{"id":133921,"date":"2019-04-01T18:47:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T16:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/south-africa-has-a-plan-to-fight-prejudice-but-its-full-of-holes-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2019-04-01T18:47:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T16:47:44","slug":"south-africa-has-a-plan-to-fight-prejudice-but-its-full-of-holes-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/south-africa-has-a-plan-to-fight-prejudice-but-its-full-of-holes-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa has a plan to fight prejudice. But it’s full of holes | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa has a plan to fight prejudice. But it’s full of holes<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Women and children at a Red Cross camp for displaced victims of xenophobic violence in Johannesburg.<\/span> EFE-EPA \/Kim Ludbrook<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The South African government has launched a plan aimed at addressing pervasive prejudice in the country. It\u2019s called the \u201cnational action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance\u201d.<\/p>\n

A plan like this may seem redundant given that the country\u2019s Constitution explicitly affirms lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people. It also states that everyone has the right to a safe life within the country\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

But this hasn\u2019t translated into the desired changes on the ground. South Africa is still riddled with racial inequality, gendered discrimination and violence against non-nationals. <\/p>\n

In the light of this, the plan is welcome.<\/p>\n

But in our view this is an \u201caction plan\u201d without a plan. It offers frail remedies to poorly diagnosed problems. Of the document\u2019s 67 pages, only nine outline actions. These include collecting better statistics, educating the public and the police and demanding official commitments to equality. There\u2019s nothing new here. The government is already doing most of these things \u2013 or it should be. <\/p>\n

On top of this the document puts too much blame on the country\u2019s past. Yes, apartheid was evil. But blaming all contemporary forms of discrimination and inequality on it is a dodge. It lets post-apartheid leadership off the hook for exacerbating inequality and failing to curb emergent forms of discrimination.<\/p>\n

Weighing the plan<\/h2>\n

The action plan has been billed as a technical framework. As it stands it offers almost no information about budgets, oversight, clear standards for measuring progress or accountability mechanisms. <\/p>\n

Instead it relies on existing mechanisms, including the so-called Chapter 9 institutions that support the country\u2019s constitutional democracy. But, these have proven themselves to be relatively toothless. <\/p>\n

The most significant proposal is for the Department of Justice to undertake a study into forms of contemporary discrimination. This is long overdue and should have helped inform a more robust action plan. <\/p>\n

Without a careful reading of discrimination in South Africa, the action plan relies on perceptions and politics rather than facts. <\/p>\n

There is one positive. The document proposes an approach that makes it clear a range of factors affect people\u2019s lives. These include gender, location, disability, sexual orientation and health. <\/p>\n

But these are not followed through. Instead, half the document discusses land ownership, poverty, and economic inequality. These are discussed almost entirely in terms of old apartheid categories: black, white, coloured, and Indian. The solutions it sets out depend on a more concerted redistribution of resources and economic opportunities. These measures are welcome and necessary. Nevertheless the approach buries other forms of bias and discrimination within patterns of racialised inequality.<\/p>\n

Passing the buck<\/h2>\n

The action plan is almost entirely one-dimensional because it focuses on rooting out contemporary forms of bias and discrimination inherited from its apartheid past. History matters. But framing all forms of discrimination as apartheid legacies blinds South Africans to the range of new forms of discrimination.<\/p>\n

For example, by relying exclusively on apartheid era racial categories, it overlooks various patterns of discrimination within groups. And it fails to acknowledge that for many years now inequality within the black population has been greater than inequality between blacks and whites. <\/p>\n

Another example is education. It\u2019s true that disparate education levels were inherited after the end of formal apartheid. But responsibility for the troubling state of rural schools falls squarely on the current government. The same goes for clinics and other services.<\/p>\n

The reliance on apartheid era racial categories also blinds citizens to other troubling aspects of South African society. One example is the almost exclusive focus on black-white inequalities and oppression. There are only two short paragraphs in the document noting ethnic or linguistic discrimination. This doesn\u2019t make it into the \u201caction\u201d items, nor is there mention of discrimination by members of black communities against one another, or among themselves. And it doesn\u2019t stop there. <\/p>\n

Xenophobia and violence<\/h2>\n

Xeonophobia has a prominent place in the plan\u2019s title. But it\u2019s almost totally overlooked in the actual document. <\/p>\n

The plan briefly acknowledges xenophobic violence. What\u2019s missing is reference to other forms of widespread discrimination against non-nationals seeking access to education, employment, housing, or life-saving medical services.<\/p>\n

When it comes to violence, the plan rehearses familiar \u2013 but empirically questionable \u2013 claims that inequality and economic competition breed resentment and attacks on foreigners. But nowhere does it describe the gangs, community leaders, and political officials who typically foment xenophobic attacks.<\/p>\n

The action plan similarly fails to condemn the local, provincial, and national politicians who regularly blame foreigners for their own failures to deliver services as well as economic and physical security.<\/p>\n

Towards an effective plan<\/h2>\n

If rights and security depend on protecting everyone, then South Africans deserve a document that relies less heavily on established but unsubstantiated narratives intended to justify economic redistribution.<\/p>\n

South Africa can\u2019t afford to wait for economic equality before addressing its virulent and sometimes violent forms of discrimination. The origins of discrimination may be rooted in apartheid practices and mindsets, but history cannot be changed. Instead, the national action plan must address all factors \u2013 including current policies and politicians \u2013 that foster all forms of discrimination.<\/p>\n

H. Refiloe Ogude, a doctoral candidate in public and urban policy at The New School, New York, contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Loren B Landau receives funding from the National Research Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
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South Africa has a plan to fight prejudice. But it’s full of holes: Women and children at a Red Cross camp for displaced victims of xenophobic violence in Johannesburg. EFE-EPA \/Kim Ludbrook The South African government has launched a plan aimed at addressing pervasive prejudice in the country. It\u2019s called the \u201cnational action plan to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,8890,2323,3518,10275,3821,2474,26145,3576],"class_list":{"0":"post-133921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-fight","10":"tag-full","11":"tag-holes","12":"tag-its","13":"tag-plan","14":"tag-prejudice","15":"tag-south","16":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}