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If Apartheid is not a crime against humanity, what is?

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Forty seven percent of white South Africans polled do not believe that Apartheid was a crime against humanity, according to a new report released by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

For the sake of clarity, let us determine what a crime against humanity is, according to the International Criminal court:

"Crimes against humanity" include any of the following acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

- murder;
- extermination;
- enslavement;
- deportation or forcible transfer of population;
- imprisonment;
- torture;
- rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
- persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds;
- enforced disappearance of persons;
- the crime of apartheid;
- other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury.

Wow, as if it weren’t enough that accounts heard at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ticked all those boxes, the ICC has conveniently gone and given "THE CRIME OF APARTHEID" its own bullet point. Ok, then.

So, according to the entire world, Apartheid was a crime against humanity. Yet nearly half of white South Africans disagree.

This raises a lot of frightening questions about our historical narrative, our post-apartheid legacy, and the state of our race relations:

How do we engage this? How do we confront this idea that a great many of the historical beneficiaries of a condemned political system feel no compunction to regard it as a crime?

Is there a correlation between feeling the above, and the re-emerging spectres of fear, racism and enmity? (Perhaps, but let’s not go there - there are problematic assumptions down that path, so let’s leave  that to be discussed elsewhere). 

Nontheless, a whole lot of white people are going respond to this report by saying – "stop saying all white people believe this!"

They might even question the validity of the survey, asking (as some already have) where the sample was taken, by whom and with how many participating.

But here’s the thing. The IJR is saying that roughly half of South African white people do not believe that Apartheid was a crime against humanity. I’m not saying that’s you (if you’re white). No-one’s saying that’s you. But here’s an idea:

As white people (or any people so reported in any survey) – let’s stop questioning the validity of the report, and telling other people to "stop demonising all white people" (#notallwhitepeople – seriously?), and instead, how about we seriously start to look at our neighbours, family and friends, and ask the hard questions.

Are you one of the 47%? Why would you think that? Where does this opinion come from?

How about we change our response from: "we are not all like this", to a more effective and useful: "Yes, we must be aware that some of us are like this.

We must ask each other the hard questions, we must be the best parents we can possibly be to teach our children better than this. Because this is not a defensible notion."

How about we make a statement – a declaration, if you will – that we DO believe it was a crime against humanity. How about we keep this about the 40 million plus who suffered, not the four and a half percent who feel "accused"?

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