Chris McGreal quoting a new South African on everyday racism in postapartheid South Africa:
“Racism isn’t necessarily bad. It’s about cultural differences. We should accept each other as we are,” he says. “They say apartheid was so bad but it created communications and infrastructure, railways, roads, the mines. It created jobs. I myself will never apologise for something that created the best opportunities in this country. People take apartheid out of context. It was different groups of people living in their culture, the way they like it.”
Full context here.
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Absolutely disgraceful that someone would think that way, views like that should be driven out of society, racism should be chased under a rock with all the other slimy things in our society.
I’m an Australian living in Australia and the national apology which is mentioned in the text of the article you cite was a great day, a wonderful healing day for people on both sides of the racial divide to come together, acknowledge that wrongs were done and set about putting them right, together as a nation.
Under our previous government a lot of people (myself included) lost pride in our country, or more corectly were robbed of it by the deplorable actions of our leaders overseas and at home.
With a new government and a long overdue apology to our indigenous people’s I’m 100% proud of my national identity once again.
I’d like to think we can be a beacon of hope for race relations all over the world.