Ryanair drops South African passport test after protests

Ryanair has dropped a requirement that South African passport holders pass a test written in Afrikaans — a language with a racist legacy that many South Africans don’t speak — to prove their nationality before boarding certain flights after the policy was widely criticized as discriminatory and nonsensical. In an email, the company on Wednesday confirmed that the quiz would no longer be used, pointing to statements made by its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, that it “doesn’t make any sense.” South Africans were angered by the test, which relied on a language imposed by the former white-led apartheid government on the country’s Black majority. Today, Afrikaans is the third most widely used household language in the country at 13 percent. “They have genuinely offended an entire nation,” said Dinesh Joseph, a 45-year-old South African leadership and management trainer who had to pass the test to return to London from the Canary Islands. Ryanair’s about face comes as South Africans prepare on Thursday to commemorate a seminal moment in their resistance to Afrikaans: the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising, in which thousands of protesters, mostly Black schoolchildren, marched against the government’s efforts to require instruction in Afrikaans in school. The police fired on the protesters, killing hundreds. The language’s racist legacy continues to resonate with many people in South Africa, where Zulu is spoken in more households, 23%, than any of the country’s more than 10 official languages. (English is the household language of 8% of South Africans.) Some South African travelers reported feeling shocked and humiliated by the test requirement. Many South Africans expressed their frustration on social media, calling Ryanair’s requirement racist and even calling for a boycott of the airline. <br/>