{"id":89957,"date":"2024-06-28T10:33:26","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T08:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/?p=89957"},"modified":"2024-06-28T10:33:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T08:33:26","slug":"irr-calls-on-incoming-government-to-abandon-racial-classifications-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/irr-calls-on-incoming-government-to-abandon-racial-classifications-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"IRR Calls on Incoming Government to Abandon Racial Classifications in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za<\/a>
\n28 June 2024 | 10:30 CAT
\n2 min read<\/p>\n

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has called on the incoming Government of National Unity (GNU) to reconsider the use of racial classifications in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The parties likely to join the GNU have publicly committed to a non-racial South Africa, in alignment with the founding provisions of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

IRR analyst Marius Roodt argued that continuing to classify people by race perpetuates its relevance and suggested looking to countries like Namibia, which does not collect racial data.<\/p>\n

\u201cCountries around the world that have a similar history to South Africa and similar demographics, but they don\u2019t classify people by race which is something we need to look into,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roodt highlighted that during apartheid, individuals were often reduced to their race, with many being denied human rights based solely on their racial classification.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are committed to non-racialism, is it still necessary for people to still classify themselves by race?\u201d he questioned.<\/p>\n

Roodt proposed replacing current policies with the IRR\u2019s non-racial Economic Empowerment for the Disadvantaged (EED) program.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people also argue because of reasons such as black economic empowerment that we still need to classify people by race, which is an argument that shouldn\u2019t be dismissed, but IRR proposes a new system that looks at an actual economic disadvantage to determine who needs to be empowered, such a system at the same time, would benefit the vast majority of black South Africans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to Roodt, race relations in South Africa are relatively good given the history, with people generally getting along well in their day-to-day interactions. He believes that there isn’t a great deal of racial animosity, but race remains an important factor because of the emphasis on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many people, their race is an important component of their identity, we are simply saying we shouldn\u2019t have race-based policies, and the government shouldn\u2019t expect people to self-classify themselves, reducing people down to a skin colour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He emphasised the importance of moving towards a truly non-racial society while acknowledging the complexity of the issue given South Africa’s history.<\/p>\n

LISTEN<\/strong> to the full interview with Ml Habib Bobat and IRR analyst and writer, Marius Roodt, here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za 28 June 2024 | 10:30 CAT 2 min read The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has called on the incoming Government of National Unity (GNU) to reconsider the use of racial classifications in South Africa. The parties likely to join the GNU have publicly committed to a non-racial South Africa, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":89958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/SONA-24-28.png?fit=1080%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-noV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 14:12:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}