Gus > where, say, 100 applicants are equally qualified to fill a given job --it's at that point that other --irrational-- criteria are used to short-list the pool of applicants...
I fully accept that. But affirmative action, certainly as it is being applied in SA, goes far beyond the application of irrational criteria amongst equals.
What we find, for example, is that a black applicant for medical school with a C or D average in Matric is given preference over a white with distinctions and an A average. The said reason is that they want more black doctors, not just South African doctors, but black doctors.
Another example is business, where they have published quotas of the number of blacks in relation to whites that must be employed. That's exactly what the Nazis did with the Jews. That's why I say affirmative action is racist and anti-merit.
But, quite apart from any view which I may have, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and what we find in SA is virtual collapse of effective service delivery in every government department be it criminal justice, police, health, the military, you name it. Only the tax department works reasonably efficiently. You tell me it's the same in Belgium. If it is, and I doubt it, then Belgium has become a third-world country. |
