No future in this behaviour

SCENES this week of black and white students clashing at universities have been devastating, a dismal turn for those hoping that the so-called “born-free” generation was fashioning a new society less pitted by racial division.

Recent student vandalism and destruction have been abhorrent, but the sight of young men brawling on Monday on a rugby pitch at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, and at the University of Pretoria, was uglier still.

We have seen puffs of it before, but two serious encounters in a day seemed to amplify their impact.

It was the children of the self-styled Rainbow Nation at fisticuffs. It was black-white combat, flashbacks of the apartheid era, confrontation that was totally out of place in a country no longer statutorily stratified by race.

With the racism debate raging as it must, the behaviour of those who should be less contaminated by the past is now part of it. What happened to the promise of harmony in the new South Africa, and those young people who should be in its vanguard?

The father of reconciliation in South Africa, Nelson Mandela, would probably have wept at this week’s clashes.

There will be commentary from both sides, one claiming the right to protest and the other resenting perceived infringements on their rights; there will be apologists and offered explanations. The bottom line, though, was physical intolerance along racial lines.

This manifestation of young prejudice requires vigorous intervention, where hot-heads and agitators are identified and marginalised. It cannot be left to government alone, or political leaders, to prevent the dream of a new South Africa unravelling.

University and education authorities, the private sector, churches, civil society and parents should mobilise to form a chorus of disapproval for what they saw this week.

It was ugly, without future. And those young men who participated in these shows of assertion should know it.