Don’t tick ‘racist’ box
INDIANS and coloureds have been urged to choose “African” or not to tick any box which asks for their racial identity when filling out forms, including those for jobs or in the government’s national census currently under way.
Glen Snyman from the organisation, People Against Race Classification, appeared before a parliamentary committee in Cape Town recently after a 10-year crusade to have his race changed from coloured to African.
Parliament’s select committee on petitions and executive undertakings invited Snyman to explain why he had petitioned it to have all references to race, and the word “coloured” in particular, to be removed from government forms, private institutions and the Employment Equity Act.
Snyman, a teacher, told POST that since childhood he was ridiculed for being coloured and accused of not having a distinct culture or identity.
However, when people who were classified as coloured succeeded on a national or international level, they were described as black.
This was confusing and hurtful and encouraged him to explore his family history, said Snyman.
He discovered that his great-grandmother was a member of the Khoisan community and now he proudly identified as such and even learnt their language.
“We must be allowed to self-identify. We can't let other people tell us who we are,” he said.
Indians should also not be punished through racial classification, because they arrived in South Africa as slaves and most had never lived or visited that country, which made them African, he said.
In terms of black economic empowerment (BEE), Snyman suggested that the government make use of a poverty barometer, rather than race to empower South Africans.
Zolani Mkiva, the chairperson of the parliamentary committee, invited the SA Human Rights Commission as well as the ministers of home affairs, labour, and arts and culture to the meeting with Snyman.
Following this, Mkiva recommended all communities have a say in the matter because it would be wrong for Parliament to make a blanket decision.
“We are calling for a national dialogue to discuss whether people should still be classified as Indian or coloured.”
Mkiva also proposed that official forms be changed to reflect culture not race, and said it was not wrong for people to choose what they wanted to be called.
Snyman was previously hauled before the Labour Court by the Western Cape Education Department for fraud and dishonesty when he ticked the “African” box on a job application.
Charges were later dropped and the department acknowledged his right to do so.
Snyman’s call for race classification to be dropped was supported by Eric Apelgren, a Durban anti-apartheid activist and public servant.
He said it was an important discussion because classification was always used to divide and rule communities, especially coloureds.
When forced to do so he always ticked the “other” box or none of them if this was not available.
Apelgren has Zulu/Swedish heritage from his father’s side and Zulu/English from his mom, and although he was brought up Catholic, he was taught to honour traditional customs and herbs.
He said coloured people were always marginalised, before and after democracy, and this had led to mental health and criminal problems in the community.
“Some people cling on to their classification as coloured because it is the only feeling of identity that they have,” he said.
Equity, BEE and affirmative action were noble, but officials and politicians had corrupted this to benefit their girlfriends and family, he said.
Dr Wendy Isaacs-Martin, a political analyst, said racial categories should be scrapped because they no longer served a cause other than for statistical purposes.
However, she said Snyman’s call to have coloureds recategorised would be a challenge because the group was not unified on any level.
“In 1948 it was decided with the census that anyone who looked mixed, or were perceived to have associated with non-white groups, were classified as coloured.
“So whites, Chinese, Indians, Javanese-Malays and indigenous groups such as the Khoi, San and Nama were all lumped together at the discretion of the census takers who were exclusively white.”
She said in the decades since then the National Party sought to give Indians and Chinese their own categories in order to divide the large group which was “numerically problematic” for the party.