SA ‘not for blacks only’

STANCE: RAMAPHOSA LAUDED FOR DEFENDING APPOINTMENT OF ESKOM BOSS

I call upon South Africans to embrace each other as equals, says president.

South Africa is in danger of being engulfed by narrow nationalism and a Trump-like economic nationalism. This could see the country become a more racially polarised society, with jobs reserved for blacks only, contrary to the aspirations of the Freedom Charter and the constitution.

This was the view of political economy analyst Zamikhaya Maseti, who was reacting to the concern of President Cyril Ramaphosa about the recent criticism levelled at the government over the appointment of Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter.

De Ruyter’s appointment was met with criticism within and outside the governing ANC prompting Ramaphosa to call for truly non-racialism.

“It is our mission to appoint people who are capable, qualified, ethical and who embody the values of public service, whether they are black or white, men or women. I call upon South Africans to embrace each other as equals, and look beyond their preconceptions of someone merely by looking at their skin colour,” Ramaphosa said, in his latest online weekly newsletter, From the Desk of the President.

He said nonracialism was not the product of a negotiated compromise, but was a fundamental pillar of the new society and it was only through advancing nonracialism that the country would be able to reconstruct the fabric of its society.

“We know too well what happened when race was used to exclude