Cyril calls for SA unity

BUILD BRIDGES: PRESIDENT ACKNOWLEDGES RECENT RACIAL TENSIONS

Opposition parties divided about what Reconciliation Day should represent.

As political parties express opposing views on what Reconciliation Day should mean and how it should be celebrated, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged for unity.

Ramaphosa called for building of bridges in his Reconciliation Day address to the nation yesterday, while acknowledging the racial tensions which have flared up in parts of the country recently.

He specifically mentioned recent events in Senekal in the Free State, in Eldorado Park in Gauteng and in Brackenfell in the Western Cape, adding that race relations “remains fragile”.

Ramaphosa said while the day should be used to “recall the injustices of our history”, it was observed as one where “we affirm our collective responsibility to build a nonracial, nonsexist and democratic society”.

However, some opposition political parties also used the opportunity to dismiss the notion of a unified nation, citing polarised racial lines, inequality and history.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement the day marked the anniversary of when the “racist Afrikaner Voortrekkers waged a war against the Zulu nation, defeating the King of the native people of Africa, King

Dingaan (sic)”.

The party said there was “nothing reconciliatory about a day on which the dispossession of land was furthered by an entitled people who arrived in Africa and established themselves as a superior race”.

The EFF said reconciliation had failed due to poverty and a lack of access to land.

“A country whose wealth remains in the hands of a racial minority, whose land remains in the hands of a few and in which black people are engineered to be gardeners and maids can never reconcile with itself,” the EFF said.

Freedom Front Plus leader Dr Pieter Groenewald insisted he would continue to celebrate the day as “Day of the Vow ” because of the day’s significance in Afrikaner history.

Speaking in Ventersdorp, Groenewald reminded his audience of the battle of Blood River in 1838 between the Afrikaner voortrekkers and Dingane’s Zulu warriors, urging them to defend themselves against a supposed “invisible enemy”.

This enemy, he said, was an attack on the Afrikaner culture and language.

Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen, in his message, started by asking: “What exactly it is we’re celebrating?”

Unity, he said, was being threatened by political parties such as the EFF and the ANC. “The tense standoffs in places like Senekal and Brackenfell show just how easy it is to whip these feelings up and turn citizens against each other,” he said.

– additional reporting by Eric Naki.