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At a conference held in Pretoria today, South Africans across a wide spectrum, including numerous opinion leaders, showed their support for the complaint Solidarity intends to file with the United Nations (UN) against the South African government’s policy of affirmative action. Moreover, the trade union has received the first input for its report that will be submitted to the UN in August this year.

Among the opinion leaders who participated and gave their input are: Martin Brassey SC; well-known businessmen Herman Mashaba and Sandile Zungu; Theuns Eloff, chairperson of the F.W.de Klerk Foundation; Temba Nolutshungu, director of the Free Market Foundation; Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg, AfriForum’s deputy chief executive and Tony Leon, former leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA).

The conference marks the beginning of a two-month public process to obtain input from South Africans across the entire race and political spectrum so as to reflect the opinion of a broad spectrum of South Africans in the report.

Dirk Hermann, Solidarity Chief Executive, believes the conference and public input process constitute the first step to promote the debate on affirmative action in South Africa.

“We are not democratic subjects who have to obey the state at all cost but are democratic citizens who have to keep guard over the values of our democracy, at times the state notwithstanding. We trust today’s conference and public input will positively influence our draft report,” Hermann said.

Solidarity invited all South Africans to give their input on www.solidarity.co.za.

The trade union’s report to the UN deals specifically with government’s contravention of the UN convention prohibiting all forms of racial discrimination. “We are of the opinion that the South African government is contravening international laws, conventions and practice on affirmative action. Disadvantaging, not only of the non-designated group but of South African society at large, is the result,” Hermann said.

Hermann explained that government’s policy of race quotas cannot be defined as affirmative action, but rather as a form of neo-racialism which is not acceptable anywhere in the world.

Some of the main points contained in Solidarity’s complaint against government’s neo-racialism are that:

• Different silos are created for different race and gender groups;
• Government wants to create a future through social engineering;
• Race classification is yet again being institutionalised in South Africa;
• Race distinction has become the basis for decision making;
• The focus is not on past disadvantage but only on race;
• There is no sunset clause because racial demographics are constantly changing;
• Focus on training and development of people is lacking while the focus is only on mathematical outcomes; and
• Race quotas are pursued without regard to service delivery.

In contrast, international affirmative action practices stipulate that:

• No silos may be created and that class should also be considered, while race may only be used in extreme cases;
• Past disadvantage is redressed wholly and not just mathematically;
• The institutionalisation of forms of racial qualification be guarded against;
• With a view to using merit only, there should be a sunset clause that doesn’t go beyond what is needed;
• A variety of factors must be considered, which include equity, individual merit, and operational requirements;
• The focus should be on training and development of people as main method of redress; and that
• The focus should be on proper service delivery as a form of redress particularly for the poor.

Below follow extracts taken from some of the input given at the conference:

Tony Leon, former DA leader:

I can certainly confirm, from my recent engagement as a senior diplomatic representative of South Africa, that this government is mindful of its international obligations and places a primacy on the role and centrality of the United Nations and its conventions and committees as arbiters of international and domestic conflicts.  As a signatory state to the Convention it is both correct and proper that our national conduct under it is scrutinised. I therefore congratulate Solidarity on engaging in this important and necessary process.” Read the full speech. Click here.

Temba Nolutshungu, director of the Free Market Foundation:

• To date, the biggest political fraud perpetrated post-apartheid is the enactment of affirmative action policies, euphemistically referred to as black economic empowerment. A fraud because the proponents of the policy must have been aware of the empirical evidence that affirmative action policies, wherever they have been pursued throughout the world, at best, have been a dismal failure, and, at worst, counterproductive. They do not produce the desired results, they enrich the politically connected elites of the target group, and, ultimately, alienate certain sectors of the population.” Read the full speech. Click here.

Herman Mashaba, well-known businessman:

This Solidarity’s Shadow Report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is more than a vital initiative. Racial discrimination has affected, over the last 300 years of our recorded history, the lives of every person living in South Africa, and unfortunately continues to do so today. Read the full speech. Click here.

Cornelius Jansen van Rensburg, AfriForum’s deputy chief executive:

If every sector of the South African economy is to reflect the racial demographics of the country, it will practically ring-fence the economic opportunities available to the newly excluded race groups. This will eventually create a monopoly on supply of goods and services.Read the full speech. Click here.

Issued by Solidarity