Ryanair face backlash over racist policy.

Image Credit: Reuters

Ryanair have announced they will be forcing all South African travellers to take a general knowledge test before they can board a flight. They are alleging that the tests will “prove who is really South African” due to a “high prevalence of fraudulent South African passports.”

The tests are all going to be issued in Afrikaans, and this is taking an already discriminatory policy to another level, because if passengers are unable to complete the questionnaire for any reason, Ryanair have confirmed they will be refused travel and issued with a refund.

Afrikaans is not the most widely spoken language in South Africa. It is the language spoken in the homes of only 12.2% of the population as of 2019. Zulu and Xhosa are both more widely spoken - Zulu is the first language of over a quarter of all South Africans, with Xhosa accounting for 14.8%.

And outside of the home the situation only gets worse. Whilst Zulu is still the most popular language in this context, English is the second most popular language outside the home. Afrikaans doesn’t even make the top 3.

The biggest issue though comes when you look at who in South Africa speaks Afrikaans, and who doesn’t and therefore is immediately unable to fly with Ryanair. Afrikaans is spoken in the homes of less than 1% of Black South Africans. It is spoken outside the home by just 1%. It is however spoken by 61% of White South Africans.

Afrikaans has a violent history in South Africa being the language of the oppressor during apartheid. In fact, apartheid is literally the Afrikaans word for “separateness” or “apartness”, and Black South Africans under the apartheid regime were forced to speak afrikaans, the language of the white minority.

Ryanair have been facing calls to drop the policy, on the grounds it is both discriminatory and culturally insensitive.

UPDATE: As of June 14th, Ryanair have dropped this policy.