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Yesterday I sat in a Spur in Edenvale and commented to my companions how great it was that people of different races are now mixing so easily. In front of us were Indian folk, behind us, Black folks as well as across the aisle and further along, a Coloured family. As I am white person that grew up through the apartheid era (which I opposed), it thrills me to see how SA is peacefully adapting in the post-apartheid period.
Then I read how an altercation between a white parent (who certainly appeared to be out of line) and a black parent in a Spur gets massively blown up on social media (and on ENCA) as a 'racial incident'. Heck, guys, pleeeaze can we keep things in perspective? This was only a big incident because it was MADE to be big by the media. I have watched white parents get into fisticuffs over their child's rugby match. But that doesn't make the national news.
Why this hypersensitivity about race? White people cheer when a black player scores (and I would love to see more black grassroots rugby development). But because 'race' is still such a hypersensitive issue, the media blow any interracial conflict up totally out of proportion. Who or what is behind this? The politicians, wanting to retain power because they keep referring to the past? People with some kind of divisive agenda? Who?
Can we please move on, folks. In the Anglo-Boer war, Englishmen killed Afrikaners and vice versa, yet I work totally happily with an Afrikaner today. 200 000 Korean women were sent as sex-slaves to the Japanese army in 1945, yet Japanese and Korean firms do joint ventures by the thousand today. My father fought against the Germans, yet there is no 'looking back' today, only friendship.
So why must South Africans continually harp on the past? What's done is done. We will never move forward by looking back over our shoulders. Let's consign the Spur incident to the dustbin of history and rather concentrate on the problems we face today: 9 million people out of work here, endemic corruption, rotten service delivery, greedy collusion between white construction companies and government departments.
The future lies ahead of us: let's embrace it and correct the genuine wrongs that we face as a country today. Not blow up incidents in a Spur.
