Cape Town — Civil society groups AfriForum and Solidarity reiterated that they would take the government to court if it does not comply with their demands regarding the Basic Education Law Amendment (BELA) Bill.
AfriForum, Solidarity and political parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) marched against the implementation of the Bill, which took place on Reconciliation Road, where they handed over a memorandum of demands to Presidency representative, Gayton McKenzie.
Speaking during the march, AfriForum marched around clauses 4 and 5 of the BLEA Bill, with CEO, Kallie Kriel, saying it would take the government to court if it failed to listen to their demands, SABC News reported.
“We had to send out a very clear message to the government that we will not stand by while Afrikaans schools and Afrikaans children are being targeted. If you target Afrikaans schools, you are targeting the existence of a cultural community, so this is a fight for survival and I think this is a historic occasion,” Kriel said.
McKenzie believed there was a chance that a compromise could be reached.
“The fact that he was willing to listen, that we shouldn’t forget. President Ramaphosa asked us (myself, John Steenhuisen and Pieter Groenewald) which part is it that you don’t like. Nobody pressured him. We said parts 4 and 5 and he took it out. That shows that the Government of National Unity (GNU) is working,” McKenzie said.
According to IOL, DA leader, John Steenhuisen, said uproar could be avoided if no agreement could be reached to stop the BELA Bill and that required compromise on both sides.
“We will continue to go into that process with open hands and then that’s willing to look at ways for us to find a compromise. I think we can do it I don’t think that there are certain safeguards that communities are looking for and I think we can do it,” Steenhuisen said.
He said that if it failed, there would be ways to use the mother tongue education that is contained in the Bill of Rights. He said there was a reason the “framers of the constitution chose 11 languages and not just 2.
Steenhuisen said the DA was committed to open dialogues involving the act.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
