It seems that black South Africans are excluding themselves from a better future.
The South African Reconciliation Barometer has revealed, without irony, that class and equality remain the biggest racially divisive issues in the country.
The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation has released the report in Cape Town.
Author of the report, Kim Wale says class and equality are looked at in terms of living standard measures (LSM).
It highlights the public’s decline in confidence in government institutions, political parties and police.
Wale nevertheless added, most surprisingly, that South Africans have expressed the highest level of confidence in the public protector.
Wale sees her role as project leader for the Reconciliation Barometer as one which should help to ensure that the results generated “contribute meaningfully to government policy, local and national debates, and academic understandings of the issues and process of reconciliation in South Africa”.
Her project might have more to do with injecting some foreign agenda into the South African debate, as the findings in the report make little sense.
As a Commonwealth Scholar, she is currently completing her PhD in the field of post-conflict development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and holds an MA in Diversity Studies.
Wale says, “The majority of the poor and excluded in SA continue to be black South Africans.” It is not clear how this ” black exclusion” came about, as South Africa now boasts a black government which excludes whites on the basis of race by means of Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment.
She says: “Its not just class and equality that is a problem, but class and equality that continues to be racialised in SA.” To which reports like hers contribute greatly, one might add.