BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Time to remove Affirmative Action from the EE Act

Mere prospective race or gender neutrality does not provide adequate compensation for past inequalities, but only freezes the existing advantages that white males have over other groups. (Spann. The law of affirmative action). Look at the work market and tell me who is occupying the most powerful and decision-making positions:- it is white male. We have not attained equitable representation. There is nothing wrong with AA, the issue is how it is implemented. It should only be applied in line with the Constitution, 1996. Consider the rationale and purpose. This is how the duration of AA should be approached. In Taxman v Board of Education of Township of Piscataway , the Board’s policy, adopted in 1975, is an established fixture of unlimited duration, to be resurrected from time to time whenever the Board believes that the ratio between Blacks and whites in any Piscataway School is skewed. By the way, this is an American case.
Time to remove Affirmative Action from the EE Act

It is now 15 years since the new government and new labour legislation. This equates to a full 12-year schooling and 3-year degree time period, where everyone has had equal opportunity. It is now time to remove AA from a legal aspect of our legislation. Let us rather appoint the best person for the job - in terms of qualifications, skills, attitude and ability. It is easy to provide working experience when the above set of competencies exist. A person with the right attitude will always be successful in their chosen career path. In terms of section 15 - AA was implemented to redress the inequalities of the past, with specific reference to workplace demographics. How long will the past be allowed to determine current and future employment and career practices ? What is the long term goal of the country in terms of skill upliftment and development opportunities - race or abilities ? The generally accepted principle that AA is a temporary measure is questioned as after the 15 years, this should have been already attained. Available skills and qualifications should already be in place and no longer a point of focus when employing new talent into the workplace. Also, the gravy train applies as much to the defined blacks in terms of this act, as it did to the whites in the apartheid era. How many of our black qualified graduates have left the country for better opportunities overseas? Think CA and nursing staff, as two examples. All women, in terms of the EE Act, are classified as PDI. Yet when it comes to BBEEE and DTI Codes, there is no accounting for white women in any definition. DTI codes and their measurables (scorecard) are reviewed on an annual basis, which in itself is difficult to maintain. But the focus moves more and more towards Black females - so there is further discrimination in terms of all women and other people of colour. (another example of AA discriminatory practices).
AA has not yet realised the visionary focus of the ANC government

For many years the non-white population in South Africa were suppressed, particularly in terms of education, training and job opportunities. While there has been excellent strides going forward in the addressing of this dispicable practice, not enough has been achieved. The Department of Labour, on numerous occasions, have stated that less than 10% of listed companies in SA have achieved their BBEEE status - and not yet realised a level 4 rating. Two areas that are easy to achieve the required ratings, are those of skills developoment and employment equity. (30%) Why have the large predominantly white corporations not offered enough bursaries or created more schools in the townships. Why have the SETAs not worked with DoL and created enough learnership opportunities for the PDIs ?
AA does more harm than good

According to Essential Labour Law PAK le Roux, et al., (2005: p 216) who argues that the main purpose of AA is to ensure equitable representation of the races represented in South Africa, in all occupational levels and categories in the workplace. However, he argues that this is also of a temporary nature. However, what is meant by temporary – and how will this be defined as having been achieved ? Is the assumption that the demographics won’t change, and how will this be monitored ? How accurate is our census when determining the SA racial demographics? Do Scorecards take this into account, and what level of confidence are they setting on the scorecard ? Does anyone know this ? Bring in some key stats and then also lessons from other countries (America and UK – which is illegal ito AA ): As of (2009: July) it is 15 years since the new government and new labour legislation. This equates to a full 12-year schooling and 3-year degree time period, where everyone (SA Citizens) has had equal opportunity. It is now time to remove AA from our current 2009 legislation. Let us rather appoint the best person for the job – having proficiency in terms of international benchmarks in all the following areas : qualifications, skills, attitude and ability. It is easy to provide working experience when the above group of competencies exist. A person with the right attitude will always be successful in their chosen career path. In terms of section 15 of EEA - AA was implemented to redress the inequalities of the past, with specific reference to workplace demographics. How long will the past be allowed to determine current and future employment and career practices ? What is the long term goal of the country in terms of skill upliftment and development opportunities - race or abilities ? According to PAK le Roux: The generally acceptable principle that AA is a temporary measure is questioned as after the current (2009: July) 15 years, this should have been already attained. Available skills and qualifications should already be in place and no longer a point of focus when employing new talent into the workplace. In terms of the current brain drain being experienced within South Africa, blacks (ito EEA definitions) as well as whites are leaving the country. How many skilled SA graduates have left the country for better opportunities overseas? Think CAs and nursing staff, as two examples. As at (2009: July ) all women, in terms of the EE Act, are classified as PDI. Yet when it comes to BBEEE and DTI Codes, there is no accounting for white women in any definition. DTI codes and their measurables (scorecard) are reviewed on an annual basis, which in itself is difficult to maintain. But the focus moves more and more towards Black females – does this not lead to further discrimination in terms of all women and other people of colour? Is this not just another example of AA discriminatory practices? (I am not sure – what do you think ?).
AA does more good than harm

Yes we are 14 yrs in democracy, but no significant change has been achieved in the implementation of the Act that seeks to redress the imbalances of the past, for example, the EE commission report of 2007/2008, it showed 26 listed companies still not complying or rather systematically sabotaging the process by creating excuses. In this report 70% at top management is still white and it's not representative of the demographics of the country. According to Carl Mischke, fourth edition, 2005, Essential Labour Law, page 215-216 - states that equitable representation is determined by a consideration of the demographic profile of the national and regionally economically active population. The rationale is to address the imbalances of the past by taking both formal and substantive approaches in achieving equality, i.e. treatment & outcome. Obviously it's in support of the constitutional legislative framework and other measures designed to protect or advance persons or category of persons disadvantaged by unfair discrimination. As Carl Mischke quoted that there's a turning point in this only until equality in the workplace has been achieved by the previously disadvantage groups, i.e. black people, women and people with disabilities.
It has unnecessarily extended into sports which affects the success of our national teams.

Affirmative action has unnecessarily spread to sports where politics should not be relevant. Racial quotas are unnecessary, they are detrimental to the standard of sport and it decreases moral amongst players and the country as a whole. The Olympic hockey team requires 8 players of colour, and Jake White who was behind the Springboks world cup win was forced to reapply for his position.
AA is more harmful than good

For many years (from approximately 1948 to 1994) the non-white population in South Africa were oppressed, particularly in terms of education, training and job opportunities. While there have been excellent strides going forward in the addressing of this despicable practice, not enough has been achieved. The Department of Labour, on numerous occasions, have stated that less than 10% of listed companies in SA have achieved their BBEEE status - and not yet realised a level 4 rating. Two areas that are easy to achieve the required ratings, are those of skills development and employment equity. (30%) What contribution has the large predominantly white corporations offered in terms of bursaries to the representative demographic population in South Africa? Or created more schools in the townships? Why have the SETAs not worked with DoL and created enough learnership opportunities for the PDIs ? According to the CEE report of 2008 (page 31 – section 2.7.6) which argues that AA will never be successful unless linked to diversity, and was temporary in nature – not to be a permanent fixture of the future of SA. The rationale, the goal, the beneficiaries, the deliverables, intended to achieve (p 216) In studies done in America, these appear to be the findings that have come out : In an ideal world the only thing that we should be considering is an applicants ability to do the job. Affirmative action does not require a company to hire a less qualified applicant on the fact that they're white, black, male or female. If a white woman has better skills than a black male or a white male or a white female, for that matter, then I believe she is the one who should be employed. (Facts and Statistics on Affirmative Action in America – Kevin Thompson: 2006)
How this plan will make extremist organizations weaker.

The opposition tried to argue that this plan won't weaken extremist organizations we were talking about. In this argument we would like to bring few reasons why this plan will make them weaker. 1. It was argued that these organizations could start using another symbol as a substitution for a banned swastika or a hammer and a sickle. We have already pointed out the important historical and cultural value these symbols have. A new symbol won't be as powerful as these and won't have any association with the greatest moments in the history of humanity, thus the necessity to use a new symbol will demoralize people in these organizations. If they continue to display banned symbols, they will be punished by fines or put in prisons, which will undermine these organizations. 2. It was already partially brought up that by using such symbols, these organizations could attract people that do not really share the same ideology with them, but join these organizations because of their willingness to look cool wearing a swastika or other symbolic reason they find in it. The opposition agrees that there are many people in such organizations that are barely informed about the ideology of the organization. It is clear that the more people there are in an organization, the stronger it is. If we ban these symbols, these organizations will lose one of the ways of attracting people.
It would cause racial dissension

It is true that after the implementation of this plan the relations between Russia and Baltic States will suffer. But we see that Baltic States quite often act in a way that harms their relations with Russia. For example, Estonian government in 2007 allowed itself the reallocation of the Monument of the Liberators of Tallinn and the exhumation of the remains of Soviet soldiers, causing great resonance on the international political arena. This event was followed by cruel riots in Tallinn and a week long besieging of the Estonian embassy in Moscow [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Soldier_of_Tallinn]]. Latvian government allowed itself to conduct the reformation of Russian school, which also led to huge riots and worsening of diplomatic relations with Russia. These decisions were made, because the benefits from them outweight the short term harms. In our case, even assuming possible short term harms of worsened relations with Russia and Russian population there are at least two reasons why it should be done. The first reason why it is beneficial is because of current relations between Russia and Baltic States. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baltic countries were afraid to make any decision that Russia wouldn’t like. A good example is an embargo on Latvian fish products in the late 90s when Latvia didn’t choose the Russian market to export their products, but choose the European market. On other hand nowadays, when Baltic States are members of the European Union and NATO, they don’t have to fear Russia's response anymore. They have new markets for exporting their products (European Union) and have means of preventing a possible invasion (NATO). We believe that fear is not the right way for communication. Moreover, we don’t see any benefits for Russia in spoiling its relations with EU and NATO, which are already under the tension. Secondly, we believe that there must be a discussion between countries to have good relations. Currently there is only one way relationship – what Russia says, Baltic States have to do. We do agree that Russian politicians are stubborn and feel more superior than Baltic’s because they are one of the super powers in the World. But only by discussing such controversial matters we can reach the consensus. We might argue how constructive these debates might be, but a debate is better than nothing. Even if we have short term harms such as riots, in the long run both sides would only benefit because Baltic politicians would get guts to start a debate with Russia and Russian politicians would start considering Baltic States enough reasonable side to debate with. The same applies for Russians that are living in Baltic’s. They might not like this plan but in the long run both sides would benefit.
Why these symbols are no different than verbal or written communication

We certainly do not agree with the proposition case that symbols are the same as written or verbal communication. While they certainly are similar, there are two main differences that play an important role in this debate. First, symbols are much more abstract than written and verbal communication. Thus, the display of a symbol, especially a one that has such a broad identification as the Nazi or communist symbol, does not directly imply that a person / organization displaying the symbol does attribute the whole ideology to itself. Case in point: there are quite a lot of people in the Baltic states that believe that the life was better in Soviet Union (surveys show that, for example, health care system in Lithuania currently is considered good only by 18% of respondents, while the one that was present in SU - by 42% [[http://www.civitas.lt/lt/?pid=72&id=17]]). For them, displaying a communist flag would only mean that they are longing the times of the Soviet Union, the life of their own, and we do not see how the government could prohibit such means of showing off one's memories. To sum up, the message that symbols deliver is versatile, and a mere display of communist flag does not necessarily lead people to take actions against national press, language, etc, as the proposition tries to imply. Second, we do not believe that symbols are to be held a strong enough affiliation sign to be penalized. Verbal or written communication is very direct, understandable and thus is used in courts as evidence. Hate speech is a good example where written/verbal communication is criminalized. We do not believe that the same should apply to symbols, partly due to the different level of abstraction, as explained above, and partly due to the fact that a symbol does not imply further action, and is a passive display of opinion. In the same way that a gang member cannot be punished for gang crimes, if he is found to have a gang tattoo, we do not believe that carrying a symbol does constitute a willingness to act according to the values of the regime underlying the symbol. To sum up, symbols, while carrying a message as does the verbal / written communication, are different from them in two aspects that are important for this debate. First, they are much more abstract, and especially in our case, the Nazi / communist symbols can be used to display associations that are not meant to insult anybody, but rather are used to bring back memories, that are not necessarily inhumane. Second, a symbol is a passive form of affiliation, does not imply any further action, and we do not believe that the members of our society can be banned from having opinions. The only thing they can be held accountable for are actions, however, displaying symbols does not imply any actions to be made.
For the Baltic States it is strategically important to secure good relationship with Russia

We find several very big flaws in the reasoning of the opposition. There are several important things we should mention: (1) The opposition has not really established the causal link between banning Soviet and Nazi symbols and Russia getting upset. We do not really see a reason why Russia should respond with hostility to our policy proposal. Firstly, there is no reason to believe that Russia is the direct successor of the ideology and symbols of the Soviet Union. Although the is a clear historical link between the two, these are two completely distinct entities with different values. Yes, some Russian groups regard Soviet soldiers as heroes, but that does not mean they justify such acts done by the Soviet regime as the famine in Ukrainian SSR or Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Russians would not perceive it as an attack to their own identity. Secondly, we believe that, even if some groups in Russia would become upset, that would not trigger any actions by the Russian government. Even if they would like to appeal to their electorate, they would not want to influence the energy supply to the Europe. Already after the Russia-Ukraine gas suspension, Russia had to face a very harsh reaction from the European Union. It is simply not in the interests of Russia to mess up the relationship with the EU, as it is currently benefiting from it economically. (2) Even if the Russian government would take steps as a result of the proposed plan, we still don't believe it would be a sufficient reason to allow ourselves to change our policy. We take it as a fundamental truth that there are things that are far more important that pure economic gain. We once again have to look at the things that are on stake. We believe that the protection of the weakest in our society (ethnic groups that are currently being abused) is far more important that the possible economic harm caused by the decision of Russia to change its attitude towards the Baltic States. There is no way a small economic gain can justify a failure of state to provide for its most vulnerable citizens.
Practical harm #1 - Encouraging extremist movements

What the government finds clear, we find much less convincing and appealing. We think that prohibiting the use of such symbols could actually encourage extremist movements. The symbols that were used by the totalitarian regimes are not powerful per se. Perhaps they were powerful at some point in history, but claiming that these symbols carry the same strength nowadays is completely out of touch with reality. The soviet symbols have been commercialized extensively. They have become a mere tourist attraction and a brand for selling more. Probably the biggest concentration of soviet related items could be found in the streets, being sold to tourists by various street vendors. Soviet stars and other allusions to soviet life are used on bread and other food products so as to attract customers longing for the old taste. A kid wearing a shirt with Lenin recognizes him as an old bald guy from the past and most often does not attach any specific meaning or ideology to it. It is just a normal way of accepting the past and living with it. What strength does a symbol carry and how much attractive is it for extremists, if one can find it on a sausage pack? Could Nazis have taken something like this as their symbol? And in fact, most leftist movements are so weak and miserable that you have to really try to find out something about their activities in the Baltic States. The symbol with which more serious criminal activities are associated is the Nazi swastika. It retained some of its strength mainly due to efforts to suppress it. The talks have been for ages how it is politically incorrect to use swastika publicly. No wonder the extremists still find the symbol attractive – it has still some power and, besides this, taboo attached to it. Any effort to strengthen the prohibition of these symbols would actually reinforce them. The extremist groups are just miserable groups of youngsters, perhaps with a swastika or another symbol. So when people see them in the streets, they usually just shrug off and continue without paying much attention – these people are perceived as a marginal force in the society. If the symbols that they use are prohibited, the people sharing the ideology will not disappear for sure. What is more, when these groups will start appearing in public with these symbols, they will have much more of perceived power, because they are the ones who dare to break the law. If police will punish one or another – it will only make the group as a whole stronger, because they will feel that now they are important – someone finally started paying attention to them. Because of this taboo attached to it, such extremist groups could easily become more popular among teenagers and other people, attracting more members than ever before. The symbols that are banned might somewhat disappear from the public, but they will move underground - and when they appear in the public, they will have bigger strength and more fear attached to them.
It would cause racial dissension

The ones who usually look to soviet times with nostalgia and kind feelings are mostly older people of Russian origin. They might be offended by the fact that the symbols that are closely connected to Russia are prohibited. The ban could spread discontent and widen the gap between Russian and natives in the region that would effectively impair the social environment in the Baltic States. Besides this, broader national relationships should be considered. The prohibition would be just another pretext for Russia to claim that Russians are being suppressed in the Baltic States, resulting in a tenser relationship between Russia and the Baltic States. Defeating Germany in World War II is one of the most important events in Russian history which the country is very proud of. Equating Nazi and soviet symbols will convey a poor message and will result in a negative response from Russia. So, we believe that negative externalities caused by ban play a crucial role here as it implies a serious cost.