SOUTH AFRICA'S SONAR : APARTHEID MASTER PRECIS

 

Since the fall of apartheid nearly 30 years ago, South Africas have proudly declared their country : a ''rainbow nation.''

But the encounter, at Maselspoort Resort and Conference Center, adds to a litany of racist episodes that have induced soul searching and hand wringing among South Africans.

After a bouncer was accused of refusing entry to a Black patron without a white escort last month, protesters descended upon a bar in Cape Town.

In May, the elite Stellenbosch University was the site of an uproar after video surfaced of a white student urinating on the belongings of his Black roomate.

Cape Town : A violent attack by a group of white men on two Black teenagers at a resort pool in South Africa on Christmas Day has sparked widespread outrage, reviving images from the ugly days of apartheid and serving as a stinging reminder of the country's unresolved racial tensions.

Cellphone footage of the assault - which the teenagers said started when they were told the pool was for ''white people only'' - spread widely on social media. It showed scenes that could have been from decades ago, when apartheid-era laws restricted South Africa's Black majority from using public facilities designated for white people.

A video clip shows one man delivering an open-hand slap to the face of one Black teenager, another graying white man casually holding a cigarette as he tugs the hair of the other Black youth, and one of the men wrapping the taller youth in a head lock and pulling him into the pool, seemingly trying to submerge the teenager's head underwater.

Brian Nakedi, a former underground fighter against apartheid, said his 18-year-old son, Kgokong Nakedi, was one of the teenagers assaulted at the pool in Bloemfontein, a city about four hours south of Johannesburg. Both denied online claims that the youths had provoked the fight.

Mr. Nakedi, who witnessed the assault on his son, said : ''I became incensed. We have to relive the pain through our kids.''

 In sadness The World Students Society thanks author John Eligon.