The Democratic Alliance Student Organisation (DASO) recently sent some South African blood boiling with their controversial poster of an interracial couple embracing. The tagline of the poster read: “In OUR future, you wouldn’t look twice.” On the face of it, the poster was likely intended to be a catchy way of presenting a future South Africa with significantly better race relations. Of course, in reality, it sparked off off-mark sensationalist headlines (such as Wonkie’s today!), wraths and furore from a variety of holier-than-thou groups.
Wonkie thought it would be useful to provide some in-depth analysis of the poster itself and the raft of nutty commentary that it has inspired.
First off, raise your hands if you had even heard of DASO before this poster incident. Right. Can you really blame DASO for wanting to steal the limelight, just for a moment, from Julius Malema and the ANCYL? After all, how is an organisation supposed to compete for support when the media is so biased against them. Something drastic had to be done.
Secondly, what better way to attract attention in South Africa than to tackle anything to do with race relations. It’s a guaranteed winner. Ironically, showing any semblance of harmony between races is probably set to spark off uncontrolled rage, particularly with the race groups concerned. And that, is exactly what happened.
Black South Africans with nothing better to do accused DASO of being a hypocritical white organisation positioning themselves as something they are clearly not. White South Africans with nothing better to do accused objectors of living in the past and not embracing a truly interracial South African future. Indian and Coloured South Africans were left wondering when provocative posters of Joey Rasdien and Riaad Moosa in a warm embrace were going to flood the streets, taking both race and gender relations to the next level for them.
Then came the inevitable commentary from religious zealots. Because such posters containing a male and female individual can only lead to one thing – evil, promiscuous sin – the likes of Theunis Botha of the Christian Democratic Party deemed the poster to be an escalation of immorality to the highest order.
Debate all you like, but the reality of the future is already playing out in South Africa. Visit popular malls in the evenings and over the weekends. School kids – the next generation, certainly don’t appear to care much about race. That this comes more from a place of indifference, rather than rebellion, leads Wonkie to believe that attitudes are going to go through a forced revolution sooner than parents can blink.
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- Jimmy Manyi – racist comments
- Is Julius Malema a racist?
- Shoot the Boer cartoon and race relations
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Why do South Africans always blow things out of proportion? One poster of an interracial couple and everyone makes a huge hoohaa about sexual immorality… meanwhile back at the ranch, sits a guy like Eugene Terre’blanche! LOL
Its a sign that people are not over the apartheid system of blacks dates only blacks and whites only whites.Come on people apartheid laws is scrapt form the table lets enjoy the fruits of our young democracy.
What a load of crap that the DA is again trying to position themselves as anything but a party for whites in South Africa.
As a black man I will NEVER vote for DA.. given what we as blacks experienced in South Africa then and even still now – in the work place, on the streets, wherever… nothing has changed. The whites, despite all their complaining still have all the odds stacked in their favour in SA… at the very least they should acknowledge that much before real change can happen.
Posters like this just illustrate at best the naivete of whites, and at worst their denial of the reality of the racial situation in South Africa.
I find it very strange that people have a problem with DA posters, I must tell you, as a black person myself, I am not in anyway offended by the posters. If you are still living in the past. take a deep breath and start thinking clearly.
We have white people who have been given RDP houses in black townships. this is the beginning of a non-racial society, our kids are going to grow together, become adults, date each other, fall in love and the rest we know what will happen.
I wish I was ten. I would definitely date a white woman if I had to.
Oh my!!! That poster (not the one with Zille and is that really JZ – it looks more like Juju) takes me back to the beginning of the most glorious 40 years of my life. Of course, in those days, we could not marry in South Africa – so we married in Zambia instead, and came back to live in a “homeland” or “Bantustan” until the days of apartheid were numbered and came to settle back in South Africa as a nearly legal couple.
Of course, in those days, people DID look twice or even three times and many of those times the jaws hung slackly open and the eyes stuck out like organ stops.
Those days my children suffered being thrust into “coloured” schools where there was little opportunity for personal growth – until we found a school where the headmaster gave the government of the day the finger and admitted children of all races – in fact the first black child at the school was the headmaster’s own adopted son.
For many years, such couples as DASO shows have made me look twice – but only to confirm to myself that there are others who know the joy of looking at the person inside and loving that person without consideration of the outer packaging. The second look comes with a big THUMBS UP !!!
Lets just accept this it wont change.Just imagine your child come home with a white girl saying dad meet my girlfriend.what would you do will you chase them out and say this is not allowed what reasons will you give for that because apartheid is over.
I don’t know why people are making a big thing of it, at least DASO is trying to promote freedom and equality for theire youth, unlike ANCYL that are doing..oh wait nothing to promote equality. I guess for the next 5000 years SA will be stuck in the mire of our look 5000 years ago we where a minority but our childrens childrens children are still suffering…because we are all bigots..get over yourselves already, when my children come say to me they are marrying someone of another colour, should be all upset? should i say to them theyre are diluting a race, black, white, indian, chineses etc etc? Please people, with attitudes like this, this world will never be a better place.
This DASO poster – is it a photo of Jan van Riebeeck starting the coloured population of South Africa ???
Well done DASO – comments from people like Mabang show how racism infects every corner of society and you were absolutely spot on in asking whether anyone had ever heard of DASO. I had not but now, not that it matters to me particularly, I have!!
DASO won the SRC elections at the University of Fort Hare in May 2015.
Clearly interracial hanky-panky is the way forward!
we can but hope, that one day, no one will look twice.
as Wonkie says: “School kids – the next generation, certainly don’t appear to care much about race.”
about time that the DA upped their game and looked to the next generation, I suggested a youth rally at our last elections , for our neighbourhood and canvassing the highschools and was told ” that is not in our culture, dear” pleeeeeeeeeeeze, we should look to the next generation, works for ANC, why not for the DA, living in the past is getting us nowhere. Guess who did not renew their DA membership????
Integration and mixed marriages became legally acceptable when the Immorality Act was repealed in 1985 (nearly 27 years ago) and that was under P.W.Botha, nogal.
Why is this still an issue?
People like Theunis Botha, of the Christian Democratic Party, obviously have dirty minds, as do any others that feel that the posters are immoral.
By the time that those born post 1994 reach marrying age, the number of inter-racial marriages will escalate exponentially.
Anybody that disapproves should join the ANC since they will probably reintroduce the Immorality Act along with so many other National Party atrocities that they so seem to value
when a white person is dating a black person it is an EXPERIMENT, and when a black person dates a white person, then it become an ACHIEVEMENT.
My children have had boyfriends and girlfriends across the so called colour line. What is the problem. Time all the over 30’s shut up and let the next generation get on with it.
@ whatagain – sorry, but you’re wrong. The over 30’s should not shut up – they should get their heads straight and encourage ALL KINDS of communication “across the ‘colour-line'” and HELP the next generation “get on with it”. Absolutely no hangups!!!
This is one excellent ad campaign; hardly anybody had heard of the DASO now everybody is talking about them. To inform the demographic group it was aimed at it has been an overwhelming success.
take your point a-maiz etc. Only trouble is how many over 30’s are able to help the next generation. We are all tainted with the past and I have my doubts about the over 30’s being able to get over themselves.
If only we could have no hangups! But – we can try.
@ whatagain – how true – unfortunately.
“If only we could have no hangups! But – we can try.” It sure looks like you have no hang-ups – like me. But now let’s not say we CAN but we WILL try to make it so that the hang-ups of other people drop from their hangers.
We have to give the younger generation every opportunity to make this an everlasting human paradise.
Each to his/her own I say, this racism thing should be dead and buried! You cannot fight the love bug!
SA still has a lot of ‘verkramptes’ and ‘victims of history’ running around………
The DA’s patronising stance in advert to boost its non-white membership will do its public relations no good. Hot on the heels of Lindiwe Mazibuko being appointed to a top position, this new recruitment campaign goes against the grain of a party that is the only one to have stood tall against a rampant ANC. Now its using promiscuity to swell numbers!
Why should you assume that the poster is promiscuis? I don’t get it. Or is this an about something else the DA has done?
Whatagain, sorry for taking too long to answer you, in last yea rs elections they used an old woman to lie to us that she finally had electricity, now semi nude posters. Have the opposition run out of ideas?
It would probably be best if the whole opposition led by DA agrees to be drafted into internal ANC structures and acts as a conscience for the ruling party in its internal structures rather than being the opposition.
It should strive to keep the ANC leadership on its toes using their internal structures, since it would be enjoying legitimacy. The DA’s opposition does not seem to be working out. I think the media can do a good job as the official opposition. The rest of the DA only follows the media when the ANC appears to have been wrong anyway. Having said all this, i am not a fan of both parties!
Piedpyper, as I posted yesterday, “People like Theunis Botha, of the Christian Democratic Party, obviously have dirty minds, as do any others that feel that the posters are immoral.” You obviously fit into this category. What is there in this poster that promotes promiscuity?
Did you bleat against the ANC who ordered more than 1 million condoms for their Mangaung celebrations last month. Surely that was anticipating if not promoting promiscuity. Pity that they bought inferior, leaking condoms.
whatagain and a-maize-ingly-corny are correct in their contention that over 30’s should help destroy the narrow mindedness of the past.
Unfortunately the ANC are far from compliant in repairing racial divisions in South Africa so it it up to the “New South Africans” to bring about gradual change through their colour-blind attitudes.
I have valued the ideals of the Democratic Alliance since the inception of the Progressive Party in 1959 and also support DASO’s campaign to make us one non-racial nation.
Tony, inter-racial relationships have been going on for years. There is nothing new that the DA Youth is talking about. I guess its new for them and you. The DA has finally embraced what it actually is-just another commercial group of people who want to use sex as a marketing tool. I am shocked that you supported the PP since its inception in 1959 and still don’t know that mixed relations existed for years, though it was an offence during the apartheid era. Oooh! I see, you were still stuck in the narrow mindedness of the past. Unfortunately, you are far from compliant in repairing racism in SA.
Piedpyper, everybody knew that mixed relations existed (since 1652 when van Riebeeck’s men landed). Even dominees were caught under the “Immorality Act”. Remember the saying “You haven’t had sweets till you’ve tasted chocolate”?
Far from being stuck in the narrow-mindedness of the past, I rejoice to see the DA youth making a positive effort to get people to see past the “us and them” syndrome that still blights this country.
Who said the poster campaign was about sex? Sex will, thankfully, be part of our lives till humans cease to exist on earth but if we want inter-racial harmony we need to start somewhere and people who try to twist the facts will, hopefully, not be able to derail DASO’s efforts in this regard.
Tony; those condoms were faulty just like the ANC. Maybe they just wanted tp promote population growth.
Dammit, I would like to take a chance on that chick, but looks like she’s taken. So what is the row about.
DASO poster offensive? Promoting sexual promiscuity? C’mon, good people, all you need to do is turn on the STATE (SABC) television any time from about 9pm onwards to see FAR more explicit (and inter-racial) sexuality on view with their adverts: “SMS porn to 12323” accompanied by explicit pics. So what’s the problem with this poster? Grow up!
The mother Grundies are still with us.
I make this comment at the risk of being labelled a zealot, holier-than thou, etc. For me, the drive towards complete and true non-racialism in SA is still bound to be long. The first cause is the dominance of materialism in the South African mind. That black girls are more prone to being whites’ girlfriends and not the other way round for white girls is driven by the mythical belief of all the wealth being in the hands of whites. And for black men, a white girlfriend would be synonymous with expensive restaurants and all your trimmings associated with western culture.
As races within the country, we do not understand one another’s cultures. The mistrust sown by racism amongst us will take decades to erode. When you talk relationsip, and in the same breath talk racial relations, that is enough to put a strain on any relationship. Imagine your tertiary institution-going daughter coming to tell you to await white visitors coming over to pay a dowry or your son declaring an intention to introduce you to white prospective in-laws. One word fits the description – shock! Later on – confision!
For me, blacks and whites are worlds apart though in the same country. You could start the language of social clubs in order to initiate some form of acquintance. Parents wouldn’t trust that. Elders can’t possible handle it amongst themselves either.
A cross-racial relationship pulls too much attention to the couple for comfort.
@ayanda, the difference is not race but ethnicity which can cause dysfunction. Many people overcome the bounds of their ethnicity to live full and meaningful lives. Many mixed marriages work and some don’t, the reasons are varied and not all can be subscribed to race. To state your reasons why white or black would cohabit with someone from a different race is nonsensical. Please do not confuse race with culture that is ignorance. We are going to see a lot more of it in South Africa.
Some years ago a muslim colleague was complaining that apartheid prevented cross racial relationships. He was most vociferous about it until I asked him what would he do if his daughter came home with a Jewish boyfriend.
@ Garth – and yet – look at Barbara Streisand and Omar Shariff – they had a thing going for a while. And even when they didn’t have anything going on they were excellent friends as well as actors in the same (love story type) film. They kissed on the celluloid and did who-knows-what behind the curtain.
Who knows what hanky panky goes on in DASO