'Angry white youths dangerous'
2008-07-17 20:03
Johannesburg - Many Afrikaner youths are angry and hold rigid views about black people, Professor Jonathan Jansen said on Thursday.
Jansen, delivering the 5th Annual Bishop Hans Brenninkmeijer memorial lecture in Johannesburg, said these Afrikaner youths had had no direct experience of apartheid and were born around the time of former state president Nelson Mandela's release from prison.
"They (Afrikaner youths) carry within them the seed of bitter knowledge that left unchallenged can easily germinate into the most vile and vicious racial attack."
He cited the Waterkloof Four, the Reitz residence "initiation" video, and the Skierlik killings as examples.
"The Afrikaner youths' troubled knowledge was transmitted through the family, the church, the schools, cultural associations and peer groups," he said.
Supported white domination
These agencies transmitted "dangerous" messages in all white circles despite spectacular changes in the formal institutions of democracy.
Jansen said the Afrikaner youths' beliefs and behaviours mirrored those of their parents - "who upheld, supported and benefited from white domination in the decades before they were born".
The threat of social collapse around white people resulted in them reinforcing racial exclusivity (we belong to ourselves); racial supremacy (we are better than black people) and racial victimisation (we are being targeted by black people), said Jansen.
"In the belief system of white youth, these social events are interpreted through a singular lens: black incompetence, black greed, black barbarism and black retaliation," said Jansen.
In a bid to understand their "anger" Jansen said he lived inside the lives of white Afrikaners. His findings were that it was hard to change their views of other people.
However, he said for transformation to be successful, South Africans on both sides (blacks and white) had to be prepared to make a move towards each other.
'Represent red flags'
He said white people had to move out of their "comfort zones" and embrace not tolerate, their fellow human beings if they wanted to "make it" in the new South Africa.
"But white fathers loomed large as racial gatekeepers in their homes. We must get together and figure it out for the sake our country and the future," said Jansen.
In his lecture, Jansen highlighted that many white South Africans felt that the recent xenophobic attacks, and the escalation in fuel and food prices, and interests rates, were a "black problem".
"In other words, the weight of public discourse suggests a white man's burden," said Jansen.
On the "shaky democracy", Jansen blamed the ANC Youth League "thugs" for their "kill for Zuma" talk.
"The precipitous state of public institutions - the Human Rights Commission, the Presidency, the SABC and the Judiciary - represent the red flags of our fragile democracy," he said.
- SAPA