Madame Speaker, 

Last week's news that white journalists had been barred from a meeting organised by the blacks-only Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ), stirred within all of us a feeling that, even though we have come far as a Rainbow Nation, we have not come close to healing the wounds of the past. 

Then just yesterday, shock and outrage reverberated through the country after video footage was aired showing five University of Free State staff members on their knees forced to consume food containing urine. 

Both incidents have stirred massive controversy in South Africa and the international world, with many drawing comparisons with the racist policies of our apartheid past.

 

Madame Speaker,  

It has indeed been a very dark month for race relations in South Africa. 

The Inkatha Freedom Party would like to condemn, in the strongest terms, the shocking and inhuman video that emerged from the University of the Free State yesterday. 

The students involved in the making of this vulgar video dishonoured all of the constitutional directives laid down for us in the Constitution and their acts are a gross violation of the human rights of the workers involved.  

What is even more disheartening is that it seems that racial goodwill and respect for individual rights is still lacking thirteen years since the dawn of democracy. 

The despicable actions of these four students have now also placed the entire University of the Free State at stake.  

Riots and chaos are disrupting learning at the campus, which students can ill afford. Police are patrolling the campus while many students are too afraid to leave their residences.  

An article in today's Die Burger reports that white students have been chased from classes; threatened with rape and murder; and warned that their hostels will be attacked with petrol bombs. 

Comments like: 'it is now war between the whites and the blacks' are also doing the rounds on campus and should be strongly condemned.  

The IFP would like remind South Africans that the challenge that confronts us now is to avoid crediting such ludicrous actions and attitudes of a few individuals to a community or an ethnic group. The entire South Africa has been outraged by this incident, white and black.

Madame Speaker, 

I do not want to dwell too much longer on the doom and gloom of these incidents.  

The IFP would like to wish the Human Rights Commission well as they embark on public hearings on both incidences. 

The IFP would like to remind South Africans that healing the divisions of the past depends on all of our individual actions. It is up to each one of us to play a reconciliation role. 

The preamble of the Constitution calls on all of us to heal the divisions of the past and to establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights. 

Let us all recommit ourselves to this fight today. 

There is a saying that every cloud has a silver lining. It means that a negative situation has produced something that is positive. The positive thing that has come out of these negative racial incidents is that the majority of South Africans are united in our disapproval and anger.

Maybe we should not overlook this point because unity is a precious thing.

As President Thabo Mbeki said during his State of the Nation address: "let us act in unity to keep the country on course."