‘White men you must die’ say South African blacks at Overvaal school

A video that has gone viral shows members of a black South African student organisation calling for genocide against all white men in South Africa. The incident happened during a protest by COSAS (Congress of South African Students) against the language policy of a high school in Vereeniging, a city south of Johannesburg. COSAS and the radical Afro-Marxist party, the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters), are opposed to children at the school being taught in their mother tongue, which is Afrikaans. Although there are two English schools in the vicinity, radical black groups insist that the school should not be allowed to use Afrikaans which, although standardised in South Africa, is a language originating in Northern Europe and therefore “inherently racist”.

Although the vast majority of the school’s 612 pupils are white, there are also 9 black ones attending the school.  A pupil who matriculated in 2014, Kamo Tjelele, wrote a Facebook post in support of his old school, stating:

“I’m a proud product of Hoërskool Overvaal and as a black person, I graduated from that place having made FRIENDS and not ENEMIES; This is bilateral to teachers and learners.

“NEVER did I feel being treated differently because of the colour of my skin. So I will attest to say that there is NO RACISM in Hoërskool Overvaal,”

However, the mainstream media in South Africa paid no attention to the real evidence from the school, siding with the mob in vilifying the school as “white and racist”.

On 15 January 2018, the school obtained a court order at the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, affirming that it could not accommodate another 55 black “English” pupils foisted on it by the provincial education department, as its facilities were already more than full. Judge William Prinsloo’s finding which may be read here was that the school was within its rights as laid down by South Africa’s schools act. Judge Prinsloo said that the lack of extra classrooms

“would have precluded them from placing any more children with the school let alone: English children at an Afrikaans medium school when there was ample room for them in neighbouring English medium schools. In any event such placements offends against the norms and standards for language policy in public schools published in terms of Section 6 of the Act.”

Both the Gauteng Education Department and the radical black groups screaming for whites to be killed refused to accept the judge’s verdict. Some black parents and individuals being used by Panyaza Lesufi, the openly anti-white MEC for Education in Gauteng, started saying even in the courtroom that they “would burn down the school”. As a result, the school has been under heavy policy guard since the court case, with parents and friends also assisting in  guarding the school and protecting their children.

Protestors from COSAS, the EFF and the ruling ANC have been bused in every day to harass children, teachers and parents at the school, in defiance of the court order. Normally, such behaviour would lead to a charge of “contempt of court”, which is a criminal offence in South Africa, but police have been simply trying to keep them outside the school grounds. At times rioting black protestors were kept at bay with tear gas and rubber bullets by police.

Lesufi wants to take the case on appeal to South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court. He is confident that the Constitutional Court would find in his favour, prohibiting the school from continuing to teach in the children’s mother tongue, Afrikaans. In a previous judgment on the changing of street names in Pretoria, a Constitutional Court judge (Jafta) suggested that all Western culture was racist and colonial, and therefore belonged “in the dustbins of history”:

“That is why racist and oppressive cultural traditions have no place in our constitutional order, even though they may exist in history. In contrast, such traditions belong in the dust-bins of history where they ought to be buried.”

However, despite the anti-white, anti-Western ethos of the South African Constitutional Court, Lesufi has another problem in forcing the school to accept more pupils and abandon its language policy: in his papers before the court he had forced the principals of the two English high schools to lie that they were full. Not only were the principals leaned on to lie or perjure themselves under oath, but they were also made to change their statements “under duress”. The judge allowed Whatsapp messages as court evidence in which at least one of the other principals mention how he was threatened with being fired if he did not lie in his sworn affidavit.

After a week of riots in front of Hoërskool Overvaal, the government now seems to be changing its approach. While waiting for the case to go on appeal, the Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, has held out an olive branch to the school, expressing some concern about the children’s rights:

“They are not involved in adult matters. There should be no violence nor singing in front of the schools. So we are appealing to everybody to say there is a process that is quite clear. If they are unhappy about the court decision‚ then they must be friends of the court‚ but they must not bring the battle to the school.”