Students Threaten Rainbow Image

The video invokes painful historical imagery — older and larger black women dressed in maids uniforms, sitting on their knees before several 20-something white men. Speaking in Afrikaans, the men call the women whores, and the women call the men master, a term blacks were forced to use during apartheid when addressing whites. Duped into thinking that they are competing in a South African take on “Fear Factor,” the women play rugby, a popular Afrikaner sport, dance, and eat stew laced with urine — all on tape.

The video, created by four men, (two students and two alums of Free State University, roughly 400 miles outside of Johannesburg), was allegedly prompted by the university’s efforts to integrate its dorms. The Free State was a bastion for Afrikaners during apartheid, and the campus has been simmering since the university announced its plans last fall.

The video’s release, (it was actually made last fall), has sparked outrage and suggestions that 14 years out of apartheid and into democracy, South Africa hasn’t progressed very far.

Last week, Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance party, told the Cape Argus that the video could have “serious repercussions” for South Africa’s image abroad because the country is trying to move away from “race categorisations and race group generalisations. This kind of thing drives us right back to those kinds of descriptions,” she said.

The women have told not to talk about the incident by the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union, while the students’ lawyer, Nico Naude, is saying “the whole thing is a farce” and “there was never any urine involved.” [Cape Argus]