The Insidiousness of Apartheid
Next month on the 27th of April, we are celebrating 28 years of Freedom from Apartheid here in South Africa. Wow, that’s nearly three decades of freedom! I get giddy with happiness when I see the generations born during this time. They were not conditioned, as we were, to believe that we were inferior as a people because of our skin colour.
It’s also taken me years to decompress from that toxic belief despite being a practising Muslim. Islam categorically abolished racism when we received the Message through Our last Prophet, Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him. In the Qur’an, God Almighty says: “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).” Q49:13
The appalling Insidiousness of the way we lived growing up in the nineteen seventies and eighties, meant that I had to mentally shrug off that inferiority complex. I had to physically tell myself I deserve my place in the sun too. This world is not the playground of White Privilege.
And yet, as I now believe I’m worthy, racism is still so rife in the First World…my heart bleeds for the Ukranian refugees who were forced to flee their homes. But shame on their benefactors for not treating the Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan and Tunisian refugees with the same courtesy and kindness!
