Dear Editor,
Martin van Staden dismissed my criticism of the Index of Race Law as “vibe-based”. I am not sure what this means, but was disappointed that he used this to avoid dealing with the substance of the criticism.
In short, my argument is that:
- His definition of race law is laughably wide, allowing him to count laws that don’t even deal with race and laws that had long fallen into irrelevance. And his definition of apartheid race laws is laughably narrow, dealing only with national legislation and not the thousands of laws that brought race into every aspect of people’s lives, including telling black people what drink they could buy or the size of shops they could open. There is just no comparison.
- He does not take account of the fact that there is no racial classification anymore, that the Constitution allows race in our laws only on the narrow grounds of addressing historical injustices, and that we now have judicial oversight of all of these laws and their usage. Is Van Staden arguing that there were no historical injustices or that we should not address them? Would he have, for example, sports administration boards continue to be dominated by white males (and where would our rugby be if this was the case)? What is it about a push for diversity that scares him?
- His comparisons with apartheid laws are odious. He damns the Deeds Registration Act because it allows the state to collect data on how land-buyers identify themselves by race. Given some of the claims made about property ownership in this country, it seems to me to be eminently sensible and helpful to collect the relevant data. To call this our “Group Areas Act” – a law that tore apart families, communities, and businesses – is ignorant and callous.
The unfortunate outcome of Van Staden’s list is that it detracts from a substantive and much-needed discussion about race in our law. There are certainly some race laws that are up for debate – and I cite the BEE law as the best example – but this is undermined by his shoddy research. The Institute of Race Relations would boost its credibility if it did a serious list of laws that need revision.
Anton Harber