IT is in black and white – an overwhelming majority of 84% of South Africans agree that our different races need each other and 72% have no personal experience of racism in their daily lives.
This is according a comprehensive field survey recently released by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
It certainly comes as a welcome surprise following the venomous vitriol spewed out on social media last year by a number of rabble rousers.
The truth is, Madiba’s inspiring words during his first month in office, that ‘each of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld – a rainbow nation at peace with itself’, is not yesterday’s dream.
IRR analysts found from conducting one-on-one interviews with 2 291 respondents, that only 3% see racism as an unresolved problem.
Most are far more concerned about unemployment (cited by 40%), poor service delivery (listed by 34%), inadequate housing (18%), crime (15%) and bad education (15%).
The majority have little faith in the race-based laws and racial quotas on which the government insists.
Fewer than 3% think ‘the best way to improve lives’ is through ‘more BEE and affirmative action in employment’.
Only 1% believe this can be done ‘through more land reform’.
Roughly 11% agree that ‘only black people should be appointed until those in employment are demographically representative’.
And more than 73% think sport teams should be selected on merit, not quotas.
‘Like the IRR’s 2015 field survey, the results of the 2016 one should fill the country with hope,’ says the IRR.
‘Despite the insulting and sometimes hostile comments that seem to dominate the race debate, most South Africans are well aware that the invective of the few is not representative of the many.’
At the end of the day, progressive Zululanders (and South Africans) can look past the dangerous racial rhetoric and rest assured the fabric of race relations in this country is still sound.
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