Challenge is to change racist mindset

18 March 2016 - 03:05 By Nathi Olifant

ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize said last night that South Africa would not descend into racial havoc and ethnic cleansing. Mkhize, who was speaking yesterday at the Durban University of Technology during a discussion on racism organised by the university's International Centre for Nonviolence (Icon), said a lot of legislation has been created to eradicate racism, but the changing of attitudes remained to be achieved."It's now down to how you deal with redress ... there are still parents who encourage their children to discriminate against certain people," he said.Mkhize said reconciliation was not out of date. He said that although there was a measure of political stability, a lot still had to be done to make those who embraced apartheid and racism change their attitudes.Mkhize said non-racialism meant living together in a social structure, not forcing races to live together. He said the government had never sought to force races to live together."I once lived in a suburb in which for years my neighbour and I didn't greet each other, but he would play with our dog. It was only when we were about to leave the suburb that we spoke to each other - that's not the society we envisaged," he said.Mkhize said much had been done to dismantle the legacies of apartheid, especially at universities."The Fees Must Fall campaign happened because there were those who felt [their university] did not identify with them as an African institution. We need to eradicate statutory racism."Icon director Crispin Hemson said: "White people must take psychological responsibility for being oppressors. We were ushered away from some people - made to love certain people and not others."What really gets up my nose is when white people do not acknowledge the damage of the past," he said...

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