Durban - Criminalising racism might help end the scourge, but it was unlikely that its causes could be uprooted, said constitutional expert, Professor Pierre de Vos.
“If you only criminalise racism, that will not change the structural racism in society and factors that produce it. It might help, but it will treat the symptoms, not the causes,” De Vos said.
He made the comments after the office of the ANC chief whip in Parliament said on Tuesday that it was time for specific legislation to be created by Parliament to criminalise any act that perpetuated racism or glorified apartheid.
In a statement, the ANC said the current legislative provisions were insufficient to punish and dissuade racists.
“As the majority party in Parliament, we will investigate creating a specific law or amending the existing legislation to ensure that acts of racism and the promotion of apartheid are criminalised and punishable by imprisonment.
“We will persuade and work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that Parliament enacts such law,” the party said.
It also said the nation could no longer tolerate dehumanising violations, where the black majority were treated as sub-humans and referred to as monkeys, baboons and other derogatory racist epithets in the land of their birth.
De Vos said more needed to be done than the symbolic drawing of the line in the sand. “We need to think what it is that produces racism,” he said.
De Vos said there were not enough people who approached the Equality Court, which adjudicated on hate speech and other forms of discrimination, to challenge every single person responsible for discrimination.
“People should challenge the bigots in court. It also calls on all of us to stand up and fight this through legal means,” De Vos said.
He said it would be helpful for the government, the Equality Court and the Human Rights Commission to launch an extensive education campaign.
Political analyst, Protas Madlala, said enforcing the law on criminalisation of racism could pose problems.
“How do you enforce that law?” Madlala asked.
“The government has beautiful laws, but the problem is enforcement.
“Every court is clogged with cases. There are backlogs,” he said.
Madlala said the challenge that faced the institutions charged with fighting racism and other forms of discrimination was that they were toothless.
“If they were effective, you would think twice before and be afraid of posting any racist remarks on social media,” Madlala said.
He said there was a need to strengthen the institutions such as the Human Rights Commission and the starting point was hiring competent people to run them.
Daily News
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.