Apartheid under ANC rule

If there is compulsory racial classification, as happened under apartheid and happens under ANC rule, it’s bound to be ludicrous as well as bigoted.

The disgusting Employment Equity Act (EEA), which enforces racial classification, is essentially apartheid II, perpetuating the legacy of apartheid. It makes it illegal for an employer to classify a worker as a human being. He must classify him as a racial specimen.

Under apartheid there were definitions of each race group and tests to distinguish between them. The pencil test told the difference between “white” and “coloured”. They put a pencil in your hair and asked you to bend forward: if the pencil fell out you were white; if not you were coloured. This test would make me coloured and Trevor Manuel white.

The EEA does not define “African”, “Asian” and “coloured” and there are no tests to distinguish between them. The classification is done secretly and shamefully according to the racial prejudices of the classifier.

But what about the Japanese and the Chinese? Where do they fit in? Under apartheid I, the Japanese were considered honorary whites. Under apartheid II, it was not clear whether the Chinese were “black” or “white”. So the Chinese Association of South Africa (Casa) took the matter to court, and last week the Pretoria High Court declared that Chinese were “black”.

I don’t blame Casa for pressing this. After all, you are at a big disadvantage for getting jobs or contracts if you are classified as “white”. This is a major reason for the exodus of white engineers, accountants, science teachers, doctors and artisans from SA.

Chinese people have a worldwide reputation for enterprise, family life and good citizenship. They are an asset to any country. In Malaysia they were considered to be too successful and so had to be discriminated against in a system of legalised racism, also called “affirmative action”.