[SABC] Former President FW De Klerk says his new Centre for Unity in Diversity will encourage white South Africans to comprehend the hurt caused to black people by apartheid. He was speaking at the launch of the centre in Johannesburg.You'll be impressed, boss. Per your instructions, no tentage or wire in Phase-One.
The launch was attended by human rights lawyer George Bizos and former human rights Commissioner, Rhoda Kadalie.
De Klerk says the centre will go a long way in fostering race relations and reconciliation.
De Klerk says he fears that if South Africans are not careful, race relations in the country could deteriorate to worrying levels.
He says, in as much as white South Africans feel marginalised by government's empowerment policies like Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action and that their languages and culture are under threat, they need help in building a prosperous South Africa.
The FW De Klerk Foundation, in conjunction with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, launched the Centre for Unity in Diversity to promote constitutional rights of all South Africans.
He says the centre will enable whites to understand the pain that apartheid caused to their black counterparts and help them to live peacefully as countrymen and women.
"It should encourage white South Africans to understand the depth of the hurt that was caused to non-whites by the politics of the past. The expression of views that might interpreted as patronising should be avoided at all times and white South Africans should make it clear through words and deeds that they are dedicated to building a better united South Africa. This centre needs to work on white South Africans to change, in many instances, their attitudes and to become sensitive towards the needs and the fears and the anger of Black South Africans but also of coloreds and indian South Africans."
More at the link, if you have the stomach. Hat tip to Mike Smith's blog.
"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
-- Inigo Montoya, "The Princess Bride"