Hoërskool Jan Viljoen: FF Plus submits report to HRC with evidence that Lesufi is seeing racism ghosts

15 July 2022

The FF Plus today submitted a report to the Human Rights Commission (HRC) with evidence that the Gauteng MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi, exploited the incident that transpired at Hoërskool Jan Viljoen on 11 February 2022 to incite needless racial tension between black and white school communities.

On the 11th of February 2022, conflict initially arose between a few learners, but it soon grew into a schoolwide conflict between larger groups of learners.

Lesufi consequently requested the HRC to look into the matter. Directly afterwards, even before the investigation was underway, Lesufi started to accuse Afrikaans learners and communities of racism.

Despite Lesufi's decision to involve the HRC, he personally went to the school to address large groups of learners, parents and other bystanders on various occasions and made incriminating statements before the investigation had been finalised.

He falsely accused a white, Afrikaans learner by name of being the apparent instigator of the conflict. It also appears that he falsely implicated the learner's family in the incident.

He, furthermore, accused the wider white school community of racism.

It is interesting to note that he interacted solely with black learners on the occasions where he called the white school community racist, without having any proof and not waiting for the findings of the HRC's report.

The FF Plus has proof of all Lesufi's unfounded statements in the form of video footage.

The FF Plus allowed the family that was victimised by Lesufi to state their case and assisted them in submitting their version of events to the HRC in the form of affidavits.

The statements of various other witnesses were also submitted.

From the abovementioned evidence, it is clear that the incident which resulted in the racial clash at the school was initially caused by learners who simply refused to obey the school rules and who have no respect for those who are tasked with enforcing the rules.

The root cause of the conflict is, therefore, a lack of discipline and not racism. Many black and white learners who were not involved in the conflict condemned it and confirmed that racism was not a factor.

Moreover, it has become clear that the Gauteng Department of Education made no attempt whatsoever to prepare the teachers, learners and parents for dealing with the nature of a multicultural school, where learners of various different cultures, languages and socio-economic backgrounds come together in the same school.

The wider school community was left to its own devices and as soon as there was any conflict, Lesufi was ready to hunt down and hang racists; while he failed to fulfil his responsibility of preparing the school for the new multicultural environment.

The FF Plus made very sure that Lesufi's conduct, which caused the racial tension between black and white school communities to rise, was brought to the attention of the HRC.

Lesufi once again saw racism ghosts where there were none and, thus, put the school and its learners in danger; just like in the case of the Hoërskool Overvaal saga.

The FF Plus will continue to assist the family with presenting their case to the HRC until the truth comes out and compensation is paid to the victimised family.

The FF Plus is keeping the family's name confidential due to the serious threats that they received, which were aggravated by Lesufi's conduct.

Issued by Anton Alberts, FF Plus national chairperson and MPL: Gauteng, 15 July 2022