From the BBC:
“ Ryanair Afrikaans test:
Airline drops controversial South African quiz”
(Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary
holds a news conference on EU climate change policies, in Brussels, Belgium
June 14, 2022)
Ryanair has dropped a
controversial test in the Afrikaans language aimed at identifying passengers
travelling on fake South African passports. Boss Michael O'Leary said imposing
the test "doesn't make any sense". The policy caused outrage in South
Africa, where many black people associate Afrikaans with the days of
white-minority rule. South Africa has 11 official languages and Ryanair never
explained why it chose Afrikaans .The budget airline runs flights across
Europe.
The quiz contained questions such
as what is South Africa's international dialling code, what is its capital city
and who is the current president of the country. Anyone who failed was refused
travel and refunded the cost of their ticket. Ryanair originally defended the
test saying it received a fine for every passenger found to have travelled on a
fake passport. In a statement sent to the BBC last week, Ryanair said it had to
carry out the extra test because of "substantially increased cases of
fraudulent South African passports being used to enter the UK". But the
imposition of the quiz was widely condemned.
More than a week after the
controversy blew up, Mr O'Leary has said the airline has changed its policy. "Our
team issued a test in Afrikaans of 12 simple questions," he told
journalists. "They have no difficulty completing that. But we didn't think
it was appropriate either. So we have ended the Afrikaans test, because it
doesn't make any sense." Last week,
South African citizen Dinesh Joseph told the BBC how he was
"seething" with anger when asked to take the test before flying to
the UK from the Canary Islands. "It was the language of apartheid,"
Mr Joseph said, saying it was a trigger for him. "Being a person of
colour, especially from South Africa, you've experienced a lot... of
racism," he said. The imposition of Afrikaans in schools was the main
reason behind the 1976 Soweto uprising against the apartheid regime, in which
at least 170 people were killed, mostly schoolchildren. South Africa has 11
official languages: Zulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Sepedi, Setswana, English,
Sesotho, Xitsonga, Siswati, Tshivenda and Ndebele.
Why Afrikaans is so
controversial: During apartheid, or white-minority rule, Afrikaans was made
mandatory and an official language of education, alongside English, prompting
nationwide protests by black South Africans. It is no longer obligatory
but is an option in schools. It is the mother tongue of only 13% of
South Africans, mainly mixed-race people, known as coloureds, and white South
Africans - the descendants of Dutch, German and French settlers who arrived in
the 17th Century. More will be able to understand it but many cannot,
and speak one of the 11 other official languages. English is the
language most commonly used officially and in business, according to South
Africa's 2011 census.
^ It seems enough people
complained about this overt discrimination and so RyanAir backed-off. ^
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