Fazel MayetThe Ahmed Kathrada Foundation supports calls being made to the Judicial Service Commission to investigate Mabel Jansen and review her fitness to hold judicial office.
This follows an online conversation being made public, in which Jansen claims that rape is part of black culture.
Jansen’s racist statements follow two other recent incidents, in which the ‘k-word’ was used online. The first saw Matthew Theunissen lashing out against Sports and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula’s decision to ban several sporting codes from bidding for international events due to a lack of transformation. Theunissen used the k-word when venting his anger about transformation. In the second incident, a Matlosana SPCA manager Suzette Kotze was reportedly suspended from her post following a social media rant that also made use of the k-word.
The Foundation’s director, Neeshan Balton, commended members of the public for challenging these overt forms of racism, but stated that stringent action needed to be taken by the relevant authorities against racist individuals.
“We have written to the South African Human Rights Commission, calling on it to investigate the cases, and deal with the matter with the seriousness that it deserves. We are also calling on the Judicial Service Commission to similarly investigate Mabel Jansen’s comments, and assess whether she is fit to hold judicial office,” he stated. “One would have to question if Jansen’s racist views would have had an impact on the cases of black offenders, which she may have presided over.”
Balton added that the continuous surfacing of overt racism raised the question of the validity of criminalising racism. “While legislation will not change people’s thinking, it will certainly put a lid on the public display of racism,” he said.
However, Balton noted that the difficulty was in getting offenders to understand just how offensive and dangerous their statements are, without them providing excuses that they “they are not racist because they have friends who are black”.
“What is common in all three cases, is that the offenders are all educated. There can be no excuse of being ignorant, or having a lack of exposure, or not being able to interact with black people in post-apartheid South Africa. The only other conclusion that one can draw from their statements, is that their racism forms a core part of the way in which they have been socialised, how they have been brought up and how they live their lives today,” he said.
“It is shocking that in several of these cases, the individuals just cannot understand the complete hurt their statements have caused and ill feeling that it develops towards white people in general, even though their views are not representative of all white people. The challenge for us doing anti-racism work, is how do we engage such people and understand how they have come to hold such world views, and what is needed to change this. Other than making their utterances illegal, how do we get people to understand racism in its full complexity? What is clear following these incidents though, is that these sentiments have angered South Africans across the racial lines, and has made it clear that fighting the demon of racism requires the joint effort of all.”
