The only reason many South Africans are not agitating over the race issue is that they are more concerned about other priorities, writes Dennis Pather.
It all started with Penny Sparrow, when she spewed out her vitriol about the behaviour of black people on our beaches.
When her insulting comments were first splashed on the front pages I was enraged but secretly hoped it would end there. It was naive of me to imagine Sparrow’s rant was just an isolated aberration.
A virtual avalanche of bigotry and hostile racism was yet to follow, and it came in a torrent that drowned us in shame.
How can we forget Vicki Momberg and her reckless rant about wanting to drive over black people and shoot them if she had a gun; Velaphi Khumalo and his tweet that whites should be killed like Jews under Nazi rule; those hurtful insults hurled at Hindus over fireworks during Diwali celebrations or Julius Malema’s infamously chilling line about his political followers not calling for the slaughter of white people, “at least for now”.
Against such a racially charged scenario, who could blame people for fearing their country was descending into a race war?
That is why the findings of the latest SA Institute of Race Relations survey, that only a small minority of South Africans (about 3%) see racism as a serious unresolved problem in the country, was a breath of fresh air.
About 72% of the people canvassed said they had not had any personal experience of racism in their daily lives. But, before you start popping champagne corks to celebrate National Rainbow Day, there’s an important caveat.
What the survey also indicates is that while race relations remain sound for now, they’re fraying at the edges.
The only reason many South Africans are not agitating over the race issue is that they are more concerned about other priorities, such as joblessness, crime, poor service delivery, inadequate housing and bad education.
Watch out for other danger signals too, the survey warns.
There appears to have been a heightened political and media focus on racism and colonialism in the past year, with more people falling for the ANC/EFF ideology that blames white racism and privilege for persistent poverty.
Hence the warning: “This scapegoats whites and undermines social trust.” So now is not the time to rest on our laurels.
The struggle for non-racialism and tolerance has only just begun.
If there’s one thing we can all be grateful for, it's that most South Africans believe “the invective of the few is not representative of the many”.