’ ownership determined whether struggling small businesses in the tourism sector qualified to receive relief funds. The fact that the government prioritised its racial agenda even during a pandemic — when businesses that were owned by and employ people of all races suffered and/or had to close their doors permanently — indicates how important discrimination is to the ruling party. It was further demonstrated by the fact that the Minister of Tourism stated that it was “perfectly rational” to use racially discriminatory criteria as part of the process to distribute relief funds. Fortunately, the civil rights organisation AfriForum and Labour Union Solidarity were able to defeat this discriminatory fund in court.

When the Tears Foundation, a non-profit organisation that fights sexual and gender-based violence, applied for funding from the government the organisation was expected to meet BEE racial criteria, which then served as a clear barrier to them acquiring funding. In 2022 an internal memorandum was leaked from South Africa’s second-largest retail pharmacy chain, Dis-Chem, in which its CEO announced a moratorium on the appointment and promotion of white people, due to the threat of severe government fines. Around the time of this scandal I wrote a piece that detailed how race-mad South Africa had become.

The South African government’s many race laws are well-documented by a number of civil society organisations and researchers. In 2020 AfriForum compiled an extensive report on, among others, South Africa’s racially discriminatory policies, which was followed up by another report in 2022. Martin van Staden has documented the South African government's more than 116 race-based laws. Van Staden found that South Africa’s parliament had adopted at least 313 pieces of racial legislation since 1910, while about 37% (116) of these were introduced after 1994.

Yet, if you take a stand against these racist policies, you can expect to face vehement push-back, as a recent panel-discussion clearly demonstrated. In another interview on one of South Africa's largest news channels, I had to explain why it is wrong for corporations to bar white people from being hired or promoted. In both instances the argument being made against racial discrimination was treated incredulously.

The South African government’s race-mad policies caught the attention of an international audience this year when a policy of race quotas for water use was published in the Government Gazette. Even though South Africa is struggling with catastrophic rolling blackouts, the state power monopoly, Eskom, wants to retrench 500 white maintenance workers to meet government race quotas. The South African government has also blocked Elon Musk’s Starlink because the company does not meet its racial ownership criteria.

These examples are only the tip of the race-laws iceberg in South Africa. Apart from trying hard to retain its title of governing the country with the highest unemployment rate in the world, the ANC seems desperate to cement itself as the most racist government on the planet as well.

Ernst van Zyl is a campaigns officer for strategy and content at AfriForum. Ernst obtained a master’s degree (cum laude) in Political Science from the University of Stellenbosch. Ernst usually publishes contributions on Twitter and YouTube under his pseudonym Conscious Caracal.