Race and Identity News

Dr Jorge Ramirez Reyna, president of Asociación Negra de Defensa y Promoción de Derechos Humanos (Black Association for Human Rights Defense and Promotion, ASONEDH) in Peru, reflects on the issue of racism in his country and the role of the conference on the Violence of Racism in Latin America, which was organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) 22-24 June in Managua, Nicaragua. He was interviewed by Sean Hawkey.

For some homeowners, a squatter camp mushrooming next door could be a sign to start packing up. Darren Clarke, however, saw it as an opportunity to help start a decent rugby team. Clarke and other residents of well-heeled Noordhoek in Cape Town have teamed up with township rugby players to form the country's newest and most unusual rugby club.

My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker's children through the school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning during the public sector stay-away.

Does South Africa really belong to all who live in it? When I first developed a sense for politics, as a teenager on the Cape Flats, wallowing in anger, this was the one clause in the Freedom Charter that upset me: "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white."