SOUTH AFRICA: CAPE TOWN SCHOOL RACIAL DEMONSTRATIONS – Cape Town Video

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX-N3-Jfb5w&w=480&h=270]

English/Nat (2/15/1995)

White residents armed with clubs and whips clashed with police in Cape Town Wednesday when they tried to stop black students attending a school in their neighbourhood.

In scenes reminiscent of the old South Africa, the residents tried to prevent school buses approaching the building. Protesters and students exchanged jeers and racial taunts.

The whites from the depressed suburb of Ruyterwacht outside Cape Town are angry that black children can now be taught in the former whites-only school.

They gathered in the school grounds armed with sticks and guard dogs saying they were prepared to use both to stop the black children from entering.

SOUNDBITE:
“Today we are occupying the school, We are preventing the school people from
coming in here because they have broken every agreement they have
made with us. They have broken the agreement so far. Now we’re taking
things into our own hands because why nobody wants to help us. The
press, the news, everybody is against us so now we must stand
alone.”
SUPER CAPTION: Anti black student protester (refused to be named)

The students had been bussed in from a nearby black township where the schools are already filled to capacity.

Police were on hand to form a barricade for the children as they nervously walked from the bus into the school grounds amid threats from the extremists.

NATSOT:
“We will kill you people in this village. We are gatvol for your people. White people stand up for you man

For years simply being white in South Africa automatically meant a job, a house and proper education.

Now that Mandela’s government is trying to improve the lives of blacks, the Ruyterwacht white population is running scared.

They claim black students have vandalized the school and demand they be removed.

SOUNDBITE:
“I think it’s a very bad thing they are doing to us because you know our schools
where we come from, in our areas our very schools are very crowded so when they are empty school here we must come to come to learn you know.”
SUPER CAPTION: Nicholas Booi, Student.

SOUNDBITE:
“It’s whites who are protesting against black students who are coming here, this morning I don’t know if you witnessed it I was insulted, and pointed fingers at me, banged on my
car and they called me a kaffir and they told me that if I feel that by coming to this school I’m going to end up marrying a white woman I must forget it.”
SUPER CAPTION: Sharif Pander, School teacher from Khayelitsha Education Forum.

In the black suburb of Khayelitsha there is one teacher to every 50 students, but here at Ruyterwacht there is one teacher to every 40 students.

It may not seem a major improvement, but for the students, it represents the hope
of an education they have for so long been denied.

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