Much focus has been placed on personalities in the efforts to understand the contestation between President Thabo Mbeki and ANC president Jacob Zuma. But this battle is primarily a contestation of ideas.
On the one end is the hodgepodge of the Zuma motley crew, combining Cosatu’s social democratic capitalism and urban worker orientation; the ANC Youth League’s liberal capitalism; and the SACP’s socialism with Zuma’s patriarchal, rural-based traditionalism.
In contrast to the Zuma group’s political ambiguity, the Mbeki-ites have attempted to retain power in the party by delineating a specific version of nativism and “true Africanness”, a process through which a political identity is created that excludes those who dare transgress “true African values”.
The emphasis on “African values” has played out in ways that clash with the rights contained in South Africa’s Constitution. For example, freedom of expression becomes conditional upon permission from the ANC political leadership, as was seen last year in the brouhaha over the Sunday Times’s exposure of the health minister’s alleged abuse of her position.
Furthermore, the constitutionally enshrined democratic principles of the separation of powers and the rule of law came under considerable pressure with Mbeki’s suspension of the national director of public prosecutions in an apparent bid to protect the police commissioner. However, the Cabinet called it “extreme exaggeration” to say that a constitutional crisis had been created.
What is therefore at stake here is how our democracy will be defined. What will be the content of our democracy? Will it be democracy in name only?
In the clamour to understand the implications of this trench war of ideas, a third contender has been operating unnoticed. This is the political project of whiteness that asserts white superiority and is geared towards perpetuating white privilege. Just because the most visible symbol of white power, the National Party, has come to a fall does not mean that whiteness as a political project has ended.
The Mbeki-ite group has come closest to identifying this contender by emphasising the “foreignness” of certain ideas, with reference to Western (that is, white) conceptions of freedom of expression and what may or may not be acceptable political interaction between elected leaders and the citizenry.
The danger that we face as South Africans is that the universal principles of democracy and human rights become purposefully tainted as “foreign”. This reminds one of some African leaders’ arguments of yesteryear that autocracy is more truly “African” than democracy, an assertion that developed into a pretext for dictatorial excesses.
As the Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani has shown, pre-colonial Africa was a smorgasbord of both democratic and autocratic polities.
The distortion of democratic principles to bring them in line with newly conceived “African values” can happen partly because of how white power has operated historically and how it still operates. Under colonialism, political and social discourses were awash with ideologically engineered contradictions, myths and lies. Plunder and murder were justified with the ideology of racism, which included positioning people as “uncivilised” and “unchristian” because they were not “white” and from Europe.
Therefore, despite colonialists perpetrating deeds of extreme savagery (think Tasmania, Congo, Latin America), the whiteness project allowed white people to position themselves as “civilised”. These duplicitous constructions are still with us.
The artist Anton Kannemeyer had a recent exhibition where he displayed definitions from the Chambers and Oxford dictionaries of the words “black” and “white”. These dictionary definitions equated “black” with, among others, the “opposite of white, dirty … disastrous, dismal … horrible” while “white” was defined as “innocent … pure … auspicious, reliable … honourable”. This shows how meanings are fabricated out of something as arbitrary as skin colour and then strung together into an ideology — the ideology of racism.
Today we see that, just as colonial abuses were justified as the extension of white civilisation in which whiteness was presented as synonymous with civilisation, the Bush administration justifies its imperial abuses as the extension of democracy and civilisation in the name of Christianity. Democracy has been added to the meaning of being Western and white. But, as we have seen, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay contradict this claim.
White power depends on the extent to which people deny these contradictions. Similarly, in South Africa white power has been perpetuated after 1994 by the denial of how white privilege was achieved. We hear this in some white people’s insistence that they “have worked hard” for what they have and therefore see no reason for ameliorative steps such as the employment equity and black economic empowerment laws.
While some white people might have worked hard, this is not the full story by any means. The omission of the more decisive factors (the systematic colonial and apartheid advancement of white interests combined with the undermining of black people’s interests) serves a clear function because it obviates the need to take responsibility. Comprehensive redress is thus avoided, which is why socio-economic inequality in South Africa remains staggeringly high.
This is untenable. Zimbabwe has shown how the perpetuation of white privilege and lack of redress (in their case land ownership) can supply ideological ammunition for an anti-democratic project.
The challenge that we as South Africans face is to steer a path away from white power and from exclusionary definitions of Africanness and distortions of democracy to assert the universality of human rights and democracy and reclaim the promise of non-racialism that seemed so possible only 10 years ago.
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102 Responses to “White privilege and the ANC”
Its a shame you only see this now. too late… Honeymoon is over.
“Zimbabwe has shown how the perpetuation of white privilege and lack of redress (in their case land ownership) can supply ideological ammunition for an anti-democratic project.
The challenge that we as South Africans face is to steer a path away from white power and from exclusionary definitions of Africanness…”
Beautifully put!
And how is that working out for Zimbabwe? Lest we forget that at this present time the majority of their economically active citizens are now working for a white minority in South Africa. Or that their GDP is half of what it was in 1999. Let’s not confuse the issue of empowering the citizens of our country with any reference to one of the greatest failures Africa has witnessed, “Zimbobwe.”
It’s really easy to shoot from the hip and colour the expectation in black and white. This is a complex problem/challenge and we cannot continue to seek quick fixes and raise expectations accordingly. It doesn’t work and as the past eight years in Zimbabwe has shown populace quick fixes and a refusal to deal with the real issues will simply lead to a total collapse of the entire system and lets also recognise that Zimbabweans generally were and are eminently more qualified and literate than their South African neighbours,.
So then what are the real issue? In simplistic terms I would say that the issue is the ability to find employment at the level you are qualified to practice. And it is a black government who through their consistent arrogance and refusal to address the real situation, of its failed education system, ended up sentencing 85% of the youth of today to a future of a minimum wage. If they can find jobs that is. And the non hardworking whites will continue to qualify and continue to be employed at the level they are qualified for. The problem is that it won’t be here.
“…reclaim the promise of non-racialism”
A truly lofty, worthy and grandiose idea. The problem is that the concept of non-racialism stands mutually exclusive to other, lofty, worthy and grandiose ideas.
We need to choose in SA – do we want a society that is truly non-racial, or do we want to address injustices of the past. One by definition excludes the other.
You cannot have a non-racial society where minorities, regardless of history, are sidelined, discriminated against, or otherwise marginalised through policies of AA and BEE, their histories negated through wanton and sometimes random name-changing, their cultures denied – thank goodness SA hasn’t fallen into the trap of land-redistribution yet – though we have circled round it.
The mere concept of AA and BEE impresses upon us an indelible mark of a race-oriented society and “non-racialism” becomes a mere hyphenated concept.
Either we scrap racial-bias policies in the socio-economic sphere, and go for non-racial, or we address the “Racial” inequalities though aforesaid means.
Point is, it doesn’t matter which game we choose to play, either “race” can play within the rules of the game (With the mandatory grumbling and groaning), but either system is workable. I have my preferential choice, as I’m sure so do my neighbour. My choice is made on sound political, economical and emotional reasoning, and so is his. Either point of view is valid.
We can have either system, but not both. My vote – lets scrap “racial” classification in all forms and build a unified SA.
Thanks Christi.
Fine analysis of the current political connundrum and misplaced focus on personalities rather than policy positions as well facile explanations based on racial identities. You’ve enunciated this latter point very well in this article the same way that Friedman’s recent post [on Eskom problems] has done.
The free vigorous debates and commentaries by South Africans of all hues and ideological positions may yet prove to be that country’s best demonstration of the true meaning and principles of democracy. It is always very enlightening to read the various points of view from thoughtful contributors to this paper’s “Thought Leader” section. One would hope that South African’s will continue to engage in such mutually educational public debates and discourse which are in stuck contrast to the situation in the past where dissent/debate were stiffled to the detriment of mutual understanding of the various constitutent communities.
Welcome to the club. there is no doubt that YOU are one of the top ten progressive intellectuals who exposes inherent white racism in the status quo. You are a major schorlaly resource. In fact, you will help shatter the myth of white superiority and help many overcome their ignorance on the damage that this continues to inflict to indigenous natives.
We are looking forward to your voice of reason and intellectual precision to cut through the apartheid/colonialism denialism through open, honest and englightening submissions.
We can only understand the present when there are white intellectuals (sic) who reinterprete the events of the past 400 years in a manner that elucidates the connnection between imperialist white supremacy, the black stooges that uphold and preserve economic control and the inequalities that entrench inequality.
We are happy to have you on board and, of course, your first posting - wide-ranging as it is - has not disappointed.
Your salient point is a sobering reminder: white privilege relies on the perpetuation of white superiority, control of the land and economic monopoly which can only be upheld with the help of black cohorts.
Bua, mosadi - speak truth to the ignorant, beautiful woman!
The madness of Zimbabwe has far, far less to do with unabated white privilege than what it has to do with the exercise of ZANU-PF power. “White privilege” there was just the canvas on which Mugabe sloshed his bloody medium. White privilege has long been wiped out, but Mugabe’s insane political project continues on with considerable vigour.
“White power” is, at best, a catalyst and at worst a thin excuse for the reaction which, once unleashed, is self-sustaining with or without white privilege — or even white people — having to be physically present.
Ah, Christi, your proudest claim is not to be racist and your harshest struggle is against those you deem to be. In service of this disaffectation of yours, you have sacrificed objectivity. You would blithely dismiss the death of millions of black people and shrug off the misery to which countless more helpless black people have been consigned, rather than admit that what Africa needs most is the stability, safety and progress guaranteed by Western civilization. Shame on you. Thirteen years after the Nats took power in South Africa, this country was a thriving, safe, progressive place. Thirteen years after a black government took over in 1994, the ANC has bankrupted this country and holed the economy under the waterline. The inevitable result will be famine, civil war and ultimately genocide. But it seems you would tolerate this before you admit that a strong white presence and especially a proud Afrikaner nation are prerequisites for a successful South Africa. You must be particularly fond of the images of starving black children and smouldering black corpses.
I wish there can be lot of people who see the world like you. Even in Africa, tribal wars/ ethnic cleansing are remnants of confusion on ideology that was implanted during oppression. In SA whether we are black or white, we are a product of the serious implantation that was not even crafted or designed by us. The noble words like good, kind and love are universal and have been in existence for centuries in all languages and races and they had the same meaning but are now clouded by these imbalances that had happened in the past. Deep inside of us they still exit in their original form.
For example:
a white person in South Africa today, who it is not his political party that is in power, would still pick up a litter on his street or city and put it into the dust bin to make his/ her country look beautiful. This has nothing to do with political beliefs but the inner love of the country that he/ she might believe its now not even his. NO BODY FORCES HIM OR HER TO DO IT.
a white person in SA today would still adopt a black child, who might even be an ex-MK guerrila’s child, and give this child a better life. This is done in the name of love. NO BODY FORCES HIM OR HER TO DO IT.
all white families have a black domestic worker at home and she has an excellent opportunity to wipe up the entire white family by poisining them but day-in day-out she cares about this family when at least one of her family members have died because of white people during apartheid era. NO BODY FORCES HER TO DO IT.
This to me means after all the ideological power that has occupied our minds for the last century there is still that shining spark of love of mankind deep inside of us.
What is important is that no matter how powerful global ideological influence can be, it cannot COMPLETELY errode love of humanity regardless of race.
In this new era lets conciously and actively try and revive this powerful spirit inside of us that no money or political power can buy.
Maybe we now need to start a non- political organisation that seriously define ourselves beyond our political beliefs.
That Whites benifited because the rules were rigged in their favour is uncontestable, end of debate. So what next, more intellectual debate hand wringing, endless expensive conferences or do something to redress and move on.
Suggestions:
1 Reinstate the White tax imposed at the beginning of Mandela’s rule but make it worthwile and manage it properly ie 10% per person per year going down by 1% per year until 5% is reached and therafter 5% for a further 5 years. But a big BUT this money is to be used exclusively for Black and other Apartheid disadvantaged people in areas like education, health, adult education and traning, land restitution etc and is kept separate to the other Govet. monies and publically every year an account of expendture/income is shown to parliament for approval and agreed action for the following year - ie Parliament is the controller and boss of this money.
2. Two areas that Government should focus on Education and Land restitution. There should be two Deputy Presidents with real power reporting to the President and getting their money voted by Parliment and their brief is to educate every S African especially the disadvantaged (any person, organsiation or party hindering this aim to be jailed or worse) and to fairly redistribute the land in the next 10 years minimum.
Land resitiution to be fast tracked and very very open and transparent starting from all and i mean ALL land especially state owned. Push this latter onto the market for Blacks only and there would be an oversupply pulling down property prices in general and thus making it affordable for Govet to buy White land for e-distribution.
Jaw jaw is over, time for concerted action, it is the writers world view that White superiority is bunk and that all races/tribes/cultures etc etc are a mixture of smart/average/below average types. So it is Blacks who in the main hold the reigns of power in SA and more importantly have the ability and reason to take action - so prove all those racists wrong and make good things happen for Blacks in particular and indoing so we all score - now is action time talking is done..
In King Leopold’s Ghost we are told a story of a victimiser conceiving himself as a victim. This is one story that seems to crop up quite frequently in the South African context – it’s implicit in phrases such as “reverse racism”, “two wrongs do make a right”. I think the dehumanization of the other plays a role here. Where for centuries you dehumanize another people then it should be understandable that redress is not an acceptable concept to the one who did the dehumanizing. After all, for dehumanization to work, the other should be conceived not only as a lesser being but also as one devoid of feelings. Indeed, when you see a bakkie with a dog sitting on the passenger side and a black man sitting on the back you realise the extent of this dehumanization. It also becomes easy to understand the role reversal of a victimizer becoming a victim. Dehumanized people can’t possibly be victims, for they don’t have feelings or at the least they are supposed to react differently from the one doing the dehumanizing to the same stimuli. Over and above that, the victimizer would also want the victim to understand that regardless of his suffering and pain, it was to his advantage that the former colonialised his country. After all where would all these technically demanding bridges and the shiny cars that run on them be if it wasn’t for the technological prowess of the victimizer. The expectation is clear: stop moaning and be grateful!!
I now know why our government is not performing, all people seem to be able to do in SA is discuss race issues.
Non white writers seem unable to discuss non performing government department and para-statals.
So africa will not improve as long as no one can offer unbiased critism.
I want to live where if the government screws up it gets voted out. After 3 months on TL I don’t think the new SA is working and it seems to be only a matter of time before widespread ethic violence appears as so many non white writers spend their time ‘bashing’ whites or big business that they forget what the alternatives are.
Please now write an article on how you see africa progressing without western or chinese aid / investment both of which arrive with colonialist overtures.
This is an article worth printing, not just bookmarked. I have a similar mentality to yours, and forgive my prejudicing, I tought you were going to talk about the unfairness of the status quo to the white man and all the other stuff, but it proves that a lot has been done to get us to where we are, to have free minds to analyse and have solutions. The current state of world affairs is saddening but how do we go about changing it where the very people who have the ability to spread it are still mentally enslaved by either their upbringing or material wishes. Very nice article.
If the Zuma “movement” (for want of a better word) represents an “idea” in this clash of ideas with the Mbeki “project”, I am not sure I understand what exactly that idea it represents. Or does it represent a sufficiently pluralistic front that might somehow facilitate a revival of the non-racial idea? One hopes so. In his Steve Biko memorial lecture last year Mbeki suggested that crime was a white problem because it was based on greed. He suggested that a focus on African values would reduce its incidence. Profoundly racist thinking indeed. And then there had been the acknowledgement that he had considered Tony Leon a racist to the bone but later came to realise that he had been a democrat to the core. All without so much as a “sorry Tony”. We really would be well served by the man’s departure from the presidency. His racism is as unacceptable and distructive as that of the rest of us. As a white Afrikaner I was brought up to believe that serious men who had behaved with gravity and a nobility of purpose were doing much to promote my people as serious internationalists. Our future supposedly depended on the outcomes of squabbles between the nobles and the savages in the National Party. We have been there before. It really isn’t such a big deal when a rock is displaced.
Racism is universal and no community has yet found an honest and workable solution. It is not a uniquely human condition, although we are probably the only species with the capacity to overcome, if we so choose.
Whether the territory we claim is physical or philosophical, it is our determination to measure degrees of superiority between individuals and groups that fosters the antipathy for anything “different”. What we do not understand is inherently “inferior”, what does not satisfy our own needs is “wrong”.
True democracy is based on true equality. Sadly, humans do not function well as equals - they look for leaders, for rules and for enforcers - and they succumb remarkably easily to “brain-washing”. Our best hope is that enough of the leaders we put in place (allow to take up place) understand the awesome responsibility on their shoulders to keep the peace. Not many do…
“Welcome to the club. there is no doubt that YOU are one of the top ten progressive intellectuals who exposes inherent white racism in the status quo.”
No doubt the mental acrobatics involved in finding excuses for black deficiences is worthy of our baited-breath admiration, but the rest of us should stick to more earthbound explanations - lest we all end up with broken necks. How does Christi’s warmed-up neo-Marxism account for the fact that Europeans have always been wealthier than white South Africans, despite the shortage of black exploitees on that continent? How does it account for the fact that the SA’s blacks have under apartheid enjoyed a higher standard of living than on the rest of the continent? Maybe the starting point should be not to uncritically assume “whiteness” as the cause of white superiority, but to leave open the possibility of “whiteness” being merely the consequence.
Owen, you might not have read my initial submission because your last paragraph confirms what I said in my last two sentences. It is snobbish attitudes like yours that reduce Africa to nothing but a recipient of investment and aid from the West and China that mean we have a long way to go before we can begin to treat each other as human beings. With your mentality, we, the downtrodden of this continent are expected to be grateful because without the West/Chinese largesse we would be the poor relatives of humanity – interestingly, we are in spite of the investment you’re talking about.
There is no doubt that investment/aid plays a positive role (and a negative one in some cases). But investment would only go where there’s a possibility of at least recouping the initial capital outlay. It’s not as if an investor is driven by virtuous motives. Investors are in the business of making money. The other side of the coin is to realise that investing in a country means paying the necessary dues to the recipients of the investment. It’s only recently that this realization has been acknowledged. Guys such as King Leopold and their descendants benefited magnificently from Africa’s riches without paying the necessary dues. This is history that informs the current status quo and one that you and people like you find difficult to acknowledge. Obviously, with the dehumanization of the other that has been an integral aspect of that history it’s not hard to understand why people like you are not only myopic but forgetful too when it comes to history. As a start, it might do you a lot of good to read “King Leopold’s Ghost”.
Please explain to me how the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians could deal with “whiteness” in a successful manner, but (South-ern) Africans do not seem able to do so?
“Whiteness” is not the issue - cultural adaptability and confidential implementation of re-building a society are the issues. After all, the Japanese were nuked and fire-bombed to ragged ruins, the Koreans lost millions in their peninsular war with Seoul reduced to ruins, and the Chinese lost 20 million plus more in their recent devastated history.
These cultures (particularly the Japanese) have shown the possibility of taking “whiteness” and it institutions and adapting it to their own purposes quite successfully.
Meanwhile back at the bosberaad/lekgotla the South Africans (when they are not bickering) do not seem to move forward….
It is a shame that white people seem to believe that stability in Africa will be achieved by “Western Civilisation”. Black Africans have got the political power but not the economic power and as long as that prevails, we all end up in the Zimbabwe situation because there will always be the likes of Mugabe who will try to correct it. The consequences maybe disastrous, but Black Africans will do everything possible to regain especially their land. Western civilisation or ideals will not always apeal or be better for the black people. We are a proud race with our traditional values which may not always be in tandem with western ideals. Cut us some slack. We will make our choices and even our kind of democracy will not be the British or American type. Vapour seems to believe that unless we embrace everything western then we will fail like Zimbabwe. Well, you only know half the Zimbabwean story. Mugabe had the right idea but the implementation was wrong. It’s a matter of time before a new leader comes to the fore who will have the correct game plan. Remember Mozambique was once an economic right off. Have you been there lately? I guess not.
Accept that we as black Africans will have our aspirations and will do everything (at times wrong) to achieve our goals. Meantime enjoy the privillege you have, remembering that, like Christi pointed out, you are in that position thanks to the dirty racist past that favoured you and the rest of the white population.
Interesting article, and of course, your assertions of how white supremacy was achieved and at least in the main accurate. What worries me about your view point, and those that hold similar views to the fore, is that you place ideology before the hard realities of life, and you play right into the hands of the ‘lets turn history back 400 years’ brigade’ (like the Sandile the court fool) (although they would rather stop at just the 400 of course lest the San peoples were to inherit the land, cos that would not do would it ?(they are of course not ‘real’ Aficans of course).
I must throw my lot in with Gerry, forget trying to argue about how and why we got in this situation, and concentrate on create a society where all citizens have a chance to carve out a life for themselves, through education, training, job opportunities based on ability and not colour, hard work and realistic expectations.
I come originally from the Uk. Must we go back 2000 years and trace the Romans, or maybe the Vikings, or the Normans and restore the Land to the Angels ot the celts?, or is the sensible thing to do to incorporate all that was good and move on. Colonialism built this country, it created wealth, heatlth, education, infrastructure, and the highest standards of living for black Africans on the continent. It is not right that that has been shared out unequally, but had it not been for colonialism we would all be worse off. Right now the poor are getting poorer, not better, because the racist policies of this government are all about restitution and not poverty alleviation, the two of which are diametrically opposed.
Stop living in the past, stop blaming the whites for everything bad that has happened. Accept the benefits from the past, learn from the mistakes and build a truly non-racial society, where everyone has a chance to make a decent life for him or herself.
To achieve that we need skilled workers, and many of them, and they aren’t going to come while there is a witch hunt going on.
Christi I applaud you for this submission in TL it is like a breath of fresh air. Regardless of the fact that some points that you have put forward have not been followed through in your submissions one undoubtedly gets the gist of your input.
Having stated unequivocally the role that whites need to play in order to bring about a more just and non-racial society in SA which I agree with there are a number of questions that I would like to put forward to interrogate the issues of race, subjugation of Africa’s native people and freedom of Africans of all races:
How can white capital that has a majority shareholding in the stock exchange assist in closing the gap between the rich world which is predominantly white and the poor one which is predominantly black? This is to me a million rand question as there has been resistance in the following redistribution measures introduced by Mbeki’s government:
1. Resistance to a moratorium in the sale of state land and prime land being given to BEE initiatives and low cost housing prorammes (Dannone, Joe Slovo and Imizamo Yethu in the Western Cape are examples that come to mind).
2. Resistance by business in effectively implementing the skills revolution programme for transfer of income generating skills and being mentors to emerging businesses and start ups. only a few industrialists are committed to this and one has noticed in most instances it is companies that are owned by foreigners not South African whites.
3. Resistance by mining giants in observing the mining charter and paying royalties to deserving communities that own mineral rights by bribing chiefs and others members of these communities.
4. Resisting to give away land to the rightful owners of land at reasonable prices forcing government to expropriate land (there is a case where this has been decided and approved by the minister of Land Affairs). Also farmers deciding to inflate prices when their farms are earmarked for restitution purposes.
I certainly agree with you that if whites do not act in good faith and realise the mistakes they have made they may find themselves in another Zimbabwe. The arrogance of white land owners cost them their freedom in Zimbabwe.
You also have mentioned that the “battle” between Zuma and Mbeki is about ideas. I really hope it is so however I have my doubts. To be honest with you I find it hard to imbibe COSATU’s rhetoric and take it as a genuine cry for change of policy. If it is really so time will tell. There are certain tendencies within COSATU that make one doubt that the ANC spat is about a battle of ideas with its alliance partners. I have not heard COSATU of late mention anything about the balance of forces at an international level something that to some determines the policies of African governments unless they are stupid enough to invite the economic guillotine that Zimbabwe is facing right now. These are the forces that need to be dealt with thoroughly in order to achieve some freedom and implement our policies without this interference. The AU is undoubtedly aware of this. What has been COSATU’s role in addressing these forces. In my own view there has been no dealing with these issues even in the international forums that they attend. Is it perhaps due to the sponsorships from American sources that have diluted COSATU’s commitment to the general freedom of Africans and Africaness? Time will tell. One analyst did state that if you want to know what is happening in SA and the unfolding political scenario follow the money.
Thank you for your insightful insert. However notwithstanding our clinical view of the matter we must remember that hate and racism has for thousands of years been, maybe incorrectly, justified together with the inevitable natural human reaction to protect oneself and family. We must never forget that this is Africa after all and as history has shown talking or attempting to use a philosophical approach to explain this kind of human behaviour, on this continent, has achieved very little to date. Only history will tell if SA follows lead with the rest of Africa. Never underestimate the rational of hate.
Dear Christi
You are not going to make friends among the Suidlanders and Boeremag and here I am not referring only to those who are open about their white supremacists agenda: there are also plenty of anonymous and undercover operatives who see only black in this countr’s future because the Black man is supposedly in power. Be that as it may, I am grateful that there is someone like you and Steven Friedman and many others of course, who only do not write to condemn, but to put matters in perspective. Your input is much appreciated.
With regards to the Land issue in Zimbabwe. Britain agreed in the Lancester house agreement to
land re-distribution, that would be funded by Britain. The Mugabe regime however opted to re distribute the best farms to Friends and Comrades. When Britain found out how Mugabe & Co was abusing the agreement, they stopped funding the farce.
With regards to how whites benefited: I saw a good quote the other day that went something along the lines of the leaders in SA may have changed from white to black, but the story has remained the same. During the apartheid era. there was an elite group of Afrikaaner men who became extremely wealthy through apartheid. these Men have Been replaced by the ANC elite and their comrades.
While the non white community may have suffered under apartheid, this does not mean that the majority of white South Africans benefited more than their counterparts in say Australia or USA. Most of the benefit was for the few, the owners of industry who benefited from cheap labour.
To the contrary, middle class life, created by our culture was pretty much the same worldwide (apart from affordable domestic help) until legislation was put in place by the ANC to put us at an economical disadvantage to the rest of the South Africans.
While I am glad that the middle class is growing in leaps and bounds here, what I am not glad of is the slipping standards. When I compare how the middle class in other westernised cultures live, we are certainly behind. this is generally caused by Government supported monopolies (Telkom Eskom, the Motor Industry etc) and bad management by the government (Police Health Education etc) causing standards to slip to third world levels.
In countries like New Zealand people can sleep with their doors open at night. They can leave their keys in their cars, and it remains safe. It is fair to compare how other cultures live, because it is good to reflect on the ethics of our culture. It is sad how poor our ethics as a nation are. Individual greed continues to erode our culture. We cannot begin to think about recovering while this attitude prevails. Individual greed is the root of our problem in SA. Unless we can halt it (starting at the top) we will slip rapidly into anarchy.
How did white superiority came about? Why is Africa the victim in this? And why will this continue in the future?
Part of the answers can be found on the tv news bulletin on Kenya the other night. People running around and breaking down everything they see. Do you see similar scenes in Europe and the USA? If you do, are the culprits of European decent?
Its so refreshing to hear that we still have objective white citizens in our country, not the usual arrogance and apartheid denialism that is advocated by Zille and most whites i have encountered.
Without radical reforms in the way our economy operates, we may as well fall into the same trap as Zim.
Lubabalo Ntsholo on January 30th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Craig San people are Africans and so are other indigenous Africans. Do you go on and tell other Africans that they used not to reside in for instance Chad, Senegal or Egypt? Or are you doing this because it is South Africa which is certainly part of Africa.
Other Africans came here thousands of years ago, archaeological research has proved this not your propaganda. Africans came long before 1652 to this southern part of Africa and never displaced the San instead they intermarried with them hence the small physique and short hair.
Christi van der Westhuizen of course belongs to the Sampie Terreblanch school of thought. Their philosophy is simplistic: whites exploited blacks in the past, therefore whites must now divvy up and share their ill-gotten wealth.
Of course, being almost childlike it its naivety, this school of thought very conveniently ignores several realities and questions. The first and most obvious is what one means by poverty. Are blacks poor in comparison to whites? Yes.
Are South Africa’s blacks poor compared to the rest of the continent’s blacks? No, not by a long, long way. They are, on the contrary, the richest black people on the continent. Are the rest of the continent’s blacks perhaps not poor because of the absence of whites?
The other fatal flaw in Christi’s naive wishful thinking is that it ignores the realities of the global village. The very first time Sampie Terreblanche’s restitution fantasies look like coming true, the removals companies will buckle under the load. Each and every white who can, will up and leave for Perth, London and Vancouver.
The above means that only the poor and less successful whites will remain behind. It will also mean the complete collapse of the economy, where the only thing left to redistribute will be poverty such as in Zim.
Indeed one of the better and more balanced posts I have read on TL for some time now. However, I would like to know your views on how we solve the current economic imbalance?
A member of the older generation asked me the other day, “Why is it that Europe became industrial so long before Africa? Why is Africa always so far behind? Does that not say something about the people who live here?”
I answered quite simply that the vast majority of domesticable plants and animals came from Mesopotamia, while Africa had virtually none. The consequences of this are much further reaching than most people think.
Perhaps if the average person bothered to try and understand how the world came to be the way it is, we wouldn’t be suffering from this disease that is rascism.
All nations the same. All that separates what they become are the circumstances they are born into.
I always feel a little relieved when I read an article that takes a step back and looks from a wider angle, thanks Christi.
I think it was Andre P Brink who said during the early 1990’s that Afrikaners forced their “correctness” onto the other racial groups in SA. Well that has stuck with me, and as a young Afrikaner, I would hate and do hate to see other groups forcing their “correctness” onto me or onto other groups in general.
Whites must accept their part and their economic gain from Apartheid. Once that happen they as a group can contribute in a more positive manner to SA.
Blacks must furthermore understand and accept that all the comments made by whites is not a leveled against blacks merely because they are black. Most of these comments are made because white understand, and lived through a oppressive regime which the supported and the supported steps to change that regime. Most of the whites in this country truely wants to contribute in a positive manner.
Moet nooit jou/julle korrektheid op ander mense afdwing nie.
Rather than answers, some questions for us to discuss:
* What does the Zuma victory at Polokwane tell us about economic transformation in South Africa?
* What are the expectation of his supporters and could this be achieved without drastic changes in our economic policy?
* How will the broader Zuma camp balance the interests of a) his ground-level support, b) the rest of the “motley crew” and c) big business? Is this possible?
Politically correct words (described as “Newspeak” by George Orwell) or indeed strange words do not make for clear argument. “Contestation” indeed! Perhaps you believe that their use puts an intellectual aura to what is clearly a racist-driven diatribe (just like our President, Mbeki).
What is worse is your selective use of historical facts to suit your rant. Whites (or colonialists in PC Newspeak) are not more guilty of savagery than other races. You choose atrocities in the world like Tasmania, but ignore the even bigger ones in the communist states - Russia, Cambodia and China - that were vented on their own citizens.
In dealing with Africa you blithely ignore the savagery of the Zulu against the other tribes, and the Tswana against the Bushmen (San in Newspeak). I am a bit older than you and I remember being in fear because the savagery of the attacks of Zulu mobs against the Indians in my neighborhood in Durban, in the late 1940s.
Perhaps when you looked up the words “black” and “white”, you would have benefited by looking up the meaning of “civilised”. “Civilised” does not mean that civilised peoples do not wage wars (because, in fact, most civilisations did just that). It means that such people are advanced - usually in terms of literacy and science/engineering. Clearly the black tribes in South Africa before the advent of the whites was not “civilised”.
Dictionaries have not “fabricated [the words black and white] out of something as arbitrary as skin colour” as you have contrived to imagine. Black and white are merely colours which amongst other things have been used to describe skin colour. “Yellow” is another colour you could look up.
Like you, I do not support the goings on at Guantánamo Bay. But I think it would be better for us as South African to sort out the abuses in our prisons and the police, before “throwing stones” at the Americans.
Your final insult to reason is to blame whites in Zimbabwe for Mugabe’s outright savagery against them. Perhaps you are too young to remember a similar confiscation in Uganda - of property of its Indian citizens - by its President, Idi Amin. Had you known about it, I suppose in that case too you would have blamed the victims - the racial minority.
I hope you will recover and not trip over words in your future endeavour. And please lay off the racism bit, even if it pleases the politically correct mob and brings in the money.
Is Zuma vs Mbeki really an ideological conflict rather than a fight of who will fill their pockets, control nepotism and have power? Can anyone believe Mbeki represents africanness and Zuma not? They both represent power by the masses by appeal to ‘africanness’ with redistribution of wealth by taking from the haves to give to the have nots. Of course their wealth is not part of the haves and not to be redistributed.
They both represent collapse by “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.”
“From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
They both make a farce of democracy. The ANC made a non-racial constitution then laws like BEE, AA, EE and a host of other racially based laws. They establish freedom of speech as long as you don’t say anything THEY deem racial. From Mandela on they interfered in the judiciary by appointing judges. Now Mbeki tries to do his thing with the Scorpions and Prosecutions to make them do his bidding. We are heading to the democracy of The Democratic Republic of Congo.
The political project of whiteness, as you call it, is what you blame for modern African leaders corrupting democracy to create autocracies? This is a new twist on ‘blame whitey’. It was whitey that introduced savagery, plunder and murder. White turned Blacks in autocratic dictators. Guess whites made Shaka, Mzilikazi, etc. We whites seem to be to blame for every ill.
You blame whites for the concept of civilized as a negative concept? Need I remind you that without whites bringing ‘civilisation’ the vast mass of this country would not be able to read and write, nor have computers to read this on? Without white civilization there would not be roads, medicine, education etc. Life would be short, hard and brutal in Africa.
Whiteness is not presented as synonymous with civilisation, we defined civilization: modern medicine, science, engineering, political systems etc and every other branch and institution of modern society was developed by whites, and brought to Africa.
Zimbabwe does not show how the perpetuation of white privilege results in disaster. It shows how Autocratic corruption, nepotism, and incompetence by African leaders results in disaster. You can sieze from the whites, but what then after you have killed the golden goose?
The challenge that liberals must face is that for all their criticisms and all its faults, Apartheid was the only non-colonial system developed in Africa that ever achieved anything without foreign assistance. All though universally hated, no one can deny its achievement. Gustav Venter correctly stated look what it built in 14 years compared to the incompetents in power now.
Rather than build on its successes and allow the hated whites to remain, the ANC and liberals have chosen to gut the apartheid infrastructure, get rid of the experts, discuss redistribution, cause emigration of skilled people, destroy education, and blame the whites for all the ills. Mbeki’s in-law relatives the Mugabes would be proud.
Consulting Engineer on January 30th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Our chance of succeeding in SA depend entirely on our ability to elect a leadership with the wisdom,insight and moral fibre to realise that we can only move forward if we put South Africa first (before race,the past and our greed )in everything we plan say and do.
The quality of the leaders we decide to elect will have a far greater influence on our ultimate destiny than would any idealogical dreams of what was ,what should have been and what is supposed to be.Leadership has made Africa what it was and leadership will determine what it is going to be .
In my opinion we shall start moving forward when the masses learn to vote with their heads and not their emotions .
Steve van Niekerk on January 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
THank you for saying what we’ve always been (trying to) say with no one paying attention. More white people should read this so they understand and stop pretending to be amnesiatic about the past or bling to glaring class differences- which are defined by race
Racism is a problem of superiority in the case of whites and inferiority in the case of blacks. From my perspective it can only be eradicated by black people getting rid of their inferiority rather than begging whites to give up tendencies of superiority.
As a black person I find it impractical and a waste of energy and effort to ask or expect someone who feels superior to change their attitude towards me. I would rather concentrate on making a success out of life to show (not try to prove) that intelligence and competence are not confined to white people.
It seems to me that the only time for africa to “pull itself up by its shoestrings” will be when all the white people leave. It seems to me that according to Christi and some of the bloggers here that all the evil is due to the white man. Strangely enough, if you travel a bit to the north of ZimBOBwe you meet another africa. Where the whiteman’s laws have been deleted many moons ago and where the natives exercise control over the purse strings. Just think about Kenya, Uganda and the “elephant” of Africa, Nigeria. Since independance Nigeria progressed dramaticaly, producing several oil billioners (All Nigerian who live in Sandton, Texas or LOndon) and millions of people living in shacks with a ever crumbling infrastructure. Perhaps that is also the fault of the white man who buys oil? Sadly Christi, no matter how many curses you put on the head of the european, the madness and curse of africa is home brewn. The only solution is for the inteligencia like you to stop being PC and focus on solving the problem. By blaming the whites for everything just removes pressure from the useless idiots in power and allow them to continue in their ways.
Excellent post Christi! Just reading the reactions to your post, and many others on TL, its strikes me how we as South Africans have to go before we will be able to honestly interrogate who we are as ‘a people’.
It seems that your insightful and necessary commentary has served to show just how vehemently people will defend their position when their positions of power and privilege are challenged by someone who is willing to make things a little uncomfortable. It is also interesting that, others use your commentary as ammo to support their own subject positions.
What bothers me is that, for the most part, people commenting on your post have not taken a step back thought about what you are perhaps trying to say and then engaged with your argument. Many comments show how most people are more interested in defending their own positions than enter into meaningful dialogue. I’m starting to think that in our current political climate there is little room for constructive critique and dialogue.
Gustav, Brent, Tsepo… whatever you guys have been smoking, you can make fortunes selling it on! Your contributions are distressingly entertaining.
You certainly opened one heck of a can of beans! But I weep for Africa and my beautiful country again when I read your responses – its obvious that we’re far from a unified reconciled nation. Further away in 2008 than we were in 1994, that’s for sure.
My stomach churns when there are still camps of “us” and “them” in the replies above.
What is a way out for SA? Ideologically speaking: everyone, from the economical left to the political right has to admit, acknowledge and appreciate we’re all in this together. This is OUR country. SA belongs to all those that live in it, and in the best trade-union jargon, an injury to one is an injury to all. We are ALL suffering from power cuts. We are ALL suffering from crime. We are ALL suffering from poor economic policy. We are ALL carrying the burden of an incompetent, corrupt government and bad management.
The only way we can stop this bullshit is to admit that we must ALL stand together, and thoughts of “you whites must be grateful the domestic help did not poison you” and “Africa cant succeed without white intervention” is sick! Literally sick! If you think this way, feel this way – go have your head examined, because you have more issues than National Geographic.
Face the facts: we are here, in SA, here and now, and the problems are our problems. Stop talking blame, finger pointing and whose line is it anyway. All that does is create disrespect at best, hate at worst, and wastes a heck of a lot of time! We could be working together at a solution here, people! Harping on about what “you did you us” solves as many problems as picking your nose and watching TV.
Each and every single South African must stop blame-shifting, stop blaming circumstance and start taking responsibility for their own personal health and well-being. It does not matter how we got here – what matters is how to rectify it. When you break your arm, you don’t worry about how you broke it – you worry about how to fix it.
We have a broken South Africa - one that was very much un-broken in 1994. Lets work out how to fix it.
Ok, ok, fine you got me. Guilty god dammit and nowhere to hide. I was born into privilege that was unfair.
Who do I write the cheque out to?
As a receipt I would like absolution from all sins of my ancestors, the right to keep any land I buy, a statement that the world is now fair, and to get any job for which I am qualified.
Thank you for that. What was done to Indians in Uganda is similar to what has been done to whites in Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe etc.
In fact the success and plight of Indians in africa shows one thing: Indians arrived with nothing, generally as indentured labourers, and generally succeeded everywhere. ‘Apartheid’, and corrupt african rulers never kept them down. White ‘racism’ never prevented success. So why others use whites as an excuse for their failure?
Maybe Indians and Whites succeed due to cultures that stresses hard work, education, dedication to your family and race, and consideration of the future? Maybe we are not interested in RDPs, redistribution etc. and focus more on how to carve out our own niche?
The same is seen in America. Every immigrant group succeeded, save one. They are still busy trying to convince everyone of who is to blame and to implement quotas and hand out programmes.
Consulting Engineer on January 30th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
aSomeone here wonders whether anyone has ever seen scenes from Kenya repeated in, among other places, Europe. We didn’t have TV in the days when the Danes burnt down Swedish cities, to mention but one example. There are many European cities of which one can trace the exact date when they were founded. Why? Because that was when they were founded for the last, not the first time. What you have to decide is whether you want Africa to come right or not in your lifetime. Maybe, though, it might take a little longer, but the duration of one’s own lifetime is meaningless in the broader historic context. To think you can demonstrate the correctness of your argument just because you can point to a TV screen really isn’t all that bright, given your apparent advantage in intellectual pursuits.
This article is pure cliche. In a political context it is irrelevant what whites say, do or aspire to, because what really matters is how the black people of this country take ownership of their political and economic freedom. It is there for the taking as demonstrated by the rapidly growing black middle class. They siezed the moment and have better things to do than read and respond to this type of article
anton kleinschmidt on January 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
@Gerry
You hit the nail on the head: the country is worse now and less reconciled in 2008 than 1994. Guess why? Racial conflict and antagonism caused by the ANC and their policies. This while they hide behind their non-racial BS jargon and deluded White liberals blame whites. The ANC has managed to create more racial friction than Apartheid! wow! Quite impressive.
The biggest deluded PC liberals who lived on Apartheid and favoured the ANC, like Gordimer and Suzman, are gone. Emigrated when what they wanted didnt happen. Liberals cause division due to immpossible promises and expectations and totyally inpractical ideas.
There is a solution. Don’t vote for a party that keeps implementing racial laws and blaming the past or whites. They only have a legacy of failure. Don’t vote for a party that sidelines competent people in favour of ones who have black skin and are ANC aligned. In no way will they bring reconciliation. Don’t vote for liberals who live somewhere left of cloud cuckooland.
Gerry you did what you blame everyone else off: you blamed the white and black racists for the problems.
Maybe we need an alliance of white and black racists to depose the PC liberals and their ‘why can’t we just get along’. Lets agree to hate each other in peace and not play games with PC nonsense that never works in reality.
Wat se jy? Any Black racists want to join the VF+? ha ha?
Consulting Engineer on January 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Christi seems to blame “some white people’s insistence that they ‘have worked hard’ for what they have and therefore see no reason for ameliorative steps such as the employment equity and black economic empowerment laws” for the fact that “Comprehensive redress is … avoided, which is why socio-economic inequality in South Africa remains staggeringly high”.
Yet, since 1994 the country has not been ruled by “some white people”, so their alleged attitude cannot explain the lack of socio-economic transformation. It is precisely under a policy of “employment equity and black economic empowerment laws” that “socio-economic inequality in South Africa remains staggeringly high”.
Not all “white people” who criticise affirmative action and black economic empowerment laws do so because of a belief in their own “hard work” or opposition to “comprehensive redress”. There is also a line of argument according to which it is precisely affirmative action and black economic empowerment laws that stand in the way of comprehensive redress - since these laws allow the government to leave the economic structure of South Africa untouched, thereby ignoring the poor majority, by focusing on the creation of a multiracial elite.
According to this argument, laws focusing on race inequality do not automatically affect socio-economic inequality, whereas laws focusing on socio-economic inequality would automatically affect race inequality - because empowerment of the poor would automatically turn out to be mainly empowerment of black people, given that the majority of poor are black and the majority of blacks poor.
One may agree with this argument or not, but it is not an argument based on the premise of white superiority, nor one inspired by opposition to change. It is also an argument put forward by South Africans of all races - including some of our strongest black intellectuals, such as the leftist Neville Alexander.
JK, JK, read below, France is in Europe: The 2005 civil unrest in France of October and November was a series of riots and violent clashes, involving mainly the burning of cars and public buildings at night starting on October 27, 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois. Events spread to poor housing projects (the cités HLM) in various parts of France. A state of emergency was declared on November 8, 2005. It was extended for three months on 16 November by the Parliament.[1][2][3] The biggest riots since the May 1968 unrest were triggered by the accidental death of two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, in Clichy-sous-Bois, a working-class commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, who were chased by the police and tried to hide from the police in a power substation where they were electrocuted.
Well said. The problem though is that almost everyone else is defensive in SA today. It seems for MOST white people Africa and SA in particular (judging from the comments) is a forgone conclusion of doom and failure. On the other hand for MOST black people criticizing the corruption and incompetence in gvt amounts to racism. Unless we the citizenry realise that our fate is in our hands and take steps to force politicians to account, SA is on its way to destruction. We seem to be obsessed with trying to prove which race/grouping is superior instead of doing our part to make SA a better place for our children.
I believe that the biggest threat to democracy in SA today is not the politician, its the citizenry. Politicians have no absolute power, its your vote that gives them the power to govern. But with the fractured citizenry such as ours preoccupied with notions of perceived superiority the politician is laughing all the way to the ballot box.
When white man came to africa there was no bridges, no roads, no sanitation, no harbours, no hospitals, no trains, no factories, no literature, no written history, no universities, no libraries, no newspapers, no deep level mines, no scientific discoveries, no avaiation, no ships, no textiles, the list goes on and on …
Why weren’t there any of these? Why now all the huggaballoo about the havs and have nots? This feeling of ENTITLEMENT is just killing me. Just because somebody else created something you are not entitled to be get a share.
Thank you for your contribution, Christi ~ you are truly a voice of reason in what is mostly a din of insecure grasping at extreme identification with race in order to make sense of the present state of our country. Lets not forget that behind all the desperately constructed polarities there is a whole truth, and lets hope that we all can face it with courage and so heal our country!
“What is therefore at stake here is how our democracy will be defined. What will be the content of our democracy? Will it be democracy in name only?”
South Africa’s current leaders are in effect “the Whites of yesteryear” with their efforts to become unduly enriched and with the way they are trying to stymie the media, legal due process, independent accountability bodies, etc
Andrew Feinstein’s “After The Party” is a clear account of how far they have fallen…
Are we going to end up throwing the same Mugabe rhetoric around by blaming the colonialist/apartheid regimes of old for all our problems and inability to reach our goals?
Reading some of the above responses, one thing becomes scaringly clear: many whites still refuse to own up to the fact that colonialism was evil and brought little or no advantages to this continent. Roads, electricity, western medicines and religion - name whichever infrastruture or cultural property imaginable - can never make up for the enormous losses suffered by the indigenous peoples of South Africa which include loss of land, identity, family life, independence, freedom and self respect as a direct result of these strangers invading their space and taking over their lives. Only when (we) whites fully accept and understand what is happening here can we start addressing the racism that is prevalent amongst so many of (regardless of colour) us.
Otherwise the pattern will continue: blaming to and fro, never getting anywhere, never solving the dreadful poverty and inequalities that still exist. The blame game also doesn’t help the crime situation - it is really high time that whites realise that it is not only whites that are victimised by criminals. It is time for pro-active thinking. Following Christi van der Westhuizen’s cue might be a good place to start.
Let’s take a major gamble and replace incompetent managers and unskilled workers in Govt.offices ,municipalities and Eskom with people (black or white)selected using proper HR selection processes.This would truly be a first for any new democracy in Afica .I wonder what would happen if we dared to do this - in conjunction with revamping our existing skills training and education structures.
The question is do we currently have the citizenry and the elected leaders able to put this together.Christi in my opinion your efforts in answering this question will make more of a contribution towards getting us out of the whole we are in than us worrying about who thinks themselves superior to others.
Steve van Niekerk on January 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Christi,
Thank you for this excellent article. I still maintain that most acquired wealth under capitalism, colonialism and imperialism is ill-begotten wealth -somewhere down the line if traced back through previous generations- originating in the violent conquest and theft of lands,and the subjugation and exploitation of the conquered. The rags to riches fantasies are few and far between. Most successful individuals benefitted from their own class priviledge or the special racial privileges accorded under apartheid and /or colonialism. Furthermore , poverty is always relative and thus it is the wealth gap within a country which invokes the rage and anger. In SA, for obvious historical reasons , this wealth gap is racially polarised and given our very recent history of apartheid criminality this does not bode well for the future of this country should this yawning chasm between the haves and have-nots gets wider and wider.The looming crisis of peak oil- the era of the end of cheap oil will most definitely exacerbate the poverty and hardship in our country as it curbs future economic growth and threatens capitalism itself. How we as a society manage this crisis while at the the same time redressing the economic injustices of the past presents us a daunting challenge indeed.
Yaj
please see www.aspo.org .za
Blacks are not the indigenous peoples of South Africa. The Nguni people migrated south from the Cameroun Basin reaching SA slightly before the Whites, except for the Cape, where whites arrived first.
The indigenous people are the San, who are not Negroid but of a separate race - the Kapoids, genetically unrelated, just like the Aborigine Blacks are unrelated to Africans. Their land was taken, they suffered enormous losses, lost identity, family life, independence, freedom and self respect as a direct result of these Black strangers and colonists invading their space from the North. Whites as colonists have as much rights as Blacks since we both migrated here. Except we didn’t wipe out the people we found here.
You don’t ask Blacks to own up to invasion and colonialism, nor give up anything. The white version brought modern civilisation and society, which everyone benefits from. There is nothing we need to apologise for. The liberals always resort to name calling like ‘racist’ ‘ apartheid apologist’ etc as they cannot debate with acts and without emotion. Besides, being a Proud White Man is nothing I must apologise for. To be born white and male is only a crime to liberals, for which I must be ashamed. Sorry. I’m not going along with that. My right to exist in my culture is the same as a liberal’s or a Black’s.
You say when we whites begin to understand and accept what is happening here…, why not them Blacks as well?
Equality is a pipe dream. Where does it exist? In every society there are haves and have nots. Even the so called communist classless society had classes.
Consulting Engineer on January 30th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
The TL discussion on race is in danger of liking the sound of its own voice. Move forward. In most cases the above is a tirade of soap-boxers all speaking at once and not taking any cognisance of one another.
Thank you for a thought provoking article, in which you advocate for the “assert[ion] [of] the universality of human rights and democracy”. Permit me to express my humble opinion on this issue. First, the universally accepted doctrines and principles of human rights and democracy have not prevented western countries, who claim to adhere to relevant instruments, from violating them. Second, imposing an internationally recognized or foreign body of principles on an existing and evolving South African culture is not likely to lead to a desired solution. If anything, cultures are likely to expel or at the very least, not readily accept foreign influences. Rather, it is through South Africa’s own culture, premised on its history, from which a South African approach to human rights and democracy must evolve.
Yes, native Africans have suffered as a result of colonialsim, just like native Americans, Native europeans, native asians, native australians, arabs…..etc
Everyone else has moved on. I grew up in Europe, from as early as i remember, i was encouraged to do well at school, to work hard, to pass my exams, to get qualified, because if i didn’t i was not going to be successful in life.
No one ever said that my great great grandfather once owned a farm, and i just need to toy-toy a little and demand a home and land for nothing. Surely 1652 is quite a long way back now.
“Black Africans are experts at re-distributing wealth, they just can’t create any” - can’t remember the author, but food for thought
“As i passed through the African village, life was the same as it always had been. There was a giant boabab tree and the whole village was sheltering under it from the heat of the midday sun. It struck me that this summed up the trouble with africa…… no-one had even considered planting a second tree (paraphrased)” - Dark Star Safari - Theroux
Why in a country in which the black man has been given every possible advantage through AA, BEE etc, since 94, are the black Africans the only culture that are moving backwards, whilst the Indians and Coloureds in particular, despite being descriminated against are moving forward?
Could it be the culture of ‘blame whitey’ and ‘you owe me’ that is stopping so many from claiming a heritage they are perfectly capable of building for themselves.
Educate the people then let them make it on their own.
Christi, your blog stokes the fires of the white-haters, and thus negates the very end point you seek to promote: racial harmony.
what more can i say? except that using ‘privileged white zimbabweans’ to further inflame your discourse is mythical in the extreme.
Regarding this desire for ‘Redress’: what form do you envisage this taking? We have already tried the ‘reparations tax’ method …. obviously that was not enough. Perhaps we should have an annual public holiday where every single “white” Saffie is required to present themselves to a public arena. There they will kneel down and apologise to the nation before handing over half their worldly goods. Think that would work?
When, dear South Africans, are we going to start talking and writing about Real Racial Harmony? Logically, you cannot set apon such a mission with hate, or revenge, or redress in your heart.
Ja, fashion trends are there to follow,from bell
bottoms to stoves pipes.from ducktails to squares, they were all hot topics, Elvis the Pelvis condemned by many, today if you want to be a popular Thought leader, white bashing is the in thing.
The ANC’s motto should actualy be ‘ If it is white it aint right’ colgate tootpaste excluded unless
labelled for ‘Whites teeth only’
.
Throw a couple of loosely knitted thoughts together bash the Americans in the process, and
Vola the have recipe of a great popular blog.
Even the Profs will applaud you.
Now dear if you had a choice,what would you prefer
that the Americans stayed at home and German the
popular Lingo today or that thousands of young Americans Blacks included died like flies on the beaches of Normandy to free us all and so that you and so called other intelectuals can spit your venom on this blog and potray blacks in general as holy peaceful uncorruptable people who never disposed any indigenous tribes of land.
Let me tell you what I told your great admirer and
misinformed spin doctor Sandile Memela, no party came to the negotiation table with clean hands.
So get of you high moral horse and face reality,
Africa was no peaceful Utopia, where all the tribes
lived in harmony and sang in unison ‘Let’s all
stand together’
Nor had it reached the state of civilisation of the South American indigenous people. No on the
contrary it was a continent torn apart by tribal
feuds just as it is today.
Yes I know one ofyour great poets wrote about Johannesburg ,it lights and the flick
of the knives. Yes attrocities were committed,
are you ready to say the same?
For more about land issues,read the Great South African Land scandal by DR Phillip du Toit.also recommended Cry Zimbabwe by Peter Stiff and an
unpopular War ‘from afkak to bosbefok’ by J H
Thompson.Another good read is The illustrated Boer
War by Thomas Pakenham.
AND for heavens sake stop being the Masters Voice!!
Christi,
My goodness surely there are more pressing issues at this moment in SA (after 14 years of democracy) than perceived white privilege or superiority.It would seem that for some or other reason you are obsessed with hating whites (especially Afrikaners)to such an extent that all your energy and efforts are employed trying to get back at them.
Why don’t you apply your mind to the following concerns that actually threaten our democracy and indeed our destiny as a country:
a )The inability of the masses to vote inteligently with their heads and not their hearts,
b )The failure of the ANC led govt.to produce a better life for all especially the poor,
c )The obsession of the Zuma clan to destroy the scorpions,
d )The causes underlying the Eskom crisis
Surely your undivided efforts toward providing solutions to these glaring problems in our country would allow you to make a more constructive contribution.
Steve van Niekerk on January 31st, 2008 at 9:19 am
Mildly interesting i suppose. However, whenever the intellectuals start writing something, take into consideration that in trying to win over the affections of those percieved to be of intellectual fibre, it is often assumed that one first clarifies ones position of not being in favour of Thabo Mbeki. This is called populist intelectualism where truth is sacrificed in the name of conformity. The intellectual conformists pat each other on the back for being so ‘independent minded’ when in actual fact, it is only an attempt not to deviate to far from the collective as to be ridiculed for not producing what is essentially known as, conformist behaviour. Conformist behaviour does not lead to solutions precisely because when one conforms, one does not ask too many questions therefore not too many answers shall be given. Asking a set of questions that’s constructed within a set of boundaries is merely an act of repeating a question and getting the same answer.
There is nothing more pressing for liberals in the New SA than to present their struggle credentials to the new Black Baases in the hopes of being fed scraps from the table. They are so busy fawning over laws and policies that discriminate against them and the future of our children, and their ears are so full of their own apologies that they cannot hear the laughter from Blacks and Whites alike. Their heroes are Adriaan Vlok and FW. Is there something worse than a man who won’t stand for his people?
Why do they not ask for apologies for Dingaan’s se Kraal and Weneen?
Where were all these liberals before 1994? It seems today like almost everyone was against Apartheid and the Nat. It’s amazing. The Nats were in power 45 years yet no one seems to have voted for them.
@Phil Craig
Welcome broer. They don’t want to move on. There is plenty of money to be made from white guilt; from whites silly enough to fall for this hoax. ‘Give me your wallet, keys and cell phone, and half your assets due to the sins of your ancestors’.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Seldom have I read such nonsensical tripe.
Talk about whites “leaving out historical facts” .
Dear me.
The exploitation and bloodletting was going on long before the white man got here.
Tribal conflicts raged across the continent - black tribes busied themselves murdering, raping and pillaging.
As they moved across the country, they left behind complete devastation - not one school, clinic, or KFC.
Now come the white tribe - who certainly did not kill as many peolpe as had taken place before they arrived.
Thanks to the white “tribes”, miniscule African populations suddenly grew exponentially, thanks to medcine and their stabilising influence.
The so-called colonial “exploitation” resulted in roads, schools, clinics, radio, television, libraries, education, reading, writing and arithmetic and for the first time in the history of Africa - enough food for all.
And when the white tribe were fianlly forced by black racists to leave - many with nothing - they left behind a working infrastructure.
Something the war- like, invading black tribes never did.
Of course that infrastrucure has crumbled to nothing in most parts of Africa and the ANC through their racists BEE policies are ensuring that the same thing will happen here.
Africa was never the happy little pastorial paradise before the white man got here - a trip to Darfur or Somalia will show you what it was really like.
The goody-two-shoes brigade love to call white people racists - but the history of Africa shows that tribalism is a million times worse.
Well said broer but if you want to get ahead in the new SA you have to couch it in PC speak:
Before bloodthirsty whites arrived, African tribes lived in peace. Great Black empires expanded and build great civilizations and structures. They leaved so at peace with nature that they left behind not one school, clinic, or KFC to pollute the environment.
Now come the racist white tribe - great universities were destroyed by whites to eradicate all the civilization. They imposed themselves on Black culture by reducing all the killing that had taken place before they arrived. Thanks to the white “tribes”, miniscule African populations were forced to suddenly grow exponentially, thanks to Eurocentric medicine, that was stolen from Africa anyway.
The colonial “exploitation” resulted in roads, schools, clinics, radio, television, libraries, education, reading, writing and arithmetic and for the first time in the history of Africa - enough food for all. All built with Black labour so that whites could glorify themselves.
With liberation, the racist white oppressors tribe were finally forced by freedom loving blacks to leave – so that Black dictators could share in the wealth. They left behind infrastructure that started to collapse due to white sabotage. They are so evil they don’t feel enough guilt to keep giving in perpetuity, and the limit their Foreign Aid to a 5% of their GDP. They should give 50%.
The enlightened ANC through their BEE policies are ensuring that the same thing will happen here so that the evil whites can be blamed and exposed for the racists they are.
White people are racists - the history of Africa is only blighted by them, and life in Europe is a million times worse.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 10:54 am
Consulting engineer your plan to separate indigenous Africans will not work. Nguni people are African regardless of where they originally came from. Most Africans do not reside where they originally came from and that is not an issue with Africans. Why are you on spreading this propaganda as if South Africa is the only state in Africa that has Africans who do not originally come from it. Africans were nomads and that is a fact. Europeans came from Europe and that is a fact and they killed as many San people as they could afford thinking that this will be another Australia and to crown it all told lies in the history books that they all died of small pox
You agree africans are migrants, as are whites. Therefore the lie is that we are colonialists and you are natives with more rights. Of course most africans are migrants, as are most whites. The rubbish is to somehow claim Blacks have always been there and whites are the only intruders who take land from others. If whites owe any apologies then Blacks do as well, as colonialists.
If the origin of africans is not an issue to africans then why the xenophobia? Why do they get upset about the inflow of Mozambqiuans? After all, they are brother african migrants. Why do they get thrown of trains? And what about Zimbabweans and all the other migrants from the failed and failing states in Africa?
Africans were migrating here even during Apartheid. They must be masochists to break into the oppression of Apartheid rather than have ‘freedom’ at home. Or were the fences to keep our people from breaking out of the hell of Apartheid to the paradise elsewhere?
Regarding Whites killing off people or spreading disease with intent, why did the number of africans grow immensely after the arrival of whites if we wanted to kill them off? The only spreading of disease I know is by the ANC with their ostrich approach to AIDS.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This is in the old history books not in some rock. I do not agree that Ngunis are migrants. They come from Africa period. Whatever propaganda you spread Ngunis are indigenous Africans and whites came from Europe period and that is the truth.
I say these things not to advance racial hatred but to stop you from telling untruths
Consulting engineer, you say: “To be born white and male is only a crime to liberals…” Strange, some of my best friends are white, male… and “liberal”.
Also, I suspect you believed what your white history teacher tought you in the fifties - if I guess your age correctly. It might thus be quite a shock for you to learn that there exist ample archeological evidence of black communities living on the Melville koppies in JHB about 500 years ago, to name one area. You don’t have to believe me, look it up. Remains of black societies dating back to the pre-colonial days have also been found in other provinces.
I always find it amazing that certain people seem to think that white South Africans should be commended for not killing black South Africans, always referring to the white invaders of the Americans, Australia and New Zealand. Although I suppose we should thank the gods that at least not all blacks were killed during apartheid.
Why on earth do some of you “unliberals” keep thinking tribal conflict between Africans gave white colonialists the right to do what had been done to these indigenous communities? Oops, sorry, I forgot: two wrongs indeed do make a marvellous right, old boy! Pass the G&T…
Africans have been confined within certain borders called states in the post colonial era. remember those borders were created by colonial governments who fortunately had the gun powder that they used to concur Africa and they subdivided it into states. Now there are separate entities that Africans are used to residing in hence the xenophobic tendencies. Please wake up do’nt do this to yourself. Stupidity or cheating will not take you anywhere. Just learn to speak the truth.And stop protecting the ills committed by whites at whatever cost.
The only nation that ever admitted to the world that they illtreated the Jews are the Germans and God is blessing them. Do not hide behind untruths learn to face the sins committed by your forebears then we will be able to move on. The schism that is there between black and white is due to the denials by the white race. Just be noble enough to admit the truth
I was not even born in the 50s, never mind school.
About the age of first Black invasion, it is correct. On EIAs we have to do archeological investigations. Blacks moved in in about the 1400s. but did not reach the Cape. Point is they are migrants, like whites.
It is you who called them indigenous, which they are not. Not any more than whites are.
Bushmen were in the N. Transvaal, Natal etc. Where Blacks went they were exterminated. Bushmen in white areas of theh Cape survived, although yes whites killed them when they raided cattle.
Fact is whites never had a policy to exterminate anyone. Unlike the attempts to exterminate all the whites by the Xhosa chiefs and Dingaan.
And what is it that was done to them? Facts please.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
@ Maria
Un-liberal. what an awful name. Any label with liberal is awful. I would rather be called racist. If believing there are differences bewteen races and preferring the company of my own makes me racist, then I don’t mind.
@XNM
You think Germany is doing well? They are stagnant with high unemployment, aging, no one has children due to pessimism in the future etc. They have lost their pride. Without a belief in your people you have nothing. You want white saffers to be spineless like that and prostrate themselves? Let the liberals do that, and the odd foot washer.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Archaeological finds show that Africans lived here in South Africa thousands of years ago, not only five hundred years back. Let the consulting Engineer smoke what we do not smoke to come up with the lies he is telling. His forefathers come from europe and we are indigenous Africans that is a fact. Let him dream on
The Ngunis are migrants from West Africa. That is fact, not propoganda. They come from Africa and are of the Negroid Race. The San people are from southern Africa and are of the Kapoid Race. Negroid people spread into the lands of others, just as whites did.
Whites came from Europe, which also had many migrations. Whites migrated further afield as well.
No one makes an issue of it except Blacks. It is only them that can’t get over the issue of migrations, even though they migrated themselves.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Dear Old NXM and Maria cannot deny that the “white tribes” left more behind in Africa when they were kicked out by black tribists than what was left by the black marauding tribes that raped and pillaged their way across Africa before the whites arrived.
No black invader EVER built a school, a hospital, or a soccer pitch, built roads, OR Tambo or even low cost housing.
Colonialism - a black derogatory word for “whites” - left them much better off than the “black” colonialists who invaded them.
Those settlements in the koppies around JHB of which you speak were probably the survivors of those kraals that had been destroyed by savage marauding tribes, hungry for blood, women, and cattle.
Violent tribal wars were endemic to the whole continent - just as they are today.
It is interesting to note that more and more thinking people all over the world are coming to realise that what is happening in Africa today cannot be blamed on the migration of whites.
A recent Time Magazine feature showed that the USA and many countries in the world are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the African propensity for violence, crime, rape and escalating tribal conflict.
It has been postulated that the huge gap, socially, intellectually and materially between the white tribes and the black tribes was a bridge too far. That just by being in Africa with all their magical toys ; guns, wheels, books, cameras, aircraft, wireless and take away chicken - black Africa was consumed by a continental inferiority complex which survives to this day.
Thus the ANC racist policy of BEE.
History, however, will prove them wrong; legislated social changes have never achieved what they set out to do. Cuba, the Soviet Union, China….even the Nazis failed.
And when South Africa fails, as it surely will, where will loonies like Mugabe get their power/food/medicine etc from.
Perhaps then it will be the age of the yellow colonialists.Now there’s a thought - Zuma eating pap with chopsticks.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I am sorry to be harsh to you. But your tendency to separate Africans from different ethnic groups or what you prefer to call racial groups will not change the fact that they all come from Africa. It is like saying that People who came from Egypt thousands of years ago and now reside in Ethiopia or Sudan do not belong there despite the fact that they are Africans and merely reside in those enclaves due to the balkanization of Africa and the changing political landscape. Why is there an emphasis about Africans that are in South Africa that they are not from here makes me wonder really.
More black tribism/racism that’s getting harder for the media to cover up.
‘We don’t want coloureds here!’
A legal row over the sale of a Khayelitsha house has blown up into a racial war, with Khayelitsha residents stoning the home of a new “coloured” neighbour.
After a protracted legal battle, teacher Adrian Adams was due to move into the house on Monday, but residents welcomed him with a stream of abuse, saying he belonged in Mitchells Plain and alleging that coloured people would bring tik into the area.
Ownership of the house has been disputed for some time, with the previous owner, Nozibele Stamper, refusing to vacate the premises to make way for Adams.
Then on Tuesday night the animosity erupted into violence after a crowd of residents gathered outside the D-section house in support of Stamper.
When the Cape Argus team arrived at the house at 5pm, the 100-strong crowd appeared hostile, but were protesting in orderly fashion.
The team left for 20 minutes - and returned to find the windows shattered by stones. The crowd had grown to about 400.
Adams was not at home at the time.
The mob threatened two security guard Adams had hired to watch the house. He had also deployed two Doberman guard dogs.
Security guard Nazeem Isaacs, of GRD Security, said the crowd had become violent, forcing him to call the police.
“All of a sudden they started throwing stones at me and (the other guard) Mbulelo (Maswana). Everything went fine yesterday, but after what I saw today, I’m not putting my life in danger for someone else - I have children to support,” he said.
The crowd sang and jeered at a dozen police officers who tried to disperse them peacefully.
They dispersed soon after 6pm.
Adams, who had been warned of the crowd’s presence, had stayed away.
A neighbour said people were more willing to support an old neighbour than one they “didn’t care about”.
When he entered the house on Monday, Adams stood in an empty kitchen as residents hurled insults at him.
“Go back to Mitchells Plain, we don’t want coloureds here!” they shouted. Others said they feared coloured people would introduce tik to the area.
The dispute arose after the house was sold as part of a divorce settlement, with Stamper and her former husband sharing the proceeds.
But Stamper denied having received the money.
Seven months after the sale, she was still occupying the house. Then on Monday she was evicted by the sheriff of the court, accompanied by City Police.
Her belongings were stacked up on the pavement outside the house as Adams cowered inside.
“By sunset all these things (household goods) will be back in … and we will get rid of him,” one woman said.
Adams told the Cape Argus that “as a single-income guy I could only afford a lower-bond house”.
“Besides, I don’t have a problem living in Khayelitsha … I taught in Langa for years, am comfortable with black culture and even speak Xhosa,” he said.
Besides his day job as a teacher at Woodlands High School, he moonlighted as a “network marketer”, helping people start small businesses. He has clients in Khayelitsha.
He bought the two-bedroomed house for R190 000 and had it registered in his name last June.
He has been paying a bond on the property since last July although he has been unable to move in.
“I’ve gone from being credit-worthy to being blacklisted, as I pay a bond (for the house) and rent in Mitchells Plain, where I stay,” he said.
“Normally ‘There goes the neighbourhood’ would be directed at coloured and black people when they moved to white areas.
“I never thought it would be levelled at me in Khayelitsha.”
Adams said his problems had begun when Stamper contested the sale of the house after it had already been registered in his name.
She went to the Cape High Court in an effort to have the sale ruled illegal but the court ruled in Adams’s favour and issued an eviction order against her.
Stamper did not give up and appealed against the High Court ruling in a magistrate’s court.
In December she lost the appeal and the court ordered her to vacate the house on or before January 11 or be evicted on January 16.
Adams alleged that during the court case, an SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco) member who called herself Mabel had phoned him to say he couldn’t move to the area because he was coloured.
Sanco’s Vuyiswa Madubela said the organisation had become involved in the issue because they felt the correct procedure had not been followed in selling the house.
“While normally a time frame of three months is given before an auction, in this case the house was sold in a matter of days,” she said.
Madubela distanced Sanco from racist statements by residents, as did ward councillor Princess Kotyi .
SA Human Rights Commission spokeswoman Judith Cohen said: “I think it’s the fear of the unknown. I can’t think of any suburbs in Cape Town that are truly representative. It’s not surprising then that people who are barrier-breakers are confronted by these stereotypes.”
Don’t try and confuse liberals with facts. What you must believe is preordained for them. Blacks were always here and had great lives until whites came and ‘killed’ them. You can give them any evidence that Blacks have only been here 500 years and that previous inhabitants were not Negroid, but unrelated Capoids and older hominids. They will brush it off as racist.
They will insist that Lucy, 1 million years old is Black. That they cannot provide any evidence that older remains are Negroid makes no difference to them. All they must insist on is that Blacks have always been here and evidence makes no difference. They are still ‘african’. To question or provide evidence to the contrary is racist.
That is the thing about trying to debate with the ignorant. They cannot debate. They resort to name calling as they have no evidence to support their views.
You may as well go to Europe and try and provide evidence that the holocaust never happened. You will get rulings like Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen “It is irrelevant whether the Holocaust occurred or not. Denying it is a punishable offense.”
The facts, truth or evidence is irrelevant. To even question their version is a punishable offence. Democracy and free speech is great isn’t it? If you would only forget facts and just agree.
Dennis, you question the liberal’s version. You are found guilty of the crime of racism. You have already pleaded guilty and are branded for life. Brother, do you want to share a cell? Its lekker there. You can say what you please without worrying about being PC.
Consulting Engineer on January 31st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I believe, inorder to move foward we need to forget and forgive what happen in the past. I have seen Whites are now struggling to make ends meet. And some blacks living large. People should be judged by what they achieve thru hard working given a fair playing ground nomatter white or black.Im here in UK supprizing most Whites from Africa are not total intergrated.Most will prefer to hung around with blacks.I will like to think because we can talk about the same thing and have alot more in common despite colour.As South Africans we need to have a common consenceses on how to impower each other.
Some interesting points.
Sad fact of the matter is that TRIBISM - the black form of RACISM has killed millions more black people in Africa than colonialism ever did.
This was happening long before the white man came and started again, particularly after the white man left and took law and order and civilisation with him.
Also it should be apparent to the goody-two-shoes brigade that incidents like the recent shootings by a white youngster will become more frequent as the ANC racist policy of BEE excludes more and more white youngsters from the economy.
They will attempt to justify it just like Magoo Bar Bomber McBride tried to justify the murder of inoccent people because blacks were being discriminated against.
You would think that people would learn that any form of discrimination is wrong and that it ends up creating more hate.
But in a country where blacks dislike indians, Zulus dislike Xhosas, Christians dislike the Jews, Muslims dislike Christians, we all dislike the Yanks and the Poms, Afrikaners dislike the English and vice versa…….what hope does the place have?
Time to close my business and move on.
The point I was trying to make is that Blacks in South Africa, and Mozambique, Zimbabwe etc, are migraants and colonials as well that moved into the lands of another race, as did whites.
Hence we are both the same and being Black gives no special right in that regard. Maria tried to claim Blacks were indigenous to say some only whites are guilty of taking the land of others. That canard cannot be used to justify anything.
If you say egyptians are african, and being african gives you rights to move around africa as you pllease, then do they have rights to just move anywhere in africa and take land? Clearly no.
Consulting Engineer on February 1st, 2008 at 9:04 am
Yes, in the ‘old’ history books, we were told that Ngunis are migrants. I actually stopped believing that about 25 years ago. It is a fiction that was created to ‘equate’ the newcomer status of the colonialist to us. We were never migrants, ever. There is just way too much archeological evidence against this theory for any true thinker to believe it. Yes indeed, my people, only the likes of Consulting Engineer, mr racial purity himself, would believe that. (Sorry, Mr Engineer, you give engineers like myself a bad name actually.)
White power lives on in subtle and infuriating ways. To the Black people, the language, the gestures, the raising of the eyebrow etc. which those of us who grew up way back when are very familar with, is a telling sign that the past is the present.
A useless comment from a cheeky Black like me. Thank you.
Who is using old SA history books? look at the latest DNA research in the genotype project. Check out a site on Natioanl Geopgraphic as well on that research. If I recall, Bantus fall in the M type, from the Cameroun Basin, but I can’t remember. I also seem to recall the Venda are different than the rest of SA Black peoples. But can’t remember exactly. I can look it up if you like.
Fact is, every race has been migrants.
Can you provide any evidence that Negroids were always in SA? I can flood you with scientific research showing you Not.
Consulting Engineer on February 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 am
In every crime against humanity to-date, the perpetrators have been tried with specific instances, eg genocide or specific murders or actions, they have been convicted or acquitted and compensation payed when due.
Our Country is the only case where people, as an entirety, based on the color of their skin, have been convicted without trial, and are being forced to pay compensation - read - waive human rights and dignity. Are forced to apologize for a crime which they are accused of without any recourse , without any opportunity at defense - purely because they are white, they should without reserve plead guilty and be sentenced as such.
This is an atrocity beyond imagination, black victims of apartheid are acknowledged as victims but the condemnantion of whites to a status of convicted criminals without trial is something that the civilized world needs to take stock of.
You cannot conclude that finds you are referring
were the origin of the ‘black people’.They are
more likely to be the ancestors of people
your ancestors disposed of their tribal land!!
‘This is untenable. Zimbabwe has shown how the perpetuation of white privilege and lack of redress (in their case land ownership) can supply ideological ammunition for an anti-democratic project’
This statement seems to be fact but an examination of ‘other’ facts says otherwise. I have seen Zimbabwe’s 1979 Dept of Agriculture’s annual report and plan for the future; there is not one page, one paragraph, one line or even one word on farm and land re-distribution. Then suddenly less than a year later it becomes the main Govt policy, not to redress the land issue (40% of white owned farm land was purchased after independance in 1980) but solely to preserve Magabe in power as he had just lost a referendum. Nothing more nothing less no matter how much intellectuals jap on and over analyse, holding on to power is the cause and reason for Zim’s decent into chaos. The same is happening in Kenya and there is no white ownership of land/farms to blame.
Thank you Christi,this is a stunning exposition of the mechanics of race and power relations in this country. The role of white capital cannot be underestmiated in suBugating the Africa majority. And why do we feel the need to continue apologising for speaking truth to White power?
Instead of people trying to out do each other in terms of their culture, squabbling like two year olds over a toy, why don’t they try and find the good in each, assimilate it and throw out the bad. Cross cultural exchange has been going on for centuries, people from one another and their differences. Apartheid or not, this country is what it is today because of all it’s people, black, brown and white. Whites need to aknowledge the evils of Apartheid and the fact that the inequalities of the past need to be addressed. Blacks need to aknowledge that not all they’ve inherited is bad. Not all whites are trying to bring them down and maybe they can learn something. Vice Versa.
Excellent. Without over-racialising the facts .. privilege does seem to foster respect where it’s own institutionalised privilege is not compromised. We often here that Unionisation is a bad thing or bad when it doesn’t follow business’s rules. Government is bad when it caters for the masses aka government is bad because it can’t meet the needs of the people. While I agree that we are at risk and “true” debate is necessary, I will not side with the boy who cried savage and demean the very valuable revolution that has taken place. Frankly, hungry masses care about as much for freedom of expression as “liberal’ media cares for the hungry masses. In my opinion .. Come to terms with your own selfishness and the view will balance out.
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Christi van der Westhuizen is an award-winning political journalist and the author of White Power & the Rise and Fall of the National Party (2007). She has worked at Vrye Weekblad, Beeld and ThisDay and has regular columns in The Star, Cape Times, The Mercury and Pretoria News and in Media 24's dailies. She has been interviewed for political comment on the BBC, Radio New Zealand, Radio Adelaide (Australia), SAfm, SABC3, e-tv and M-Net.
In 2005, she edited Gender Instruments in Africa: Critical Perspectives, Future Strategies while working as senior researcher in International Relations. Currently she is Inter Press Service's trade project editor for Africa and Europe. She holds an MPhil in political economy and South African politics.
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Its a shame you only see this now. too late… Honeymoon is over.
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