Can the ideals of a non-racial society be advanced by race-based measures?
Those who say yes argue that targets need to be set for the advancement of those denied opportunity under apartheid.
We therefore have explicit identification by race in legislation like the Employment Equity Act, the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Skills Development Act.
Race is a factor in other laws that apply to virtually every sector of society, ranging from the award of broadcasting licences to forestry allocations.
Those who are given preference are "Black people", defined as "a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and Indians".
This definition echoes apartheid-era classifications, and implies that Whites, Coloureds and Indians are not Africans. It also implies that "Indians" are forever from another country and that Coloureds are an identifiable "race".
The latter are often not treated on a par with Black Africans, which causes further grievances.
The ludicrousness of it all was exposed when South African Chinese successfully went to court to be counted as Black for the purposes of the law, which was followed by a racist tirade by Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana.
After berating Chinese employers for mistreating workers, he said "they must also remember that they are now coloureds. What I know is that coloureds don't speak Chinese."
The new generation of children should be growing up without race-consciousness, but school registrations require the parent or guardian to identify the race of the child.
A circular by the Gauteng Education Department calls this "race profiling", and mandates school principals to "use their discretionary power to classify the specific learner" if the parent or guardian does not do so.
These race counts are not just for statistical purposes but have real consequences even for the "born-frees".
Billionaire Tokyo Sexwale was reported last year as saying that his children should still benefit from affirmative action.
But Cope leader Terror Lekota does not believe there is any reason for his children, or those of Cyril Ramaphosa or Tokyo Sexwale, to be advantaged over poor white children.
He says: "Affirm them on the basis of merit. Do they deserve it or not?"
This debate is not unique to South Africa.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has relaxed parts of the New Economic Policy put in place in 1971 to promote ethnic Malays who made up 60% of the population but held only 2% ownership of the economy.
As their present share is only 19%, Razak asks: "If for the last four decades we have failed to achieve the (30%) target with the same approach, isn't it time for us to think of a new strategy?"
He is putting more emphasis on economic growth and attracting foreign investment that was deterred by rigid affirmative action requirements.
The tragedy in South Africa is that affirmative action as presently implemented causes much grievance. The excluded take their talents elsewhere, whilst those who make it entirely on merit are dogged by the affirmative action tag.
A non-racial approach that targets the needy of all races would achieve much more.
Springbok rugby coach Peter De Villiers gets it right when he says "players want to be judged by their ability and not their colour. If a guy knows he's there for the colour of his skin, he won't die for his country."
Jack Bloom, MPL, is a DA member of the Gauteng Legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.
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