RACE CLASSIFICATION : : : THE STUPIDITY OF THE SYSTEM PRACTISED BY THE FORMER REGIME

First published: April 19 1974 Prior to April 1994 all South Africans were classified according to their race and tribal affiliations. This was done by the former apartheid regime not only to residentially, socially and politically separate people according to their race or colour but also to ensure that only one race group enjoyed all the rights. The people of colour were discriminated at every level of life. While researching my files of articles that I had written for the Durban Daily News between early 1973 and late 1980, I came across one article that really demonstrated the stupidity of the race-classification system. The article was published on April 19 1974 under the headline: “ ‘Cape’ term upsets parents”. A Durban man, Mr Errol Candham, and his wife found to their horror that their two-month-old baby daughter, Marian, had been classified “Cape Coloured”, while their first child, Michelle (2), had been termed “other Coloured”. Mr Candham and his wife were simply classified “Coloured”. Mr Candham told me at that time in an interview that he could not understand the callousness of the authorities. He had said: “I cannot understand why the authorities classified my second child a ‘Cape Coloured’? It is all so stupid. “If I am a Coloured then I expect my children to be classified as Coloureds and not given any other classifications. “It seems that the father of my first child was an ‘Other Coloured’ and the second, a ‘Cape Coloured’.” He said at that time that it was time Coloured people took a stand and protested against being called all kinds of names. The Coloured community, he had said, was sick and tired of being insulted at every turn. A spokesperson for the apartheid Department of Interior in Durban reacted to the anger of the Candhams by saying that because of the controversy surrounding the different classification terms, Coloured children in future would be classified as “Cape Coloured”. “This has been effect since February this year”, said the apartheid regime spokesperson. The apartheid regime continued with their race classification system despite strong resistance at this time in the 1970s and 1980s by organisations such as the United Democratic Front, Natal Indian Congress, the Labour Party and sporting movements such as the South African Soccer Federation, South African Council of Sport (SACOS), and non-racial tennis, swimming, cricket, weightlifting, table tennis and other sporting codes. Leaders of the calibre of Dr Alan Boesak, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Mr Archie Gumede, Norman Middleton, M N Pather, Morgan Naidoo, Hassan Howa, R K Naidoo, D K Singh, and Archie Hulley also came to the fore at this time. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com (May 24 2020)