'Apartheid could re-emerge'

AN OPPRESSIVE system similar to apartheid could emerge again if South Africans did not get more involved and hold government accountable, comedian Pieter Dirk Uys said

"Apartheid will never come back again under the same name, but of course it will come back under a different name," he said at a public lecture at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

"It will be an acronym and we won't know what it stands for, but we will continue to vote for it."

Uys said apartheid was a "stupid" system.

He recalled how he explained to a 12-year-old that, during apartheid, black people were not allowed to sit on certain benches, and the boy thought it was stupid because who could stop him from sitting on a bench.

"Stupidity kills ... It's so inventive; never underestimate stupidity ... Don't underestimate the ANC Youth League," Uys said.

He said South Africans should not ignore what suspended ANCYL president Julius Malema said. "We ignore (Malema) at our peril."

The ANCYL was the future of this country, said Uys.

He urged the youth of South Africa to get involved in youth structures.