By Dr Duncan Du Bois
Much was made by Nelson Mandela after 1994 that non-racialism would characterise South Africa’s future and erase the cancer of race-based laws.
But 26 years on, race-based laws are actually more prolific than ever before. Let’s do the sums: between 1910 and 1948, 17 race-based acts of Parliament were passed. From 1949 to 1960, the foundation years of apartheid, 26 such acts were promulgated. From 1960 to 1980, a further 16 were passed. That totals 59 over a period of 70 years. From 1980, the National Party began relaxing and dismantling apartheid.
According to researcher James Myburgh, since 1995, the ANC has promulgated 90 race-based laws in 25 years. Whereas the cornerstone of apartheid was the Population Registration Act of race identity, the ANC has premised its racial identity agenda on demographic representivity.
Just as apartheid laws permeated all aspects of life, racial representivity requirements have become mandatory in every field of activity.
In the quest for “transformation”, even the Petroleum Pipelines Act has to fulfil racial quotas and have black management. Annually every institution is required to report to the ministry of Labour on progress towards transformation. Job creation has become ideological bean counting.
All of this is in keeping with the SACP’s 1962 plan which called for revolutionary national racialisation and is fundamental to the SACP’s National Democratic Revolution. Whereas South Africa survived the cancer of apartheid, the oppression and dystopia of communism is a terminal virus.