The wave of racist comments around Eskom and its — and by extension the government’s — incapacity to manage things has abated a little in my life.
I liked the timing of one person’s comment — with the news of the blackouts, and Kenya’s troubles, someone turned to me and exclaimed about Africa’s inability to manage itself. I said that no one said that about Asians, because of Burma and Sri Lanka. At that point the news switched to coverage of a 10-day power outage in some parts of China, blamed on some particularly vicious weather. I have to say I was pleased, about which I am rather sorry now. I’m sure that was bad for my karma.
But that sort of timing is rare. Mostly people get to say horrible things about Africans, and then there is some dire report, Africans being shot, or starved, or shot and starved, and people get to look at each other, and nod, yes, yes, we are right, these Africans can’t organise a piss-up in the proverbial. And the Eskom crisis has brought them all out of the woodwork, all right. The most annoying are saintly about it, as in, shame, these poor blacks, we must be tolerant of their failures.
How do you deal with this wave of racist vomit? It is absolutely no use in my experience to point to any individual high fliers — the average person will happily discount the individual success as a lawyer or astrophysicist as exceptional, and of no application to society at large. George Bush can fail, and be stupid with it, but no one says, “Well, those whites, you know.” (Not in my circles anyway — they say, “Well, those Americans, you know.”)
Pointing out that Buyelwa Sonjica was just repeating the old English saying “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” is also not useful — just not the right thing to say, even if it is a bit more resonant than the “get up clever” version her speechwriter came up with. (Who are these people? Are they paid?)
There is also, annoyingly, probably some truth to the fact that clumsy and badly considered affirmative action may have led to a skills erosion in Eskom — not that I know anything about affirmative action in Eskom, but I have heard enough really daft interpretations of affirmative action to be suspicious. My favourite was a senior employee in home affairs, since departed, who suggested that affirmative action should be applied to immigrants. What?!
I could, you may say, just change the circles in which I move. I could, I guess. But I am probably not going to do that — I am most likely just going to continue to point out haplessly that government officials are also white, and some Indian, and everyone gets it wrong sometimes. The minute that criticism of Eskom loses its racist overtones, I’ll be in there, boots and all. I’m as mad as anyone at the lack of planning. But until then, count me out.
Quote: “Under apartheid blacks enjoyed a higher standard of living, lower infant mortality rates and longer life expectancy than anywhere else on the continent.”
This is propaganda in the extreme. The world knew how apartheid was failing the people of South Africa, especially black people, in terms of providing them with a good standard of living, education, security and medical services and thus had to apply pressure in the form of embargoes, sanctions and boycotts.
How could anybody concieve the idea that apartheid was beneficial to black south africans ?
“How could anybody concieve the idea that apartheid was beneficial to black south africans ?”
Easy. Just compare objective indicators like infant mortality and life expectancy with other countries on the continent as well as with the period before apartheid was implemented.
@ Eagle
Yes I get deleted as well. I even wrote one addressed to the mods and asked how am I supposed to reply to these insults and falsifications of african history if my posts get deleted? That reply was also deleted.
But between you, I, cool down, mark, will, jon, roland etc we still mount a good defence even with some of our posts being deleted. Yet we call no one idiot or any other name. Keep up the good work broers
Gavin
You left Africa and you prospered? If what most of you are like;if your racist,materialistic outlook on life is what you call prospering, well we the Africans are better off left alone in our “dark-continent”. That is why I say please leave us alone with our Africans bushes, open spaces and go comfort yourselves in your European concrete jungles – and see if you will take that to your graves!
You have no sense of humanity at all, and if on judgement day if heaven’s doors are ever opened for your kind, I will be the first to say “oh Lord, not me as long as these are also being allowed in”.
I infact regard most of you close to LUCIFER PERSONIFIED. In Australia, you ruined the Aborigine’s life – at list the Australian Prime Minister has belatedly apologised, in New Zealand you ruined the Maori’s life, in the Americas you ruined the Red Indian and other indeginous peoples’ lives, well in Africa need I say more. And you call yourselves humans?
As for you stupid question; please know that Africa from North to South, East to West, belonged and still belonges to anyone indeginous to it. So how could I pay for what was and still is mine? That is why Mugabe won’t pay some of your kith and kin for our land. It is you colonisers from outside our continent who came in with your ideas of borders, hence the many intractable problems we facing today as Africans.
Hi Consulting Engineer,
Spot-on my Friend. My question to these moderators is;
How can stating a proven fact be racist? E.g. if I say “Zulus are predominantly black”, is that racist, although I did say the dreaded b-word?
Is there any way in which the few of us can exchance e-mail adresses, e.g. by my means of pre-paid cellphones?
This Khoza is really losing it.
We are now responsible for the actions of the Australians, the New Zealanders and the Americans, and why not for the actions of Osama bin Ladan, then he can blame us for the 9/11 attacks as well? And why not for the actions of Hitler? He murdered millions of Jews as well and Chairman Mao, millions died under his rule. Oh, they weren’t black, so I suppose that does not count?
Well, what I remember from Africa, having been there of course right through the 1800s and the 1900s, the blacks attacked first. Oh, we were supposed to stand still so that we could be sticked properly with the assegai. OK, we were obviously wrong.
Wonder what he is smoking? Must be some bad ganja for him to be seeing LUCIFER PERSONIFIED.
Is Lucifer white? After the 240 000 odd murders and the millions of rapes and other crimes in South Africa, I have heard that he was another colour. Who else have seen him?
Eagle
It’s you who is losing it. I am not talking about you as an individual. I am talking about the white race; who as as white people are also your ancestors. Yes, in Australia, New Zealand, Americas, Africa, India etc the common denominator when talking about colonialism, subjugation and discrimination of fellow human beings is the white race your forefathers, can’t you get that?
The blacks attacked first, attacking who? If you mean the Africans attacking whites, yes they had to be attacked what did they want on our shores? It’s not like the black man went out of his way to attack them in Europe from whence they came.Could they have been attacked if they had remained in their European shores? NEVER. They were attacked for interferring with our land, our continent, our resources and our lifestyles etc.
You sound like a youngster, you don’t know what you are talking about.
@Eagle
I have asked a mod to send you my email. If not, are are a member of SF? You can reach me there.
If not, do you know Paul Bennett at Boerevolk Trust, asking him to contact me via ROAR by posting a message with your email. It is very secure and you cant even find it on google. He will now what that is.
@Eagle
Let me know if you want to join. You will be among brothers there. There are 4 of us posting here on TL. We are all over the world.
I will sponsor you if you want, as will a few of the others on here. There you can speak freely with no censorship.
@Khoza
As I pointed out, my ancestors – all of our ancestors – originally came from Africa. Are you disputing that? At what convenient point does your clock/calendar kick in? Sorry – forgot you never had one.
Also, if Africa belonged to all the people, why did the Bantu feel it necessary to eliminate the people who occupied the soil before they arrived? I suppose they were also “LUCIFER” in your jaundiced, irrational, ignorant eyes. Sorry, but if you can get personal and insulting, so can I.
Quote Will: “Easy. Just compare objective indicators like infant .”
Who provided the data for these indicators ? the national party perhaps? and the world knows how reliable that data is.
quote Will:”Do they know that the police only killed radicals, in order to prevent them from killing other blacks”
So Steve Biko was on a mission to kill other black people I assume ?
Getting back to the subject. Apartheid created a situation where 80% of the population are only skilled to do menial tasks. How can we expect a national break down of power supply not to occur under these circumstances ?
@Oosthuizen
“Who provided the data for these indicators ? the national party perhaps? and the world knows how reliable that data is.”
Try another one. If the government tried to falsify statistics its political enemies would have been the first to point it out. The fact is that the NP government actually did do significantly more in the areas of social spending than its predecessors, building new clinics, hospitals, schools and, gasp, even universities – services that were previously almost non-existent where it weren’t provided by missionaries. It would have been strange indeed if black living standards declined as a result of this policy, as ANC-propagandists try to make us believe.
“So Steve Biko was on a mission to kill other black people I assume ?”
As far as I know he preached non-violence, although it might have been a tactical stance. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is that the revolutionaries killed more black people, so-called collaborators, than did the police. The police had to intervene forcefully to prevent these killings. It is difficult to see how they could have reacted differently.
“Getting back to the subject. Apartheid created a situation where 80% of the population are only skilled to do menial tasks.”
Actually, apartheid inherited a situation where the great majority of blacks were completely unschooled. The NP government spent untold millions to make schooling accessible to all, even up to university level. Unfortunately the black population explosion meant that quality education had to be traded of against quantity. Even so, in an international science and maths olympiad of the mid sixties, SA’s black schools actually did better than their counterparts in the US. The blame for the fact that literacy levels is today probably lower than during the sixties has to be laid at the door of the ANC, who after 1976 paralyzed schooling with the slogan “liberation before education”.
Oosthuizen says:
“Apartheid created a situation where 80% of the population are only skilled to do menial tasks.”
Nice socialist propaganda Oosthuizen, now please explain to me what you actually mean by the above statement, with supporting data, like you want from Will.
I have heard this statement so many times and, in fact, much of the recent legislation discriminating against whites is based on it, yet no-one has ever been able to explain it to me.
By the way you are grilling Will you obviously have superior knowledge and I am sure that you will be able to explain your comments where others have failed.
I am waiting in anticipation. Also be so kind as to inform me whether you have first-hand knowledge of the “Apartheid period” i.e. were you actually there, or did you get your knowledge from other media?
We are in big big big trouble- If half of you (black or white) believe half of the what you have posted here then we are in big big trouble. God help us we are in big big trouble. BIG BIG TROUBLE!
@Manci
Maybe some believe 33%, which is the current rate to pass.
Me I believe 100%. I’m a believer.
Why Manci? Do you realize that, for the first time, blacks and whites are truly communicating? The REAL world is not about Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil.
Both sides are pd-off and we have to find midlle ground. This country can prosper if both work together but the man in the street, black and white, are up against some frightening people with agendas of their own.
Do you realise that you used the word “big” 9 times in one short paragraph.
Alison, What exactly was is your beef with whites? That they are right, or that white comments offend your sense of oneness with the black run government.
A selective memory is a wonderful thing. Do you not recall that we were all promised a better life than that past?
Do you not recall the righteous statements 1993 – 2000 by Mandela, Mbeki and Manual to name a few who said that they could do a better job and eliminate corruption and nepotism.
Well the chickens have come home to roost. The country has gotten worse. Admit it. If cannot then you are not as intelligent or as informed as you believe.
If you think that this is all got to do with the electricity problem I strongly suggest that you switch off your DSTV, read Newspapers, and watch the SABC news, Etv. news to see a sample of what is happening in SA. This combination of ineptitude is what Whites complain about.
I further suggest that you visit other African countries where black rule exists. If that does not bring home some truth of Black Africa’s ability to rule effectively and provide for their people then maybe you should consider yourself to be racist.
As for Kenya, the country – like the rest of Africa – has hardly moved forward since independence. It is still consists of islands of development in a sea of poverty.
“I further suggest that you visit other African countries where black rule exists.
What do you mean by black rule ? Democracy in Africa does not really exists. Africa is ruled by the West through their puppets, corrupted african dictatorships installed, maintained and supported by the west. SA arms deal case in point. Remove the steel grip that corrupt western multi nationals have on Africa and then we can start talking about african independence and “black rule” as you put it.
quote Eagle: “explain to me what you actually mean by the above statement, with supporting data, like you want from Will.”
for a start look at the UN’s report “Apartheid: It’s effects on education, science, culture and information” ISBN 0119104296 Just looking at ONE of the cost issues relating to Bantu education. The apartheid government in 1965 spent R75.00 on every white childs education and R2.58 on every Black child. Curriculla for Black children was designed to only empower them and educate them to do menial tasks.
Oosthuizen,
As is the practice with the pc Liberal you have ignored that part of my question which does not fit in with the illusion you are trying to ceate.
May question is:
Also be so kind as to inform me whether you have first-hand knowledge of the “Apartheid period” i.e. were you actually there, or did you get your knowledge from other media?
Please answer. Will answer your “statement” anon.
Dear Khosa, as a European, living in Europe I would like to know why so many of your brothers risk their lives each day to reach our ‘Concrete jungles’ of Europe? And I have seen personally the damage your brethren have caused to your beautiful open spaces in Zimbabwe where poor farming skills and over population have denuded the country of its majestic trees, and severely endangered the fragile ecosystem.
It’s good to see real conversation happening.
Lived in SA during the apartheid period, Saw the conditions of people living in the homelands and informal settlements around the country, cross roads, khayalitsha, klip town, boipatong, taung, kuruman, bloukop etc etc Personally witnessed the squalored conditions in which many black people were forced to live.
I knew teachers who taught in soweto and langa and they told me about the gros ineffeciencies in the bantu education administration.
a friend of my father working for the Cape Town City Council told me how most of the domestic rates for the Athlone, Goodwood , Pinelands areas of Cape Town came from coloured people, but the bulk of the budget was used for maintenance in Goodwood and Pinesland. He thought we would be impressed with the CCC’s generosity towards whites living in Cape Town.
Consulting Engineer and company, allow me to recommend some reading to you: Jared Diamond’s “Guns Germs and Steel”.
Clearly you have very little understanding of how the world came to be the way it did, this book should help.
I also recommend any book on South African history, because clearly, whichever government was in charge of education at the time you were at school, did a very bad job. I sincerely hope those in charge at the time lost their jobs very soon after, because their incompetence is clear.
A trip to the Apartheid Museum should also help to rid you of all the myths that you seem to appear to have been brainwashed into believing by some, clearly very evil, external force.
A warning for the future: watch out for those who want you to believe their ideologies, only to benefit their own causes.
To Khosa and others who keep claiming that “Africa is a black mans continent”…
If you sincerely believe this, having “liberated” South Africa from European whites, surely you would also want to “liberate” North Africa, invaded and occupied by pale-skinned Arabs (also Caucasians) in the 7th century..?
Did you know that the Arabs enslaved more blacks than whites ever did, and over a much longer period ..? Do you know what fate befell most of the black males taken? They were castrated – completely – ie, both scrotum and penis. As a result of which 90% died but the surviving “eunuchs” were worth a small fortune.
Certainly no blacks were allowed to live in family units, as in USA, Brazil and all the other places -idyllic islands, etc, where whites took black to. This is why, if you were to travel the Middle East and Turkey, you will see virtually no blacks aside from recent arrivals eagerly trying to sneak into racist white European countries.
I dont suppose you really want to know about this, as it seems obvious that your racist diatribes are reserved purely for white Europeans?
@ Nicola,
I suppose I should thank you for crystallizing for me what is wrong with many posters such as yourself, when I previously just could not understand how people could not see what is in front of their eyes.
My question is; could you play music like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if you have never played a piano but only read a book about it? Of course not.
You see, unlike people like you, I do not need to read books or visit museums. Unlike your comment: “Clearly you have very little understanding of how the world came to be the way it did, this book should help”, I WAS THERE, and, I think, so was Consulting Engineer.
I was there when the decision was taken to lower the pass rate and simplify the system for certian race groups so that an illiterate, uneducated people who had no chance of surviving in the same education system as Europeans with a two thousand year history of education, could have a chance. I was there when millions of Rand of our tax money was set aside for non-tax payers so that they, despite their total lack of birth control so that they outnumbered the said tax payers by 20 million to 2 million, with no education and few jobs, would at least get a start in life so that they would have the opportunity of entering higher education later on.
I was there when these illiterate people would not accept responsibility for their own learning, that was now when I was working every night to put myself through tertiary education, but choose to burn their schools rather than get an education.
And I am here now to see these same people whose teachers arrive at schools drunk and have sex with their pupils for marks or children of 12 who already have 2 children of their own to get the child grants instead of studying.
This is, of course now the point where you clam up and disappear instead of demonstrating your superior knowledge or reasoning ability to admit that you just might not have all the facts.
Oh yes, I am one of the “and company”.
Jared Diamond’s “Guns Germs and Steel”.
I´ve read this book and the authors lack of objectivity, and his left-wing agenda of white self-hatred, is glaringly apparent.
For example, in the opening chapter he claims that Papuans (New Guineans) are “more intelligent than whites”. Turn that statement around and its “racist” and Pullitzer Prize and millions of sales, goes out the window in a tsunumi of political-correctness.
Its also full of absurd statements like – “black africans on Rhinos COULD have invaded and defeated the Roman Empire”. So why didnt they..? Because, unlike Hannibal of Carthage (a white man) they were and are incapable of domesticating and training large animals, like elephants and zebra.
And dont tell me it cant be done, because it can and has been, but by whites..!
@Nicola
I challenge you find one piece of international research stating that Bantus originate in southern africa.
Is Jared Diamond some accredited academic?
the Apartheid museum is hardly an unbiased source is it? Is that your standard of research? Let us hope you are not in the education field.
@eagle
You are more than an ‘and company’ you are a true comerade.
Little guppies who think Jared Diamond and the likes are scientific research are something else. Such people are the product of the New SA education system, not the old one that gave us the likes of Christiaan Barnard and made us world leaders
@Invinoveritas
If Africa is the Black man’s continent I wonder why so many try to leave it to go to America and Europe or australia? Can it be they are colonialists or is is that they prefer to live under whites?
There is almost no where in the world you can go without seeing one. Myabe the Chinese don’t welcome them. Come to think of it, the Chinese don’t allow liberals to florish, so its unlikely they will have this problem.
Do you think american Blacks are eager to return to the Black man’s continent? I wonder why not? You would think they would be happy to shed themselves of whites and their racism.
Good one invinoveritas.
In our own country Chaka Zulu murdered, enslaved and displaced more than 3 million Africans, as I mentioned before.
Why then are the Zulus not made to compensate the other race groups? Why does the gov stop at that point in time, when, in their opinion, history points to the whites?
@eagle
re Chaka/Shaka,
And yet he’s a hero to blacks worldwide, esp African-Americans. I believe Oprah is claiming direct descent from the Zulus. And yet how can that be when there is no historical record of any zulus being shipped to the Americas? One can only assume she paid for some very expensive DNA tests and was given the answer she wanted.
Now we have Mugabe, a clearly demented tyrant who has callously destroyed what was widely hailed as Africa´s “best country”, one that he inherited from benevolent white rule. Yet wherever he goes he is loudly applauded by other African “leaders” as a great black chief in the mould of Shaka, and hero to the African cause (whatever that cause is, but one can stab a guess).
I hope Comrade Khosa will excuse me for telling him this, but Shaka admired the whites and never laid a hand on them. In fact he protected them. After one of the Natal settlers was murdered, Shaka arrested the killer and invited the whites leader (I think Francis Farewell) to execute him. Of course Farewell was horrified at this suggestion, so Shaka did it himself.
Khosa,
It is clear that I’m so far ahead of you that you think I’m behind. I am aware that you are talking of whites overseas but it is only the very backward, the very primitive and the very racist, that believe that all whites who live on earth today are responsible for the actions of all whites hundreds of years ago, be they in England, Ireland, Russia or America. You probably also believe in witchcraft and the Tokoloshe.
If one follows your beliefs then your race is actually responsible for the actions of the Colonials and the Apartheid government because all human life was supposed to have originated in Africa so then, my ancestors are also your ancestors. Boo, watch out, the Tokoloshe is standing right behind you.
But seriously, you are demonstrating to me why this country is in the mess it is. How can people with your type of Third World thinking be expected to run a First World country?
I’ve got news for you. We cannot go back in time to control people who lived 300 or 2000 years ago in Holland or America and therefore we are all responsible for our own behaviour only and therefore all white man is not responsible for the actions of the politicians 50 years ago or the rest of the white world hundreds and thousands of years ago.
Your other statement:
“The blacks attacked first, attacking who? If you mean the Africans attacking whites, yes they had to be attacked what did they want on our shores?”
Firstly: These were not your shores. Where are your title deeds? The people who occupied the South African shores during the 1600s were small tribes of light skinned people called the “Hottentots” and the San, both of whom were murdered out and whose land was stolen by your forefathers. Before them the shores belonged to my forefathers, if I follow your primitive thinking, remember, all humans originated in Africa, my forefathers occupied Africa, they then moved out to the other continents and came back again in the 1600s to take back their land.
Very few native tribes actually occupied land in South Africa for any length of time. There was constant warfare, murdering and enslaving of other tribes and theft of their property. So who owned the land? Your forefathers or the ones they stole it from.
The reality is that whatever actions happened in those years happened in terms of the laws of the time. South Africa was occupied in terms of those laws. The colonials came in peace and traded for what they wanted, the black tribes there at the time, which were definitely not all the tribes in South Africa today, treacherously murdered at will until war broke out, they got their buts kicked, therefore lost any rights that they might have had and fell under the government of the time who mercifully did not decimate all natives as happened in America and Australia. Do you think my forefathers did the right thing?
Man, this is the year 2008, you have to try and drag yourself into the 21st century, otherwise we will continue to be just another Third World banana republic, like the rest of Africa.
What happened to Nicola?
Why do these liberals run away so fast when they are confronted with the facts? Don’t they believe in their own point of view?
I am still wating for one, just one, who can substantiate their politically correct prattle with facts.
Quote Eagle: “But seriously, you are demonstrating to me why this country is in the mess it is. How can people with your type of Third World thinking be expected to run a First World country?”
If the above refers to South Africa, I beg to ask the question when was South Africa ever a First World Country considering that through out its existence most south africa had to live under sub economic conditions, illiteracy was prevelant and democracy was more of a mockery than anyhting.
@ Ooshuizen
Between your bad spelling and equally bad grammar, I am not sure exactly what your points are but let’s see if I can help you.
The questions relative to who was really responsible for the “sub economic conditions & illiteracy” of black South Africans, have already been covered by what I had written so I feel that you should read it again, with focus, this time.
Your other comment, the classic liberal mantra of “Democracy above all, rah, rah” is covered very well by this article below.
It is called “The failure of democracy”, a brilliant piece by Mukui Waruiru, a Kenyan who had devoted his life to human rights struggles and until recently, an enthusiastic anti-apartheid activist. He seems to have had a chance of heart after observing the effects of 14 years of South African “democracy”, amongst other things.
http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_failure_of_democracy_in_africa/
Post me again once you are better informed. Have a good day.
It is totally unacceptable that any national power utility has not heeded years of warnings on the potential power crisis. It is their task, duty, to inform on and drive the task they have been handed. They are responsible for national power and the management thereof.
Clearly crisis management muset be avoided at all cost; foresight, or the lack thereof, has made many a scapegoat in the last 4 months, but no named scapegoats, where the blame get moved around more than a ball on a sport field.
Sure, we’ve got a power crisis and we need to deal with it, with which I agree, but does Eskom have the management skills to crisis manage, rectify and maintai and plan from hereon?
Only time will shed.
@Eagle: why not argue the and stick to the topic instead of making an attempt at undermining sombody elses intelligence, illteracy or what ever other distracting tactic you want to use ?
” These were not your shores. Where are your title deeds? ”
I do not care whose shores they belong to. All I know is that a white minority government claimed ownership and messed up SA monumentally, just like many other african governments do for their countries which proves that democracy also fails in africa, under white rule.