Policy regarding offensive language and terminology
the centuThe use of hurtful, offensive or discriminatory language and terminology is frowned upon, and in some cases even categorically forbidden, in South Africa today. For this reason our basic policy is that all contributors should shun such usage in their own writing.
However, much of the ESAT content his based on historical materials and research, and such terms occur in the titles and content of much of the material and many of the plays cited. For example contentious terms of differentiation between race, religion, sexual orientation, political views, etc., are not only found in numerous books, novels, poems and plays from the 18th to the 2ist century, a number of them classic works, but also in the numerous commentaries that have been published on such works. In addition a number of formerly acceptable, but now spurned or proscribed, racial terms have over the years been used in the names of plants, places, rivers, mountains, and so on.
Though many such names have already been changed, and more are being considered, the role of the terms in the arts remain a complex matter, since anyone writing about racial abuse and oppression for example, will use the terms to demonstrate the issues they are raising. Similarly, when citing form older texts offensive and terms of abuse will obviously be cited as well.
For example, a 2018 edition of Woza Albert!, the iconic play from the struggle period of the 1980s, still has all those terms, the argument being cleaning up the text by changing them or excising them would make the play meaningless. Keeping them there maintains - perhaps even enhances - the shock effect of the play. Similarly Mark Mathabane's 1986 autobiography Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa exploits precisely that reaction to excellent effect to expose the harsh reality of the times.
Other such contentious terms of differentiation used over the centuries in Southern Africa, and appearing in the plays and literature, include: Bushman, Hottentot, Kaffir, Bantu, White / Non White, European / Non European.
