Organisers of the Hoerikwaggo Indaba in Cape Town say the gathering offers a platform to seek solutions to problems facing so-called coloured communities. Speakers at the event included struggle cleric Dr Alan Boesak who has called on the government to do away with racial classification.
Cape Forum Chairperson, Hein Wyngaard says, “This indaba is not about identity. It is about finding new solutions to old problems. Socio-economic problems and even political problems in what is called coloured communities. So, we have gathered a number of speakers from different perspectives. (They are) shedding light on those challenges.”
Boesak has called on the government to stop classifying people according to their race as it divides South Africans.
Boesak says the issue of racism has not yet been overcome.
“It seems to me even now, 50 years later, the South African government, the ANC government has again divided us into racial classified groups. We are again having to say I am a coloured, I am white, I’m an Indian, I’m an African. But there are two problems with that. The re-racialisation of South African society brings us back to the old days of apartheid.”
