Ryanair Airlines has introduced language tests that allow passengers with South African passports to travel to the UK with them. According to the plane, the test is to identify whether the passengers are actually South Africans and flying with genuine passports.
“Since there are fake South African passports, we request travelers traveling to the UK to fill out a simple questionnaire in Africa,” Ryanair said in a statement. BBC.
“If they fail to complete the questionnaire, they will be rejected from the flight and the full amount will be refunded,” a Ryanair spokesman said. Reuters.
Language selection has provoked great outrage in South Africa because only 12 to 13 percent of the population speaks and there are questions in the Afrikaans language that is strongly linked to racism and white minority people.
– They are using this (experiment) in a completely absurd way, said Conrad Steinkamp, CEO of the African Language Council. Reuters.
Language is strongly established by racism
A South African man who flew from the Spanish Lanzarote to London in May told the BBC he was “shocked” when Ryaner picked up his passport and boarding pass in Afrikaans.
When Dinesh Joseph objected, Ryan Air staff told him, “This is your language.”
– I was angry, I felt very aroused. Dinesh Joseph told the BBC he had a worry and anger inside me.
– Forcing people to write a choice that is very emotional around it is emotionless. The language used in racism (used, author’s note) is African.
There are eleven official languages in South Africa, the third most spoken in Africa. Until the end of apartheid in 1994, Afrikaans was considered the official language of the country.
Racism is a social system and the policy of racial segregation that prevailed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, when the population was systematically classified into different races, and then groups were segregated from each other.
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