Chris Barron

How successful have you been in combating racism? Racism was outlawed by the constitution in 1994 and people thought everybody would now move forward. But it continues today. So we have to revisit why these things still go on in society and what should we be doing about it. What’s your answer? Maybe we took things for granted and thought that after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission people would forget and forgive and move on. We were wrong. Is racism getting worse? I don’t know if it is getting worse. But in 2000 the HRC had a conference on racism and one of the resolutions was to develop a national action plan to work our way through systemic problems. But that plan has taken longer to complete. As a result, all these other issues crept in, like racism. Is there a danger that we’re talking up racism to satisfy political agendas? No, I think it is beyond that. It’s been there since before 1994 and was not sufficiently addressed. The conference in 2000 clearly spelt out how to address it. It called on all sectors of society to defeat racism. Had government and all of us who worked towards the national plan shown a sense of urgency, we would not still be grappling with the problem of racism that is now pervasive in society. Is it pervasive? Well, it is. You get racism in schools, you get the Penny Sparrows of the world. It’s coming out across all sectors of society. Wasn’t the immediate and universal outrage in response to the Sparrow issue a good sign? The national outcry sent two messages to the HRC. One: there is a common front to combat racism. You mean that society is not prepared to accept it? No. Society was saying that we need to guard against racism. The fact that the constitution has outlawed it does not mean it is dead and buried. All this from a message on social media? On the face of it, yes. But these Sparrows have been buried for a long time. They were just waiting to rear their ugly heads. How do you know the extent of the problem if it has been buried? All our previous reports found racism in schools, in various sectors of society. We made recommendations to parliament and said we need to nip these issues in the bud or they will proliferate. So what have you done to nip them in the bud? We investigated the issues and made recommendations to parliament and

said: “Please act on this.” What was the response? The unfortunate thing is that parliament took too long to address the issue. So parliament didn’t respond? They took too long to address the issue. So they clearly didn’t regard racism as a major issue? I can’t speak for parliament. Clearly there was no sense of urgency about it . . . That’s it. There was no sense of urgency. Is it because of the elections that politicians now have a sense of urgency? I don’t think so. Why didn’t they demonstrate a sense of urgency before? That’s a problem we have. But we had, in 2013, hearings into racism around the theme of transformation at universities. We asked all 23 universities: “How are you addressing the racism issue?” And we are in the process of finalising our report. Are you concerned about the level of racism at universities? Yes, we are. Do the anti-white slogans concern you? It’s not only anti-white, it’s anti-black as well. What we’re seeing are slogans like “F**k the whites” and “Kill all whites”. Is the HRC concerned about this? We are concerned, and that is why we think we should be asking parliament to legislate around the question of hate speech. Do we have the resources to enforce more legislation? You have two avenues open as a citizen where your rights have been violated. You can go to the Equality Court and sue for defamation, or you can go to the criminal courts. Why do we need more legislation? One avenue, the criminalisation of hate speech, has not been opened yet. So we need further legislation to make it easier to take Sparrow to court for hate speech? Absolutely. The civil legislation must complement the criminal legislation. Would this also make it easier to take King Goodwill Zwelithini to court for hate speech? If you can prove it, yes. Does the HRC have any doubt that he used derogatory language about black foreigners? That matter is sub judice at the moment. We’re waiting for him to respond.