Anti-Indian slurs condemned

The comments came after a student threatened violence against Indian students on social networking site Facebook following violent protest action at the university.

The high court this week granted UKZN an urgent interdict which prohibited any form of protest action, intimidation and damage to property on any of its five campuses.

This was as a result of violent student protests over financial aid on the university's Westville campus, with students burning tyres, throwing stones and blocking roads.

On Wednesday, unregistered students were evicted from the campus residences.

The posting on UKZN's Facebook page read: "Indians will never understand us (blacks) cos we are raced differently. we are born to kill that why tomorrow we will wipe out all indians on campus. don't come otherwise u will go straight to heaven. for whites we have already started with T. Blanch so we are continuing from there tomorrow this is our country we don't need whites and indians at UKZN."

Nomonde Mbadi, executive director of UKZN's corporate relations division, said the matter was under investigation.

"The university's internal disciplinary processes will be applied. The university community is extremely disappointed that at this point in our democracy young students, who are the future leaders of our country, are engaging in racial slander on the social media network.

"The protest action was not about racial prejudices. UKZN prides itself as a diverse institution of higher learning where different cultures are welcomed and celebrated. The emancipation of South Africans has given us the freedom to embrace each other, to understand each other and to show tolerance of the highest order.

"The university's Transformation Charter aims to heal the divisions of our nation's past, bridges racial and cultural divides and lays the foundations for a university that is united in its diversity."

The offensive comment was later removed from the institution's page, but not before it became a slanging match between the author and other students.

Minority Front leader Shameen Thakur Rajbansi questioned how students who are meant to be future leaders at a tertiary institution had preconceptions of race in their mind and looked at race as the easiest area to target when they were frustrated about issues.

"What is the quality of leadership we are going to have in the future? Being in a free country, they should be role models about being nonracist. These students were born into a democratic country.

"When there is a problem it is, 'let's look at the easiest target and make it a scapegoat for all our problems'. There is no excuse in a democratic country to use the race card. The frustration of students should focus towards the source, which relates to management issues at the university, especially at the beginning of the academic year. Why misdirect pertinent administrative issues to Indian students? Are Indian students soft targets? These issues affect all students equally. They should learn to be better negotiators instead of resorting to the old-style protest," said Thakur Rajbansi.

Lucy Holborn, research manager at the SA Institute of Race Relations, said universities, among other institutions across the country, are trying to address issues of racial tension and division.

"Events like these do undermine those efforts, although I think it can be dealt with by the university making it clear that this is unacceptable but also reminding people that this is one individual and we shouldn't rush to judgment.

"The protest had nothing to do with race, but was a protest against authorities which turned into a racial thing against other students. There is a tendency for that to happen all the time. There is a danger that ongoing challenges, which may be a combination of history, failures in the current government and external factors, are blamed on minority groups because they are sort of doing OK and don't face the same challenges and therefore it must be their fault."

Labby Ramrathan, acting dean and head of school in education at UKZN, said the slurs snowballed into something that was not intended.

"There will be anger built up by those affected by the slurs and those making them. We need to be calm and understand that it is being said in a particular moment.

"As things settle down, people [will] understand the implications.

"In trying to address and manage this as part of the curriculum of higher education, there are lots of programmes designed to bring to awareness the kind of racial discourse that is prevailing at a subliminal level - in people's minds all the time. It is at times like these that those things emerge as expressions," said Ramrathan.