Parties are playing with fire when they use racism for political gain

11 January 2019

The unfortunate incident that took place at the primary school in Schweizer-Reneke in the North West serves as proof that social cohesion in South Africa is busy unravelling due to the divisive policies that the ANC has followed over the last 24 years. In addition, political parties are playing with fire when they add to the tension by using racism for political gain.

A party like the EFF took the division that the government established over the last few years even further and it is lamentable that the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has now also followed suit.

The FF Plus initially put off responding to the incident precisely because in this case the incident involves a school where there are Grade R learners present.

The FF Plus believes that these children of all races who only just started their schooling should have been shielded from the trauma of such a race debacle by all means possible.

However, after other parties, in particular the DA, did not even go to the trouble of investigating the matter, but just jumped at the chance to exploit an apparently innocent situation to score political points before the general elections, the FF Plus can no longer remain silent.

According to media reports, some of the learners sat together in groups at some stage for language reasons seeing as a few of them have allegedly not yet mastered Afrikaans. This highlights the necessity of mother-tongue education, something that the FF Plus is fighting for, so that communication, irrespective of race, will be the main criterium in the educational environment.

The time has come for all responsible South African citizens to join hands with the FF Plus so as to send a loud and clear message that differences must not be settled by means of conflict, but rather in a responsible manner that will ensure progress and not regress such as we have seen over the last 24 years under the leadership of the ANC government.

Issued by Pieter Groenewald, FF Plus leader, 11 January 2019