President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reference to the privilege of white youth and Affirmative Action (AA) and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) shows that he clearly does not understand the argument for equal rights for all in South Africa.
Ramaphosa’s use of the unemployment statistics, which indicate that 20% of black youth are unemployed compared to only 7% of white youth, and his assumption that white youth is therefore still privileged, means that he will only accept that equality has been established once both groups have the same unemployment rate.
In the interim, young white people are being deprived of the opportunity to perform according their abilities and making a greater contribution to the development of South Africa. So, merit is not used as the measure, but the statistics regarding black and white are.
With this, Ramaphosa also does not give any credit to young white people that still excel – despite the discrimination of AA and BEE that they have to endure – to make South Africa a better place.
The FF Plus accepts the invitation to further discuss the matter with the president.
Concerning the issue of land, President Ramaphosa will have to provide more details seeing as he is creating the impression that due to the pain, division and inequity of the past, expropriation without compensation is the only solution to redress the injustices of the past.
He mentioned the case of someone who lived in District Six and although one sympathises with the relevant person, the question arises if the same injustice now has to be done to someone else by taking his or her property without compensation and giving it to the person who was wronged in the first place.
The FF Plus is of the opinion that we should rather learn from our past mistakes and not repeat them. Expropriation without compensation will merely be a repetition of past mistakes.
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