Fish Hoek High School” DA cannot vindicate itself

7 November 2022

What happened at Fish Hoek High School last week has no place in civilized society. Under no circumstances may children be bullied and traumatised behind closed doors in such a Nazi-like way.

What is equally shocking is that the DA is now trying to wash its hands in innocence by pretending that it condemns the incident.

It is absolutely dishonest. The entire event was of the DA's own making.

David Maynier is the DA's "minister" of Education in the Western Cape as well as the political head in control of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).

Neither he nor the DA can pretend that they were not aware of the so-called "diversity session" that was presented at the school.

It is time for the DA to stop being hypocritical and to admit that a grave mistake was made, which caused racial division in a school where peace prevailed.

The incident is strongly reminiscent of what happened in Schweizer-Reneke in 2019 when a teacher, Elana Barkhuizen, was falsely accused of racist conduct towards the toddlers in her class.

The DA's youth leader at the time, Luyola Mphithi, publicly crucified Barkhuizen before he made any attempt to find out what was really going on.

According to him, it was "scandalous that children are segregated based on race".

Moreover, the DA had to be caught out before it was willing to offer an apology. Later, the DA showed its true colours and thoughts concerning the incident by awarding Mphithi with a promotion to DA Member of Parliament.

And now? Now the DA is doing exactly what it accused Ms Barkhuizen of doing. It sent consultants to a school, forced 800 young people of all races to stay in the school hall and then "divided" them based "on race".

White and coloured children were forced to listen to how they are all inherently evil racists, while their black friends who sit with them in class, play rugby and netball with them, and eat their sandwiches with them during break times are all honourable and without fault.

It is a recipe for racial conflict and division.

The DA likes to frequently tell the ANC what it is supposed to do when things go wrong.

In this case, the DA would probably have told the ANC to immediately act against all those implicated, and to investigate the matter thoroughly and publicly.

With Mphithi, however, quite the opposite happened – and in Fish Hoek, senior DA members have been running around the community all week, asking people not to speak to the media. So, it seems that what happened must be swept under the rug.

There may possibly also be a promotion in store for the DA's "diversity consultant", Asanda Ngoasheng, who was deployed in Fish Hoek.

Statement issued by Dr. Corné Mulder, FF Plus MP and provincial leader: Western Cape, 7 November 2022