Strategies Needed to Break Vicious Cycle of Racism

Beginning of article

BYLINE: Monareng Pitso

Ebrahim Harvey's opinion piece (June 19) promised to be an engaging analysis, but quickly slipped into an ahistorical anti-ANC polemic.

Racism, as Harvey points out, is not merely people behaving badly. It has its roots in European history and specifically its interaction with the rest of the world. Cape Town is one of the many places in Africa where the contours of those relationships are most sharply etched. Here, where Europe, Africa and Asia collided and the combustible mixture so produced in turn became a melting pot for the peculiar features of this region.

Before they had conquered enough indigenous peoples, the settlers relied mainly on slave labour to till their fields, tend their livestock and keep their …