President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended democratic South Africa’s commitment to correct the injustices of the past, as some Afrikaner civil-society groups claim that black economic empowerment (BEE) and other “race-based” laws are basically a new Apartheid.
This type of messaging found an audience among US decision-makers, which led to the recent implementation of visa restrictions on South Africans whom the US believes are involved in policies such as BEE or land expropriation. The visa restrictions extend to individuals who incite imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa.
In his weekly newsletter published on Monday, Ramaphosa reflected on this past Heritage Day, noting that South Africans of all races and every community celebrated their own heritage while also honouring the heritage of others.
Ramaphosa wrote that the country is determined never to return to the racial division and oppression of our apartheid past, rejecting the notion that the current measures in place to correct the injustices, such as BEE and Employment Equity (EE), are equivalent to discrimination.
“There is no moral equivalence between redress and discrimination. There is no equivalence between legitimate, constitutionally grounded measures of redress and the systematic racial oppression of apartheid. There is no equivalence between measures designed to overcome racial exclusion and the apartheid laws that were designed to enforce racial exclusion, dispossession and inequality.”
The President also cautioned the public against those who “seek to undermine our national unity and turn South Africans against one another.”
“We all have a responsibility to hold our social fabric together. We must guard against words and actions that polarise communities, inflame public opinion and reopen the wounds of our past. The Constitution guarantees freedom of expression. But with this freedom comes responsibility.”
One of the “five asks” the US has of South Africa are that so-called hate rhetoric, specifically the “Kill the Boer” chant, should be publicly condemned by the South African Government.
In his newsletter, Ramaphosa, while not referencing the chant directly, writes:
“In a country with unacceptably high levels of violent crime, language that glorifies killing or encourages hostility has no place in our public life.”
The President also called out those who travel to foreign capitals to spread the falsehood of a “white genocide”, calling it irresponsible and unpatriotic, especially at a time when unemployment is high and the country needs to grow the economy and attract investment.
