The theme is blazoned on banners at the Germany World Cup 2006 stadiums. "SAY NO TO RACISM! The team captains read statements in their national languages condemning racism and asking fans and the public to reject racism. It is an impressive display calling upon humanity to exorcise the spectre of racism, which continues to stalk human relations.
Why is a section of humanity still obsessed with discrimination against part of their species on the basis of race, on this planet earth? Although 'race' can be defined on the basis of other physical features or even customs and creeds, generally it revolves and concentrates on skin pigment of individual human beings. Modern racists distinguish races on the basis of colour. Generally, the colours recognised are white and black. But if one studies the skin pigment of persons one meets in the streets of our global village, one is struck by the fact that there are not many people who can firmly be classed as either black or white. What one discovers is a shade of a myriad of colours ranging from black at one extreme to white at the other extreme. Colour identity is to a large extent a case of prejudice. 'Black' has become synonymous with ugliness, evil, low intelligence, duplicity, filth, bad luck, laziness and all that taints and degrades mankind. 'White,' stereotypically is th e opposite of 'black.' Who can deny that the majority of Batswana have been insidiously indoctrinated with colour prejudice?
Ask any Motswana to judge the looks of two Batswana, one light-skinned and another dark-skinned and 90 percent will prefer the lighter skin. That is why at weddings, they sing, "...come, come and see ngwana/bride looks like a coloured!" In the eyes of Batswana, "coloureds" are more beautiful, because they are lighter in colour! The Christian missionaries did not help on the question of colour prejudice. Depiction, derision and denunciation of all African creeds and religions as superstitious idolatry, by the missionaries, quite obviously could not have instilled self-image among blacks in the black continent. Portrayal of Lucifer, the prince of hell as soot black, white-fanged, horns on his head and tail between his legs, put the icing on the curse of blackness. In colonial South Africa, the validation of the perversion of black colour originates from scriptural anecdotes, as divine word. Blacks, according to apartheid theologians, were descendants of Seth, a cursed son of Abraham. Apartheid was constitutionally dismantled in 1994 when the ANC won the first truly democratic general elections. Discrimination on the basis of the new constitution of 1995 was abolished.. In terms of the SA constitution, apartheid is dead and buried. As a form of racial prejudice, however, apartheid is alive and well in the new SA. It refuses to die. We read of mistreatment of farm workers on the white farms. Mistreatment, is actually euphemistic, because workers get killed by their employers on the farms. One was characteristically fed alive to the lions!
The victory over the South African apartheid policy was a joint effort by the oppressed and the enlightened South Africans and the rest of the international community. In the fight against apartheid, the international community imposed trade sanctions, disinvested from the SA economy, downgr aded or broke diplomatic relations with SA and organised sports boycott. We remember the sensitiveness of the apartheid authorities, particularly when it came to sports boycott. The reason why the South African authorities were more sensitive to sports boycott, was due to the fact that such boycott denied the white youth, privileged, to play professional sport, the competition they hankered after with their counterparts in the international arena. Fear of youth restiveness played some role in influencing the rethinking of policymakers. Many observers have said, sport is a great unifier of people and nationalities. Today, with football, the most popular sport in the world, people across the globe see football as the game that might bring the diverse human race together as a species endeared to itself and to one another. Unfortunately, in the recent past, racism has reared its ugly head where it was least expected.
Players, internationally renowned, for their skills in the foo tball game have been psychologically harassed, booed and jeered at, when they demonstrated their skills on the soccer pitch. Samuel E'too, Didier Drogba and Thiery Henry, the best strikers in the world have been subjected to humiliation by some European football fans, in particular Spanish fans. It is absurd to attempt to humiliate persons with such tremendous skills, when it is proper to project them as role models for future generations in the wide world. Sir Sepp Blatter has to be commended for introducing tougher soccer league rules to deal with this manifestation of soccer hooliganism infesting the European soccer fields and threatening to make football an ugly sport instead of the beautiful sport it is.
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More commendation to Blatter for appointing Tokyo Sexwale to see that the rules adopted to eradicate racism in sport are implemented. Knowing Tokyo as a no-nonsense guy who gets things done, if they have to be, I think Sir Sepp Blatter could not have chosen a better per son. If he has to strap a live grenade under his belt to do it, I know he will do it without any fear or favour. We know the World Soccer Cup goes to SA in 2010. Tokyo will see his task as a new war against apartheid on an international scale. Racism humiliates, not only blacks, but progressive humankind, the world over. It diminishes humanity across the global board and dwarfs the stature of each one of us. SAY NO TO RACISM!
Racism reminds me of the slavery years when humiliation of people of the black race was at its apex. It is captured in a dialogue between a slave girl and her owner. Mistress: "How old are you, Topsy?.. Who was your mother?.. Where were you born? Do you know who made you?" Topsy answers the questions: "Dun no, missis...Never had none.. Never was born ..never had no father, nor mother, nor nothing, I was raced by a speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take care on us. Nobody as I know.. I spect, I just grow'd"
