Obliterate racism in our democracy

FORTY years ago Steve Biko was murdered by the apartheid security services.

Emotional wounds resurface even after years have passed.

The many years of racial segregation thus continue to have a heavy impact today.

One can see the need for appropriate reparation in these accounts from South Africans of past and present for the horrors inflicted on the masses, which spanned many years of torment and humiliation.

Racism is an incipient criminality. Punish it harshly. Preaching supremacy and practising racism are repugnant and against the values we, as a civilised society, hold dear.

We must finish beloved Nelson Mandela’s work by obliterating every vestige of racism in our democratic society.

Racism is present in the acts and attitudes of many today.

It is present in the institutional residue of past choices.

FAROUK ARAIE Benoni