LETTER: SA must abandon Dis-Chem for its unapologetic racism

The Dis-Chem fiasco has left me with no option but to tell the company it has lost my business. We are not big fish, but do put about R30,000 a month into Dis-Chem coffers. If a few thousand similar clients were to dump them it would start to hurt. And Dis-Chem must be hurt for insisting on such an iniquitous policy of unapologetic racism in its most fetid form.

CEO Ivan Saltzman has said he is only obeying the law of the land, despite its repugnance. For years during apartheid white South Africans were also “just obeying the law”, but towards the end of the era people and companies of conscience started ignoring these unjust laws. They were bad and needed to be disobeyed; that's how bad laws are removed from the statute books. It is the obligation of any citizen in a democracy to disobey laws that are morally reprehensible and objectionable.

Segregated benches, buses, water fountains, entrances to shops, sales counters, jobs, houses, sex and graves were no different to what the ANC government is proffering economically and Saltzman is spinelessly supporting today. We are witnessing the rebirth of grand apartheid, and we have been blinkered.

SA is being pulled closer to the brink of destruction by an increasingly sinister, malevolent and racist regime. And all the while good men and women do nothing.

Wake up SA (and Dis-Chem) and smell the coffee before it’s too late.

Dr Peter Baker
Parktown North

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