SACP welcomes the banning of gratuitous display of apartheid flag

The South African Communist Party (SACP) welcomes the Equality Court’s historic ruling this week banning the gratuitous display of the apartheid flag, a symbol of colonial, racial and gender oppression and brutal class exploitation of the oppressed. It is well known that the apartheid flag is adored by white supremacists. Through the display of the flag, white supremacists express their naked celebration of a system so hated by all freedom-loving people, and the yearning for the return of the crime against humanity.

The flimsy argument by racists that the banning of gratuitous display of the apartheid flag amounts to unfair suppression of their freedom of expression can only be entertained if it is qualified as follows: that the ban is a suppression of the freedom to express racial hatred! No one has the right to push one race as a superior race and the ruler of all others in a democratic non-racial society. The court, through its ruling, has correctly dealt a big blow to one significant aspect of persisting apartheid legacy and its practices. The ruling will go a long way in contributing to non-racial nation building and democratic transformation of South Africa.

The crime of apartheid was and is not merely a crime against the people of South Africa. It is an international law crime. In 1973 the United Nations declared in Article I of the INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF APARTHEID that apartheid is a crime against humanity. Inhuman acts resulting from the policies and practices of apartheid and similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination were declared crimes violating the principles of international law, in particular the purposes and principles of the CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, thus constituting a serious threat to international peace and security.

The SACP will continue to wage the struggle against the imbalances created under colonialism and apartheid as well as their legacy. The struggle for the radical reduction, and eventual elimination, of poverty and class inequalities, including gender inequalities and uneven spatial development between rural and urban areas, and within urban areas between townships and suburbs, is one which needs all of us united in striving for true freedom in South Africa our land.

Statement issued by the SACP, 23 August 2019