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Beyond the colour line: When justice should be just

24 June 2025 | Story Zinhle Vanda | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Zinhle Vanda, an honours student in Sociology at the University of the Free State

Racial issues should not and cannot be ignored; however, the tendency to racialise every issue has been a problem, even when justice should be served. This can be emotionally exhausting, especially for a nation trying to heal from past racial oppression. Every time a high-profile crime or court case emerges, people hold their collective breath – not just for justice, but for what colour that justice will wear. But should we?

The case of Cwecwe, a young seven-year-old girl from Matatiele in the Eastern Cape, shocked the nation. One of the alleged key suspects was a white man. While the initial public response was rightly centred on justice for the child, the focus quickly shifted for some advocates. Instead of remaining united and calling out against gender-based violence, the case took a sharp turn towards a racial battle. This was slowly reflecting how South Africans pull out the ‘racial card’ in uncomfortable battles. This case had various accusations; some argued that the white suspect was being protected by the system and others defended his innocence. These allegations sparked social media comments such as, “If the victim was a white girl and the accused was a black man, the case would have taken a different direction.” What could have been a moment of national child protection advocacy has become yet another episode in South Africa’s long racial war. It is important to note that no charges or prosecution were brought against the man/men responsible after the investigation; the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) found no conclusive evidence to proceed with the case. The focus of this piece is on public judgment rather than proving guilt or innocence, and how public opinion – especially social media – sometimes overpowers the narrative, the true aim of justice, and the protection of victims like Cwecwe.

In these cases, justice is either seen as revenge or bias

In cases where the victim and suspect are of different races, justice is often not seen as justice, it is either seen as revenge or bias. Questions like was justice done? are no longer asked; instead, the question asked is, for whom was it done? The painful result is the actual issue of a child survivor of sexual violence fading into the background. The danger lies in letting race dominate every justice conversation, as it defeats the whole purpose of justice. This leads to the pain of those who are vulnerable, often women and children, being overlooked. This is what Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality says – that multiple forms of oppression such as race and sexism can overlap, making people more vulnerable. Intersectionality is specific forms of intersecting oppressions, which could include intersections of race and gender, or of sexuality and nation. Intersectional paradigms say that oppression cannot be reduced to one fundamental type, and that oppressions work together to cause injustice. Intersectionality makes a bold argument that true justice means seeing all parts of a person’s identity, not just the most politically charged one. In cases where race become the core focus, issues such as gender-based violence or child protection are pushed aside, even when there is connection. Justice will never be served in a country like South Africa if the race of the accused takes precedence over the crime committed. We cannot shy away from the truth; black people have been oppressed in the past and may still be bleeding from this injustice. Intersectionality urges us to consider historical context in all aspects of our analyses, but this should not come at the expense of other crucial factors such as gender, children’s rights, criminality, justice, and others that are essential to understanding a case like Cwecwe’s abuse.

Being a criminal has nothing to do with skin colour

Will the battle of race end? Most of South Africa’s issues are the result of racial discourse, but not everything can be resolved through the racial lens. The amount of focus directed at race tends to defeat the means of justice and hinder national healing. This only weakens the nation’s unity and has the potential to affect coming generations. Justice should be characterised by fairness, equality, the truth, and accountability. It should not only wear a racial mask or be seen as revenge for past and present wounds or enable racial oppression. This highlights the need to critically examine how our understanding of justice is shaped by societal narratives, historical contexts, and collective experiences. The social constructivist theory of reality, developed by Peter L Berger and Thomas Luckmann in 1966, argues that social concepts such as justice are constructed through collective human interpretation and interaction, rather than existing as objective or universal truths. It looks at how people’s social understanding is shaped by social narratives and collective beliefs. This explain why certain crimes are viewed through the lens of race rather than justice, because of the social meaning attached to race and violence. According to this theory, people do not often react to facts, but they react to the social meaning that those facts carry. Apartheid is part of South Africa’s history, and it comes as no surprise that racial segregation remains a dominant narrative for its citizens. Furthermore, the social construction theory illustrates how this racial emphasis is not a natural reason, but rather a socially produced one. Thus, the racial image portrayed in the justice system often associates black people with violence and subordination, and white people are associated with innocence and protection. This leads to black victims not getting justice, and crimes against them remain forgotten. And black accused receive heftier prison sentences. Being a criminal has nothing to do with the colour of one’s skin; the focus should be more on the crime committed. Justice should be fairly applied; no one is above the law, and no race or colour should be treated as superior or inferior under it.

In conclusion, the public reaction to the Cwecwe case revealed how quickly racial narratives can shape public opinion, often before all the facts are known. The case became less about justice for a young girl and more about race. This reflects a broader issue in society, where certain groups are either unfairly protected or quickly condemned based on long-standing social and racial perceptions. The process of justice must be fair, with integrity, race must not dominate the facts. For a truly just society, the urge to draw conclusions based on racial identity must be resisted, and instead the principles of due process and equal treatment under the law must be upheld.

Zinhle Vanda is an honours student in Sociology at the University of the Free State. As an emerging social justice activist, she is committed to examining how societal narratives and power dynamics shape people’s understandings of race, justice, and inequality. She writes in her personal capacity.

News Archive

Position statement: Recent reporting in newspapers

2014-10-03

Statement by the Institutional Forum of the University of the Free State

You may have read reports in two Afrikaans newspapers, regarding recent events at the University of the Free State (UFS). Sadly, those reports are inaccurate, one-sided, exaggerated and based not on facts, but on rumour, gossip and unusually personal attacks on members of the university management.

Anyone who spends 10 minutes on our Bloemfontein Campus would wonder what the so-called ‘crisis’ is about.

We are left with no choice other than to consider legal action, as well as the intervention of the South African Press Ombudsman, among other steps, to protect the good name of the institution and the reputation of its staff. No journalist has the right to launch personal and damaging attacks on a university and its personnel, whatever his or her motives, without being fair and factual. In this respect, the newspapers have a case to answer.

But here are the facts in relation to the reports:

No staff member, whether junior or senior, is ever suspended without hard evidence in hand. Such actions are rare, and when done, are preceded by careful reviews of our Human Resource Policies, labour legislation and both internal and external legal advice. Then, and only then, is a suspension affected. A suspension, moreover, does not mean you are guilty and is a precautionary action to allow for the disciplinary investigation and process to be conducted, especially where there is a serious case to answer.
At no stage was the Registrar instructed to leave the university; this is patently false and yet reported as fact. We specifically responded to the media that the Registrar does outstanding work for the university and that it is our intention for him to remain as our Registrar through the end of his contract in 2016.
The Rector does not make decisions by himself. Senior persons, from the position of Dean, upwards, are appointed by statutory and other senior committees of the university and finally approved by Council. No rector can override the decision of a senior committee, and this has not happened at the UFS even in cases where the Rector serves as Chair of that committee. The impression of heavy-handed management at the top insults all our committee structures, including the Institutional Forum – the widest and most inclusive of stakeholder bodies at a university – which reports directly to Council on fairness and compliance of selection processes.
In the case of senior appointments, Council makes the final decision. Council fully supports the actions taken on senior appointments, including a recent senior suspension. The fact that one Council member resigns just before the end of his term, whatever the real reason for this action, does not deter from the fact that the full Council in its last sitting approved the major staffing decisions brought before it. The image therefore that the two newspapers try to create of great turmoil and distress at the university, is completely unfounded.

Even if we wanted to, the university obviously cannot provide details about staffing decisions, especially disciplinary actions in process, since the rights of individuals should be protected in terms of the Human Resource Policies and procedures of the UFS. But that does not give any newspaper the right to speculate or state as fact that which is based on rumour or gossip, or to slander senior personnel of the university. For these reasons, we have been forced to seek legal remedy and correction as a matter of urgency.

Make no mistake, underlying much of the criticism of the university has been a distress about transformation at the UFS; in particular, the perception is created that white colleagues are losing their jobs. The evidence points in the opposite direction. Our progress with equity has been slow and we lag far behind most of the former white universities; that is a fact. More than 90% of our professors are white; most of our senior appointments at professorial level and as heads of department are still overwhelmingly white. Reasonable South Africans would agree that our transformation still has a long way to go and only the mean-spirited would contend otherwise. But based on the two Afrikaans newspaper reports, an impression is left of the aggressive rooting out of white colleagues.

In the past few years the academic standard of the university has significantly improved. We now have the highest academic pass rates in years, in part because we raised the academic standards for admission four years ago. We now have the highest rate of research publications, and among the highest national publication rate of scholarly books, in the history of the UFS. We have one of the most stable financial situations of any university in South Africa, with a strong balance sheet and growing financial reserves way beyond what we had before. We now attract top professors from around the country and other parts of the world, and we have the highest number of rated researchers, through the National Research Foundation, than ever before. And after the constant turmoil of a number of years ago, we now have one of the most stable campuses in South Africa. Those are the facts.

The UFS is also regarded around the world as a university that has become a model of transformation and reconciliation in the student body. The elections of our Student Representative Council are only the most visible example of how far we have come in our leadership diversity. Not a week goes by in which other universities, nationally and abroad, do not come to Kovsies to consult with us on how they can learn from us and deepen their own transformations, especially among students.

Rather than focus on what more than one senior journalist, in reference to the article in Rapport of 21 September 2014, rightly called ‘a hatchet job’ on persons and the university, here are the objective findings of a recent survey of UFS stakeholders: 92% endorse our values; 77% agree with our transformation; 78% believe we are inclusive; and 78% applaud our overall reputation index. Those are very different numbers from a few years ago when the institution was in crisis.

This is our commitment to all our stakeholders: we will continue our model of inclusive transformation which provides opportunities for study and for employment for all South Africans, including international students and colleagues. We remain committed to our parallel-medium instruction in which Afrikaans remains a language of instruction; we are in fact the only medical school in the country that offers dual education and training in both Afrikaans and English for our students - not only English. We provide bursaries and overseas study opportunities to all our students, irrespective of race. And our ‘future professors’ programme is richly diverse as we seek the academic stars of the future.

We are not perfect as a university management or community. Where we make mistakes, we acknowledge them and try to do better the next time round. But we remain steadfast in our goal of making the UFS a top world university in its academic ambitions and its human commitments.

END

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