Jansen's criticism unfair

Pam, by e-mail: Jonathan Jansen's "Tribal lines still firmly drawn" (November 18) was thought-provoking as usual.

But I must take issue with his statement "The day I believe South Africans are transformed, is the day a white man stands up among his peers in public, and condemns an offensive act towards black people, because it's wrong. In all my life, I have not seen this once."

Come on Professor, there are many white people who have become legends for their vocal opposition to the treatment of black people; Helen Joseph, Helen Suzman, the Black Sash, etc.

More recently there were white people who were appalled at the neglect of black babies and elderly folk during the civil strike and wrote about it to the papers.

But it's not only the spoken word that leaps the race barrier, it is supportive action that pushes us to reach Jansen's so-called "non-racial South African nirvana".

What about those white people who help to build homes for blacks; who start market gardens; who have started classes in everything from weaving to textiles and have helped to market their products; who have held ballet classes in townships; given extra extra-mural classes to help adults attain the education they lack for better jobs; who teach township dwellers how to look after their pets; who have opened places of shelter for unmarried black and coloured women and their babies?

It's easy to criticise and generalise on racial issues, but this only deepens the thing Jansen abhors: narrow, bitter, tribal attitudes towards those deemed different.