I’m a 54 year old white American,with deep family ties to the southern state of Mississippi, where some of the most infamous race crimes have been committed. I also have deep personal and emotional ties to many friends in Soweto and my brother in Vosloroos. Here in the US I saw the racism of the 60s spill over in to the 70s,80s,90s and in to this new century. Just this past Sunday I was told by a white friend how upset their neighbors were going to be because they had sold their home to….”some african-american woman.” God forbid…she also mentioned that this “woman” was a university professor…so maybe it would be alright. So, more than 100 years after the Civil War does it sound like WE have this issue of racism under control?

Racism is STILL very much alive here. While most people outside of the USA think it’s just a “southern” thing, you are so very wrong. It’s everywhere in this country. Spoken and unspoken daily. I see it and hear it every single day. I’m white..so I MUST agree with the racist idiot who does his black voice when making fun of Barrack Obama right?

I relate these kinds of stories to my friends in South Africa on a regular basis. Why? Because I want South Africa to “get it right”. We certainly have not.

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Yes, I think one can but like all -ism it will take at least 1 generation (ie more than 14 years).

Without sounding tooo much like a settler - 50 years ago my Dad used to say - You can take the african out of the bush, but can you take the bush out of africans? (is that where you got this apartheid saying from?)

The answer today is: yes Africa has changed. So give it time, the Afrikaner with a bit of help from his fellow country men (like yourself) will adapt or we might all die if he does not adapt.

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Jaaa this is a good accurate article . It is espescially pertinent when Christi talks about the otherness . This is a refuge , a groaning post of many dissafected white people .The postaparthied therapy session where one can voice frustrations on the obvious targets and let your own apathy,self indulgence in the degenerate system -cowardice- be eclipsed by your daily experience.I DID and WOULD NOT HAVE VOTED FOR APARTHEID SO WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT!!. However it really stems from a lack of experience in a non-master servant postion, common understanding with people of color and common cause . This can be changed on the sports field(but not through quotas) in the classroom (sic) and through love .Black girls have the best lips hmmhhhmmm.The Violent Femmes had it all right.LOVE and War Baby.
So ja lets get on with it , the analysing and living out the positive conclusions with the odd pain along the way.
Positive day to day , realistic in the long term.
But jaaislike mehn take it easy on Afrikaner hey .Plenty of Englishe voted for the NP and still would.

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From another take on the situation of our campuses:
http://www.wellinformed.co.za/forum/index.php?topic=1336.0

“I would argue that racial integration of campuses is not the reason for conflict at our campuses, rather party and to a lesser extend religion integration. If each student was supported regardless of colour and culture and was integrated based on merit we could finally see a rainbow nation being developed. But this party integration is using students as its peons for political progress. Parties don’t give a shit about what we think or do, they use us to maneuver their own political agendas. I think this is actually a rather large obstacle for democracy as it creates a stagnant democracy based on ideas which are now redundant. Students are almost unwillingly forced to choose between parties based on the acceptance and influence of their peers. The history of our political parties and it’s racial separation will then force our youth apart. This is exactly what this country does not need. Political parties know this, and the gold mine that we the students are will just continue the struggle between these redundant parties of the past.

Just think for one second that all political parties influence was banned at every campus. People will be more open minded, more critical of our future, more willing to work together. This will happen because, when people don’t have their political party of choice agenda to defend, we then no longer have to pussy foot to please our fathers, this way we can learn and mobilise ideas together as students to better our future.”

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Firstly, the racist state is very much there but in a different form and guise. While the ANC’s race based politics are no excuse for the actions of Skielik or the UFS/Reitz video, they certainly do not help. Being treated as a second citizen in your country is why many white south African’s either leave or choose other ways to express their frustration.

Secondly, while I personally found the video abhorrent and in bad taste, the publicity it has received is completely over the top. Your mention of “white on black violence” is absurd. More white South African farmers have been brutally tortured and murdered since 1994 than died in Sharpeville. While the videos are humiliating to the workers, their suffering pales into insignificance compared to the atrocities currently perpetrated against white South African’s by blacks. The fact that we refer to Skielik by a place name means it is an isolated incident. We refer to farm attacks in a generic sense as there as so many.

while there needs to be an aknowledgement of the atrocities of the Apartheid past, it seems like some people have an inability to move on and want to wallow in victimhood or guilt. The impact of this on our future is dire as we will be so focussed on the past, we will not see history repeating itself. The opressed just about always becomes the opressor…

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You are going to get alot of kak from alot of people for writing this. True racism is still alive and well in SA, but painting everybody with the same brush as you did; and comparing Skielik and the video with hanging people makes me think that you have personal issues that you should be concerned about. This is one of the harshest bits of anti-afrikaans propaganda I have read in a long time. Part of the problem is that integration is being forced, force will be met with resistance - it should be encouraged instead. The only way racism will ever be marginalized is through the willing cooperation of individuals seeing other people as inividuals, not as group or race as you are doing.
By the way - do you know if there is any Brittish apology on the cards for the concentration camps or the scorched earth policy of the war. Or maybe from the Zulu people for the massacre at Weenen?
We need to move on - there is a whole new generation out there that will not benefit from being held back by ideologiacal bullshit of the past that nobody can change anymore.

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A more incisive reading would reveal the incident as a case of coded phallocentrism. The white masters taking obvious delight in spending their lifegiving juices to the eager and grateful supplicants. Viewed in this way they are enacting symbolically the white man’s traditional role of benefactor to the benighted blacks, which the white controlled media then enacted in a more literal way in its defense of the perceived helpless and clueless black victims.

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Coming form a VERY privileged background, through my grandparents own hard work (not so called Apartheid money) I left for Europe. How long I will be here who knows, maybe for two more years, maybe never.

Having read through all these articles I do agree that what happened at Bloemfontein must be seen in context of being students and the type of student that would attend that university (mostly from rural farming backgrounds). I am saying that what happened is wrong, but, understandable if seen in context.

Applying the rationale of Christi to all ethnic groups, I should be walking around, thinking that all black men in their 20’s rape old white women and then butcher them afterwards? I should be thinking all Muslims are terrorists. This is not about being controversial or apologetic but I wish humanity will make peace with the fact the there is no such thing as integration. When we all admit that we can say, ‘OK, what now, how can we a secure a place under the sun for everyone’. Being 25 years old I had nothing to do with apartheid. I sometimes even think that it was the best solution for that time. If the Welsh and the English struggle to live on the same island after three hundred years of integration, don’t you think that says something?

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my question is Christi how did you manage to escape the racism that must be boiling in your blood?If 2 UFS students and one mal ou is representitive of the white people in SA they must surely represent you as well? Joe Slovo must be turning in his grave. I phoned a couple of wit ous to see if you are wrong. First i phoned the liberal intelectual wit ous and asked them if the UFS 2 and the mal ou represented them. Their answer was a definate NO. Why i asked?1) Because the UFS 2 posted the video where everybody could find it. 2)Dont use darkies that you know(you will get them in trouble)3)The mal ou didnt wear a mask. Then i phoned my ex AWB connections and asked the same question. Their answer was also NO. Why? 1) The UFS 2 did not use poison or even real piss. What is the point? (If you do a job do it well)2) The mal ou is a bad shot and must not be seen as a measurement of wit ou marksmanship. So there you have it. According to my sources you are wrong. These 2 incidents DO NOT represent me or any other member of white SA. Now only you are left, what is your answer?
Paul van Zyl

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The RSA,not the Afrikaners,made itself most hated in the eyes of all the world with its inhuman oppressive system of “aparthate” based on skin colour which is totally un-Scriptual; in fact it is frank transgression of the Second Great Commandment:Love your neighbour as yourself.It is rather ironic that from the same country should come forth the call to be Set-apart from sin,to obey the voice of Yahweh.To be set apart from sin is mandatory for the Messianic believer; it is an essential requisite in the True Worship. Afrikaner per se.

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“Currently Disadvantaged” hit the nail on the head. Well said!

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You make some valid points and I’ve been embarrassed by the level of racism and abuse by Afrikaans people like myself in small towns. In those cases one could argue that apartheid has not been taken out of those select Afrikaners. We all know this, it is not news, there are those who have not and never will change.

What is upsetting is that there is a generation of both blacks and whites who take and do what they want without caring for the consequences. We have the white racists who don’t care what effect their actions have on the rest of us. We have white executives who hang on to their corporate jobs, serving their own interests, while a young generations of whites fight for the scraps and struggle to find work. Its every man for himself. We have a black elite, generally from an oppressed generation, who implement self serving policies and enrich themselves. Again every man for himself. We have black on white racism that everybody is so surprised about yet it is written into the laws of this country.

To get to the point, yes there is a set of Afrikaners who will always be racist. That is not the shocking part and by saying that I don’t condone racism of any form.

The behavior of a generation of selfish whites and blacks, who don’t think hard enough about the consequences of their actions is the shocking part.

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@willowisp I am going to assume to you are trying to add a humorous face to this discourse which represeents bad comedic timing. alternatively if you are serious then sugar coating any type of hate crime is irresonsible and reflects a certain insensitivty to the larger problems.
@Shocked and amazed The south african farmers that suffered were victims of crime not hate crime. Vicious and unscrupulous characetrs exist in all corners of society regardless of colour. It’s about money and social problems. Alot of SA farmers are white, yes, but that’s not the motivation. When a shop owner in is robbed he is robbed because he has a shop in most cases, when A car or a house gets broken into it happens because they had what someone else wanted and wasn’t willing to work for. Black people alike are robbed and killed by criminals on a daily basis. It’s just crime. I apologize there is nothing “just” about it.

Racism is a belief system and it exposes itself through actions but inaction does not mean not present. Racism can be as passive as someone saying that all white people can’t dance or all black people like chicken, or as horrifying as urinating in food and serving it to people and thinking that it’s amusing because that is how little you think of blacks. extremely diffrent expressions of racism but nonethless it is still a marginialzation, judgement of a particular race based off of ignorance and a desire to remain in that state of ignorance. I know white people who can dance and I know black people who hate chicken. I know these things because I interact with whoever , whenever I am richer for it. A Afrikaner state seeks to minimize intercation with those that are different and perpetuate ignorance of that which is not like what they know. And thses behaviours be it the killings or the urination represent a small control of what happens when people don’t start teaching people about the world they live in in their own homes. It’s a microchosim of a larger Afrikaner homeland. these people were taught that such things are acceptable either passively or actively and their lack of understanding of the gravity of their actions (or their blatant disregard) was fostered and nurtured somewhere. can you take the Apartheid out Afrikaners? you can dilute over time through exposure and familiarization but you can’t do it if they isolate themslves and/or we isolate them. These guys need to be brought into the fold, it will happen over time and yes folks, sometimes people have to be drug into the 21st century kicking and screaming

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Do you include those Afrikaner teenagers who fled the country rather than be conscripted into the Racist South African Army under Apartheid?

Or were you totally unaware of that?

As well as the fact that the American Freedom Riders included Whites who sat in Black seats on the segregated buses as well as Black people who sat deliberately in White reserved seats?

And that is why you wrote an article this one.

Your total ignorance.

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Sorry
but your statement that ‘Afrikaner identity
was forced in the fires of Apartheid’ is so far
the mark that your article deserves no further
comment.

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Christi, once again you have demonstrated your acute analytic powers and observation acuity regarding the intransigent “race” problem in that country. What you say may sound harsh, however, there is no getting away from the facts on the ground. You have been very careful not to lump all whites in one category, or to single out Afrikaners, just as it would be ludicrous to do the same with any other population group.[Here I agree with Roy Fenton’s commentary above]. One would hope that your piece would encourage a more reasoned discourse on the issue rather than the usual emotional and uninformed reaction that one sees in these posts. After all, “Thought Leader” should live up to its promise as a forum for intellectual discussion/examination of current national issues in the country.

While negative racial attitudes persist, and I would in no way condone them, it is unfair to compare or equate the South African situation with the U.S. In South Africa, the idea of a non-racial [or read non-racist] society is a relatively new phenomenon [post 1994]; in the U.S. the project started in 1886 with Reconstruction and yet race consciousness and its attitudinal manifestation, racism, are alive and well in the national psyche. Witness how at every turn [media] references are made that Barack Obama is BLACK, most tellingly epitomized in: “Is America ready for a BLACK president?” Or, “Obama will be America’s first BLACK president”. Apart from the fact that he is of white and black [first generation] parentage, why would his colour trump his American nationality? The answer is obvious: ‘race’or colour is paramount in the American psyche and defines everything about a person. How else could one explain the stark comment by a prospective voter in Ohio when campaign workers knocked on the door for his vote: “Are you the people who want to put a nigger in the White House?”. The man, Obama, was irrelevant to his perception of the candidate, only his colour had currency. I have spent a lifetime studying/teaching issues of race and racism from all perspectives beyond the familiar black/white notion, and they are not easy to eradicate. Yet the saving grace is that there are millions of people who appear devoid of these negative attitudes. So, therein lies the hope.
Very enjoyable piece.

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You are a lazy journalist. To make assumptions about every child, mother, brother…in the afrikaaner nation is ironically as racist as the issue about which you write.

Your lazy steriotyping, your generalisations are the central tenants of all racist idiologies.

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What you are suggesting is that Apartheid is a part of the culture of the Afrikaaner. I would like to challenge you to think bigger: it is a part of being human. Apartheid is not an Afrikaans concept, they only named it. Apartheid is a universal phenomenon (e.g. the caste system in India, the treatment of the San, the exodus of the Zimbabweans, our Xenophobic sickness, the living conditions in the Gaza Strip). Maybe a return to Martin Luther King is required: “If I see a man walking across the street and I think ‘there walks a black man’, I am racist.” The answer is that we are not above getting to know each other’s stories and carry each other’s burdens. Pride is what will destroy the trust between brothers. Grace and forgiven will resurrect it.

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Very good article indeed. I think its ironic that white people constantly moan about the government,crime, how the country is going down and some even immigrate to Australia and England and yet when apartheid was at its most brutal, when black people were killed by young white people, when load shedding was a regular occurance in townships, when black people couldn’t enjoy walking along the beach, the same white “concerned” people didn’t react to this by immigrating, calling 702 to complain and moaning like they do now about everything. The fact is white people make up less than 10% of the country and equality should be reflected through demographic representation.

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But you can take the Afrikaner out of Africa and (after a while) Africa will out of the Afrikaner as well.

I explain that here.

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Christi, when I read your posts I am often not so much in disagreement as dismay at your choice of perspective. I feel I have to speak up.
Just imagine for a minute. The year is 2050. The regime has finally fallen. An article in a prominent discussion forum reads ‘You can take the Xhosa out of corruption, but can you take corruption out of the Xhosa?’. Another reads ‘Blacks should apologise for GEAR and BEE’. Absurd, isn’t it? Offensive, isn’t it? So why is it acceptable when its form is “…take the apartheid out of the Afrikaner”. Making apartheid synonymous with ‘the Afrikaner’ is nothing new, possibly popular, but hardly sustainable.
“The problem of white denial is sometimes not even the amnesia…” you say. Yet your own amnesia has you forgetting that however psychopathically cruel, the singularly uncreative and stolid Nationalists could not muster something so insightfully wicked and destructive as Apart-hate. The Nats, ever willing racists, packaged, named and made law that structure that had been passed down from their colonial predecessors, the English. They even continued to take lessons from western intelligence and military ‘services’, lessons which they then applied to South African citizens . This is true of many dictatorships across the globe, set up and covertly maintained by western powers. Forgetting this fact helps to legitimise their centuries of warcrimes and genocides like in Africa (past and current), Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans etc. etc.etc This does NOT suggest I think the Nationalists, and their ‘machinery’ should not be held responsible for their crimes against humanity.
Your headline addresses ‘Afrikaners’. Yet you discuss “white racism” and afrikaner/Afrikaans interchangeably. (“This compulsive racist “othering” is an integral aspect of whiteness as an identity of supremacism”). You seem to think (please correct me) that racism is a ‘white thing’. Is it not obvious that these views are racist, let alone absurd, because you are precisely “othering”? Surely you don’t think all whites are Afrikaners (yes, you mention English speakers …did you forget ‘white’ Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Yugoslav South Africans, or perhaps forget that many Afrikaans speakers are not ‘white’?). Who do you mean by Afrikaners? Those white Afrikaans speakers whose ‘identity was to a great extent forged in the fires of apartheid’ are certainly to be found among a range of other white Afrikaans speakers. For some the forging fires of identity and Afrikaans go further back, to hellish conditions of slavery under Dutch, Huguenot , and English zealotry. There are many aspects to Afrikaans/Afrikaner, as is the case for all peoples in South Africa’s history. Some aspects some folks find appealing, some repugnant, though all aspects, it seems to me, are assured their legitimacy in equal measure to all other citizens, without fear of prejudice, as prescribed by law, but most importantly, as prescribed by the best and loftiest ideals we can muster as humans. Our responsibility is to uphold the best in others and our selves, and let the flaws wither for lack of attention.
I like your observation about the Free State (oh the irony) video, of 19th Century morphological obsession. The video reminded me of the now infamous Abu Graib video. The posing, the arrogance, the enjoyment, the horror. I hope the amnesia allows some memories of when ‘insurgents’ meant ‘blacks’, rather than Iraqis, both wanting their country back. Lets be clear: the actions of the Free State students and the American soldiers both fall squarely into the category of torture. No one should endure or need to fear such treatment: there is simply no justification. I mention this for two reasons: we should not flinch to hold the accused students responsible for their heinous actions; and neither should we endorse crude, racist generalisations (or actions ) such as conveyed in your post, however comfortable for the current polemic. Two wrongs never make a right. Collective punishment, and its precedent of collective responsibility are ideas inappropriate for democracy, and for the peaceful future of humankind. Unchecked, these racist indulgences eventually bring people to believe all kinds of absurd things, which of course makes all kinds of evil behaviour hypnotising. Witness how ‘Muslim’ became ‘Al-Qaeda’ became ‘Let’s trash human rights and international law for your safety’ became millions dead, and not a decade has passed. Remember how balaclava clad (presumably black) men were paraded on SABC not so long ago, confessing to be ‘terrorists’?. There is, of course, plenty of “currently existing white racism”, alongside plenty of ‘currently existing (choose your colour) racism’, everywhere in the world.
Your question might be paraphrased – I think more humanely –as ‘ can apartheid be taken out of South Africans’? Apartheid is of the past, and events crop up to suggest it is not quite out of the present. When the cackle about colour ceases, perhaps we will know we are in the future.

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Any racism of any sort should be condemned. Yet this article reinforced the ’selective morality’ that is evident when it comes to racism in South Africa. Some people seem to brush away black racism, as acceptable. Well people can moan until their blue in the face about white-on-black crimes, but we all know that there is a far higher incidence of black-on-white crime in SA and often racially motivated. Must the 2 000 white farm victims continue to rest in the shadows? I think NOT. Racism of any kind is abhorrent, but we must not forget the awful racism which whites encounter (and no it is not justice!!) and that which coloureds (the forgotten people) face day in.

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There is no excuse for it. For any of it. However when the media refuses to report it as an individual’s ideology and continues to promote these incidents as group norms and intentionally paint our world black and white then the media should be held accountable and go on trial for defaming the majority of South Africans. Yes we have serious issues to overcome and yes every South African knows that. But I take exception and reject with contempt the suggestion that most white South Africans are racists or that most black South Africans are racists who support the rape and murder of the fellow white citizens. This consistent sensationalised propaganda stems from low energy, hopeless and lazy journalism. It is backed by old and huge money and I find its approach despicable as it continues to lower its standards and destroy any hope of survival of what is after all a new and fragile South African identity. To me this is the worst crime of all. But hey it sells newspapers and gets TV viewer ships and blog hits up.

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You and others have certainly made up your minds about affairs. The fact that this practice of initiation that happened in the Free State is as old as the proverbial mountains and the possible spirit in which it was done is purposefully and conveniantly ignored. Your article boils of premeditated ideas and your mind is racing out of logic control while all you could grab at are two meagre incidents to cite. I’m not forgetting that you might, with great effort, be able to dig up two or so more incidents to support the basis of your blatant load of generalized drivel.
I’m tired of having to listen to your and other’s audacious attempts to try and tell me and others how we feel, think and experience relationship with fellow human beings. I can assure you that this little picture of yours that you must have nurtured for all the time now, is only real in the minds of your’s and those who won’t miss a chance to perpetually analyze us ‘racists’.
I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, but I can assure you that you’re not only mostly off the mark but causing damage.

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The point that you are so blatantly missing here, is the majority of everything in South Africa is Black. Where are the minority white’s rights.

There is a small handful of white based incidents in the last 14 years, similar to the apartheid situation, how many transgressions against the blacks were there in total, I am Still very unclear on that, it is always spoken in such generalization, most of the time by people completely ignorant on what it really is about. When the youth even start talking about apartheid, it is very clear to me that not only do they not a have a clue, but are using it as leverage for their own personal gain. Similarly when the Jewish Holocaust is used to attempt to gain political points in the Jewish community, it is sickening. And the facts that you are using to support a point is quoted from countries out of South Africa, Like in the South Of America .. blah blah, after all slavery ended in South Africa long before apartheid was even conceived. Could you not find one single incident in South Africa to refer to? That strikes me as extraordinarily odd.

With these incidents, the (skielik, and OFS students) there is such a disproportional outcry, its actually sickening, and every non afrikaans person would now like every other “non-afrikaans but in the same group” and every afrikaans person, to get down on their knees to beg forgiveness, as if this suddenly is a justification for all their outcry against apartheid..

Pathetic to only have something to cry about now, there has got to be some more. The truth and reconciliation commission didn’t bring up very much either. Most of the outcry was nothing more than hot air, and propaganda.

The Part that really grinds me, is that on the day that OFS incident was released in the press there was another article, which I bet none, and i repeat, No-one of you even remember seeing .. the article was about a black policeman assaulting a white child, and his parents, and shooting their dog. All of which is far, far from ethical, completely and blatantly racist, and a lot worse than volunteeringly asking someone to eat food that looks like dog food, and giving them a puke bucket, which makes it painfully clear that whatever they are about to receive, will be nothing to be thank-full for. Personally, I would have refused and walked away at that point. Youtube is filled with similar videos, go have a look for yourself. The only difference I see with those and this one is that it is 2 different race groups partaking in this event.

And yet the less despicable act receives more attention. Remind me again where the racism is. It is far from clear at the moment. With blatant racist policies in place, and racist people in Charge Like Thabo, and soon to be Zuma, setting examples for everyone else, is it a case of not been able to get the apartheid out of the afrikaaner, which besides making no sense, as apartheid is a system like communism it can not be practiced by individuals, and the whole comment is nothing but a pure racist comment, the same as the unacceptable comment about taking a xhosa, or zulu out of the bush. Or is it a case of the whites have done a much better job at reconciliation than anyone wanted them to do, and the humiliation of the non whites failing miserably at the same task in comparison, has led to a situation where every minute detail of the whites will now be blown out of proportion, and lied about simply to make the rest feel better about themselves and their failure to reach any substantial goals on any level, as a organization, or as individuals. And what I perceive as humiliation to themselves for having leaders who are to technically challenged to deal with any of the situations thrown at them. I cannot see them as my leaders. I have been excluded from the process, and do not have any influence in it, which makes me one of the minority outsiders.

Its not the amount of incidents that are relevant, some say, perhaps, but then there is still the unwanted truth that the incidents have happened, from both sides, and yet only whites get a severely disproportional reprimanded, based purely on race. The outcry is completely out of proportion to the attention given to other incidents against whites. Having my wife, and daughters threatened to be raped, is not only a racist statement, it is cowardly. Not even an animal does that. And clearly shows the kind of person making these allegations. But then again that would be unacceptable for whites to do that to blacks, but the whites deserve what they get .. Don’t they …

Then to have a racist selection process to decide who should apologize for been racist. Why does even the mere utterance of it sound absurd. Do I also get an apology as well when this is all over. That will just make it worth my while to be abused, Bring on the Dog food, I am ready for another mouth-full, I am still trying to stomach the shit the Govt and the media feed me.

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What about the response by some black students: “kill those white bitches”. What can you take out of that? Why don’t you condemn their actions just as loudly?

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The human rights commission will know about this piece of writing. “Is it possible to take apartheid out of whites? Maybe” -> the people voted against apartheid with a referendum. I’m gonna make sure you get the media attention you want.

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Would it have caused a stir if it would have been reversed? Maybe, maybe not.

However, Afrikanerism was not forged during Apartheid and there is no excuse for the arrogance for failing to read up our 300+ year history which includes black AND white into that, now being refered to as an Apartheid term, collective word.

Maybe, we should consider analyzing whether or not our opinion maker journalists are in fact adept in forming our unified opinion.

Lashing out against any race, whether or not there are murders vs. USF videos, are irrelevant.

Key question asked: when will we ever see past black and white and refer to the South African nation as Afrikaners – people from Afrika, which in fact the word suggests and always have refered to in the past (pre-, during and post Apartheid)?

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African National Congress. National Party. Nazi’s. Racist by definition and by name. This is what the majority wants, to be identified by who and what they are, as we can clearly see from events over the past months, from the UFS fiasco to the Black journalists insisting/defending that exclusion based on the colour of your skin is fine. What is more worrying is that JZ, supposed to be the future protector of a fine constitution, defends separateness - again. And we (SA) are well on our way to a future of separate institutions and hate and violence… Exactly what the majority of us did not want when we gave FW the go-ahead to stop the previous nonsense. Did we? Would we do it again?

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[…] Christi van der Westhuizen has asked on thought leader, “you can take Afrikaners out of Apartheid, but can you take Apartheid out of Afrikaners”. She starts the article with the necessary disclaimer that this statement could also apply to English speakers and does; but I find it interesting that she doesn’t just replace the word “Afrikaner” if she just means “white”; this I suppose is because of the institutionalised guilt complex that some white South Africans now suffer (Post-Apartheid Syndrome anyone?), where it is best to blame the Afrikaner; the English speakers (Full disclosure: I am 1/4 English, 3/4 Afrikaner; but I can’t speak a word of Afrikaans [well at least] - hoorah for cultural imperialism) are somehow victims of the nasty “Boers” who led them astray into pass books and area laws. (Interesting considering those were products of British Imperialism, not Afrikaner thinking in much of pre-1948 South Africa). […]

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I still fail to understand what it is in “Afrikaner cultre” that fundamentaly negates “contamination” …what about it is so fragile that it must exist in a capsule…cannot function among other spaces?

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Are you an Afrikaners? If so do you feel four students represent you?

You write: “First, they are emphasising that the Free State boys are individuals whose actions and values do not represent those of most Afrikaners.”

I’m not sure what you want Afrikaners to say? Yay, this is exactly what represents us, let’s celebrate this video as a call to ‘opstand’? Jeepers, what else can you do except distance yourself from something you don’t agree with.

I have a huge problem with your judging Afrikaners, and I am not an Afrikaner. You judge them for disassociating themselves and thereby saying ‘we are not racist’. That’s a damn sight better than saying: F you, we are racists, go to hell. Meanwhile, you’re doing that. Sauying: F Afrikaners, you’re all racists.

You also forget that 70% of whites voted to end Apartheid. You make it sound as though the majority of whites in this country are racist.

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I am glad that at least few white folks like you are willing to admit that racism does exist in South Africa. Most of the time the black Africans are on the receiving end.

The issue of racism is a threat to the world peace and security the sooner we realise that the better otherwise the hell break loose one day.

Unfortunately the issue of racial tolerance it can’t be left to chance and time it needs everyone to roll his/her sleeves and be determined to be a vessel of new order, an order of peace and harmony.

It sad note that are there are parents that are still feeding their kids racism to their own detriment. Parents need to instill right values to the children like kindness, love, humility, respect of the world diversity because it has a purpose.

Racism is delaying the human development as we overlook peope with gifts and talents only because they happen to be on the other side of race. So many books could have been written, so many technological inventions lost, so many lives lost and so much could have been achieved and this world could have been a better place.

So a take stance and stop racism and it start with you.

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I am glad that at least few white folks like you are willing to admit that racism does exist in South Africa. Most of the time the black Africans are on the receiving end.

The issue of racism is a threat to the world peace and security the sooner we realise that the better otherwise the hell break loose one day.

Unfortunately the issue of racial tolerance it can’t be left to chance and time it needs everyone to roll his/her sleeves and be determined to be a vessel of new order, an order of peace and harmony.

It’s sad note that are there are parents that are still feeding their kids with racism to their own detriment. Parents need to instill right values to the children like kindness, love, humility, respect of the world diversity because it has a purpose.

Racism is delaying the human development as we overlook peope with gifts and talents only because they happen to be on the other side of race. So many books could have been written, so many technological inventions lost, so many lives lost and so much could have been achieved and this world could have been a better place.

So take a stance and stop racism and it starts with you.

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Jacob Zuma had a meeting with the Jewish board of Deputies. As if by intent, the SABC panned across the room and there was not a single Muslim or African in site. Yet, no complaints about the Jewish Board of Deputies from 702. Is it because William Hirsh is a Jew?
a well written article and thanks to a few individuals for pointing out exactly Christi’s point. Deny and deny and perhaps it will go away? Ja right!!!

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Nick,
I am curious about your claim that 70% of whites voted to end apartheid? Did many whites understand what apartheid was and what it really meant to end apartheid? I believe many whites were not completely aware of what ending apartheid entailed. some thought they would have some significant minority protection allowing them to retail some control. In any case, why is the concept of a white only referendum so appealing? What gives you the right to determine whether the majority in the country should have any rights? What makes you so superior that you decide that your racist rights translates in your being open minded, informed and non-racist? How many whites feel betrayed by FW De Klerk because they did not foresee what black people would take complete control? Did the media misinform whites into believing that the ANC was never going to conduct a majority and hence they would need whites to form a sort of government?
Simply claiming that 64% of whites voted in favour of change does not necessarily mean the change they envisaged was the same change that actually happened.

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Christi,

I openly challenge you to write an article on the continued black-on-white violence through incidents of crime and through your supposed analytical, journalistic skills, explain why these deeds can not be deemed as racist? The UFS incidents were despicable, but can we also then please spend as much time writing about crime incidents as we do about other selective incidents. By the way, have you ever thought that maybe you are fuelling racism?

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My first reaction was to write a reply in Afrikaans complete with verater etc.I was reminded that Afrikaans only posts are against the rules. I decided to wait and cool down and logically address the fallacy of your post as the most slanderous thing I have seen so far on this liberal anti-white site.

The incident at UOVS and Skielik are just that: isolated incidents. Every day whites get tortured, raped, murdered, even white babies, in racist incidents you chose to ignore. Black on white violence far outnumbers the reverse. Yet you choose to focus on 2 incidents, which are the exception, to condemn your own people.

We have racism today due to ANC policy, not some ingrained gene in whites or Afrikaners or English.
Besides your 2 incidents, where have whites killed black people indiscriminately; humiliating black people; fighting to keep certain spaces white? The reverse is plentiful. Where must I start?

In October 1836, Mzilikazi tried to kill the Afrikaners at Vegkop. He did not succeed but stole all their cattle. Then of course Bloedrivier, where the Zulus killed Piet Retief after signing a peace treaty, then Weneen etc. I can go on and on why whites wanted to remain apart. All the slaughter of whites. Of course you ignore this. Is it any surprise whites wanted isolation? You choose to ignore history and blame inherent white racism. And by the way, the british made the first Apartheid laws, not Afrikaners.

After 1994 I can pick probably 10 examples for each day.

If you believe racism is an integral aspect of whiteness as an identity of supremacism, then you must believe murder and rape are inherent in blackness because I too can do the illogical farce you pull and show examples of a few incidents and use the exception to prove the rule.

If you ask ‘Can apartheid be taken out of white identity in South Africa’ then I can ask ‘can murder and rape be taken out of the Black Identity? What you do is propogate hate speech.

But you do it against your own people.
You say ‘some white people have become even more defiant in their denial of the injustices of apartheid and colonialism’ I say ‘Black people have become even more defiant in their denial of rape and murder as racially moitivated’, Get the point?

Even when Afrikaners and all whites are disgusted by the UOVS incident, you continue to condemn them. Apology and public disassociation are not good enough for you. What do you want? Collective white suicide or washing of Black feet? Do Afrikaners demand apology for Bloedrivier and the demolition of Voortrekker artifacts in Mpumalanga?

Everything from a white mouth to you is racist regurgitation, unless it comes from yours.

Afrikaner identity to you is forged in apartheid? Did your parents teach you nothing? Was it not forged in 350 years of history? Bloedrivier? The Voortrekkers? The Boer War? Is that not Afrikaner identity? Your hatred of your own people creates such a stench to you that you see nothing but a brief period of history and look for every opportunity to spread your hatred of your own. Is it possible to take the hatred of whites out of you? Maybe. The first step would be to stop denying that the Free State video boys and the alleged Skielik killer are isolated incidents. Those boys were barely born during Apartheid.

I reserve the right to write a rant in Afrikaans for the disgraceful, one sided and biased piece you have produced against your people. Shame on you. I try and imagine what your parents may have done to turn you so much against your people that you even deny your own history and what is being done to your people.

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Racism is the belief that one race is endowed with characteristics or traits that make them superior to other races.
So, reverse racism can only be an action or belief that disproves that one race is superior than the other on the basis of race or colour alone. Reverse racism is good and should be encouraged.
discrimination is the use of race, sex or other incidental factors (including intelligence) to separate groups perceived to be inferior on these basis to those perceived to be superior.
The actions of the Free state farmers can be traced back to their homes. Farmers have been victims of crime, as has all the people of this country. Farmers have assumed that they are being targetted for their race, though one cannot understand the benefit for the killer as the land will not be simply doled up to the first person to raise their hand.
On the other hand, farmer behaviour is not limited to these 4 or that of the Skiliek boy. Farmers have been accused of all manor of things from illegal eviction to towing people behind their car. They have in the past molested farm workers, beaten up farm workers and have sometimes denied access to farm schools by the department of education.
Now, while not all the farmers are guilty of this, it is so prevalent that one can see why farmers would be targets of attacks by those feeling that they have been mistreated or been discriminated against.
Yes, it might be harsh to say that all Afrikanrs are racist, but equally foolish to claim that the racism we see is an isolated incident. The truth is somewhere in between. Christi does a good job of trying to find it, while there are the usual suspects who seem to deny anything that associate their race with anything they perceive to be wrong. I think it is easier to ignore individuals like that, because their contributions tend to be denialist.

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Christi, in fact the condemnations from the combined “afrikaners” organisations, sends three troubling messages… the third one you missed is that, even though the appalling acts of those four boys are revolting, they have confused an otherwise genuine issue!… when i read that, i thought, and what exactly could this genuine issue be over here - “integration”? I find that rather troubling!

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SH and Consulting Engineer refers:

I am curious if you could mention these black-on-white racist incidents you refer to and perhaps point out whether other racial groupings are immune to these attacks.
Lucky Dube was killed not long ago. The SA Ambassador to the UN was followed and his family held at gun point.
A guy who raped and killed a coloured child in the Western Cape was sentenced just yesterday. Ambassador from Tanzania was followed from the airport and attacked. The MDC entourage was attacked in Bryanston. Mama Jacky is accused or abusing black children and also threatening a black journalist. A black guy who witnessed a hijacking chased after the police and they killed him. Day in and day out., black people fall victim to crime.
A march was organized in the CBD as a reaction to abuse by taxi drivers of a woman wearing a miniskirt. On a regular basis, we hear of an assassination on counclillors in Cape Town or KZN.
Black people continue to be raped and victimised because they do not have high walls as those living in surbubs. They have marched and at times enacted their form of justice. We know how courts view black victims versus white victims. Who do farmers abuse on a regular basis?
If I read your comments, you imply that all of this is not happening and only whites are victims of crime. For every white victim of crime, there are 6 more black victims of crime.
In Hanover Park, Mitchell’s Plein and the rest of the Cape Town Cape Flats, most victims of the gangster violence are black. the children missing as a result of their parents abusing tick are black (coloured). so, forgive me when I see your writings as non-sensical and not based on reality.
Crime is bad and should be seen as such. One thing you can give the criminals is that they are equal opportunity abusers.
Black people have been raped in the felt in Tembisa. Poor black women have been promised jobs only to be abused by those they thought would help.
A cursery look at the statistics indicate that 58% of the victims of crime are black people. Consider that another stats indicate that 9% of white control 45% of income in the country, then you can see that whites are most likely to have white criminals want, but black people in the township make for easier victims.
I am black and live in a previously white surburb. I have had my house broken into twice in the past 5 years. On the second occassion, the criminals even baited me to come out of my locked and secured bedroom. They knew who I was because it was a new complex and they had stolen the keys and made a copy.
So, it is utter rubbish and hogwash that somehow whites are the only victims of rape, torture, vandalism, murder, etc.
Get a life, you two.

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Umm, let’s see;
1 How many “non-whites” lost their jobs due to the felonious four’s video or post-’94 racist (race-based,if your quibble) employment legislation?
2 Since when are student publications taken seriously? I hope all rag mags are scrutinised, sanitised, expurgerated and corrected politically from now on.
3 Why are Bram Fischer, van Zyl Slabbert, Beyers Naude, Kowie Marais, Tiaan v d Merwe, Eugene Marais, Hennie Serfontein, et al less representative of the Afrikaner than Ms v d Westhuizen and those she chooses to be identified with.
4 Why are charges laid when a minister’s health records are copied in the public interest but when a video for private video is pirated maliciously by a jilted “hell-hath-no-fury”, it is ‘admissible evidence’?
Have you watched the famous video. I got bored after watching a rugby practice. Even Jim Carry becomes entertaining and contentious in comparison.

Talking of things varsitorial, Christi, I say you have failed a Rorsarch test.

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Treu, there is a lot of racism alive and well and South Africa. The more of an issue one makes of it, the stronger it will become. Mandela had the right approach - in that one should be tolerant and forgiving and really offer everyone an equal part in building a new South Africa - where everyone is as good a citizen as the other - not where some are better than others or more accepted and others are not considered relevent in a new South Africa. And, then people wonder why so many skilled South Africans leave the country…. If people don’t feel like they belong, or are welcome in a country (even the country of their birth) they will be driven to frustration - and leave or possibly vent it in an inappropriate way.

I will not be surprised if it is found that South africa is nuturing a new generation of disfunctional white males - part of a rejected, discriminated againse minority group (

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I really can’t see what the fuss is about. In many cultures urine is actually considered to be a healthy drink. For instance, in India, urine therapy is called “shivambu”: “Had our shivambu rishi (sage), great devotee, propagator and mighty supporter of shivambu movement, centenarian former Prime Minister of India, respected (late) Morarji Desai not boldly and emphatically declared before the world that he drank his own urine regularly and that was the secret of his longevity and exuberant health, the most valuable and beneficial information that is being given to you through this booklet, which can prove to be a boon to our poor country and which is capable of curing a host of diseases ranging from common cold to cancer and arthritis to AIDS, would have remained hidden in some unknown quarters and the entire mankind would have been deprived of shivambu. Really speaking, late Shri Morarjlbhai by his frank and honest declaration has accorded world recognition, glory and greatness to this free yet priceless therapy otherwise considered to be nauseating. The whole world shall ever remain indebted to him for rendering this great humanitarian service. ”

For the benefits of drinking urine, see http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/urine.htm

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Again people jump on the defence and fail to listen to what the article says. I mean really. Manje umuntu kufanele afundise abantu ukulalela!
mr Engineer you even think in terms of ‘Your’ people and ‘My people’ -
Black people are very accepting, all this ill-treatment from the monority for me warrants more than talk it warrants a serious statement to show we are fed up.

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@Consulting Engieer

This writing is very much congruent with your style of writing as a vanguard defender of the racism and separatism of whites.

If you were to be tried in the court of logic for obsefucation and fraud you have commited in the reasoning you would probable be given a life sentence in Logic 101.

Your wild assupmtions about the underlying causes of crime in SA are spurious and unfounded in all respects. The truth is crime in SA is greatly driven by poverty and uneducation and the stats clearly shows that blacks in numbers and in percentages are the leading victims of crime. This is not meant to belittle the suffering of whites anyhow.

As if that was not enough you went further to claim that UOFS and Skeilik were exception, that is also not true. The truth is Blacks are suffering in the hands of racist whites everyday but most cases are subtle that you are can’t readily report them.

Your submission is riddled with logical fallacies and appeal for false patriotism. It is good to love your people but that must not tamper with your ability to reason independently and objectively. SA can only get better when we engage one another with honesty and away from the duty to defend our people to the detriment of truth.

In conclusion before you spew a lot of hatred and inflict guilty to some other white people to enlist in your myopic school logical of fallacy you need to enhance your bilateral reasoning abilities and objectivity.

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@Shocked and amazed

Didnt you hear? Its only whites that must apologise. The white victims at places like Weneen were because of Apartheid. Of course they deserved it for planning Apartheid 110 years in the future. Apartheid is their identity and in their genes and can never be removed. The women give birth to Apartheid monsters, and the children will in future make more Apartheid monsters.

Blacks can also never be racist. The ANC Youth League’s Mr Ntshangase says the following (Sunday Times 28/12/03) “When a black person says he does not like white people, that is not racism, it is prejudice… blacks have no capacity to be racist – they can only respond to it.”

Even 1 yo white babies have the seeds of Aparthied and must be murdered. Like Mr Kekana said ‘I killed her because of Apartheid’. Never mind that Mr Kekana was probably the baby’s age when Apartheid ended.

But since no apology was ever asked for or given, no revulsion was ever expressed by the ‘black community’, we cannot parade out our own version of Ms Van de Westhuizen to accuse Black revulsion as only being hypocritical Black denial.

It appears Blacks have far more deceny and do not attack afrikaners so viciously, nor suggest that the dismay and revulsion of whites is anything less than genuine.

It appears there is nothing more hateful and racist than an anti-racist.

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I suggest we all revisit Sandile Memela’s “Whites must not apologise for apartheid” of March 1st, reflect on it, internalise what he said and then get on with making this a better today and tomorrow for everybody or we will as Martin Luther King said ‘perish as fools’.

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Hmmm. My honest opinion - Christi’s piece is a load of old bog.

It’s all fair and well to take a stance on the issue from one (racist?) perspective, but at least have the nerve to fully explore the other.

Instances of white on black violence have been minimal in comparison to incidents of black on white violence.

The main difference here is that the media wastes no time in spotlighting and sensationalising incidences of white on black violence.

Why? Because SA whites are terrified of being racists. Just as they’re terrified of being called “chicken runners”. Running away implies racism.

Explain, please, why whites should teach their kids “kindness, love, humility and respect” when most blacks don’t.

Is Ubuntu at play when black thugs torture and murder white people literally every day?

The excuse that black on white murders are not motivated by race should be dismissed for what it is: pure hogwash.

If the goal was robbery, why kill? If they want money and, for the love of God, cellphones, why mutilate, terrorise and rape?

“white boy lording over old, black women on their knees, drinking a pungent and disgusting concoction at the word of their “master”

Look at the sentence above. Substitute white with black, insert any type of insane random violence and keep “master”.

That’s exactly the deal with black on white racism, the only difference is that the victim is either dead or fighting for his or her life.

No, Christi, you can’t take apartheid out of the Afrikaner. Not until you take the racism out of the black.

And while you’re at it, work on getting whites to wake up and realise that - for all the assurances and shoulder pats from the ANC - they’re not welcome in South Africa anymore.

Me? I’ve had enough of being lied to by the ANC and its leaders who are no more than petty thieves and racist illiterates.

I’m dragging my young family and my educated ass to the States where Christi’s brand of pseudo-analysis bulltwang (perhaps hate-speech? racism?) wouldn’t make it into a fringe-culture fanzine.

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I also think it is weak as a journalist to always support the popular opinion of the time. A journalist should be daring and challenge people’s perceptions of certain topics.

In this article you fail to do so. Instead of asking why these two insidents seem to get more attention than hundreds of others where racism seems to be practiced by black people, you went with the same old “let’s get the afrikaner” crap.
This is so old I’m getting old just typing that it’s old every single time.

There is not pride, no skill and no challenge to writing this type of article. It has been done a million times. Can you not be a bit more objective and try to use your intelligence to come up with something a little bit more thought provoking instead of this same old, heard it before stuff?

If I have you figured out: You are one of those people who simply switch sides to what seems to be popular today. Like the people who wears polka dots this year and stripes the next, according to the latest fashion trends.

Afrikaners has had a terrible deal from the beginning. To continue making them out as this evil nation is so pointless and cowardice from a want to be journalist.

Why don’t you grow some kahoenas and write a story that challenges the main stream crap that’s floating around everywhere right now.

Challenge yourself a bit more please.

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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DB133FF937A35755C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

If you want to now about how Afrianer Teenagers, now middle aged, protested about Apartheid, wanted change, and admitted there was no such thing as White South Africa, more than twenty years ago, before Apartheid fell.

Perhaps you should ask yourself where you were, when some Afrikaners were protestng AGAINST Apartheid?

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So, Willo, you will not object to someone feeding you food full of shit, under false pretext if it can be proved that some culture do actually adore excrement?
Is this really the type of argument that you would take to a public forum, or you are more accepting because the victims are black?
I presume if torture is accepted as a form of passtime in another country, you will have no problem with someone being tortured against their will, right? Afterall, some other people (eve if their sanity is in doubt) do it.

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The insident at Reitz repulsive and does not reflect the views or attitudes of the general SA white population, however I would like to make a few statements:
1. Why are racists alway white and never black, chinese, japanese etc?
2. I think most whites don`t actively persue racism, but rather prefer to associate with people who share their christian value system, be they white, black or any other nationality.
3. What would have happened to Mugabe by now if he was white?
4. Why do the black people not make such an outcry about farm murders and why do these murders not enjoy media coverage for 3 weeks after the insident happened?

Double standards throughout SA are creating the conflict situations between white & black South Africans. We will never get anywhere until we move past the politics of colour and move onto the politics of accountability of Goverment (Black or White).

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Beautifully argued as usual, Christi.

I agree with Willowisp on the coded phallocentrism: while this was obviously a racist incident, the gender dynamic was terrifying. to listen to a young white kid calling older black women “isifebe” (whore) enraged me! (its a manifestation of the uber-patriarchal SA culture that we saw play out in the taxi drivers stripping women wearing mini skirts. they also called these women whores.)

@Cobus: you ARE kidding right?
You ascribe your VERY privileged background to your “grandparents own hard work (not so called Apartheid money)”.
I’m always amused by this argument - it implies that poor, black people don’t work hard.

I challenge you to live the life of a SA office cleaner for one day:
get up at 4 am, clean your house and make breakfast for your family. leave at 5, take a long walk to the taxi rank. wait for half an hour for the taxi to fill up. change taxis in town where you have to wait another half an hour. deal with harassment and abuse by taxi drivers. Put in a full day’s hard work. do the whole transport thing in reverse in the evening. spend a third of your salary on the privilege of taking dangerous, inconvenient public transport. get home in the dark. tend to your own children. Do it all over again the next day, and the next, and the next. get paid about R900 a month (less than most middle class people spend on their cell phone bills). see how you feel about hard work after that.

You think apartheid “was the best solution for that time” ?????

You really think dehumanizing and dipossesing, destroying cultures and and repressing, killing and maiming was a GOOD solution? (well, I guess your family got rich off it, so it worked for you!)

And then you wonder that we have such high levels of crime and violence in this country (which sends rich kids like you scurrying for the comfort of Europe). While you are living large in London/Paris/Geneva, there are people here who work damn hard, who maintain their dignity, who keep their families together, who work like dogs everyday, just so they can live in a shack of wood and tin, that turns into an oven in summer and a deep freeze in winter.

and by the way: the Welsh and the English have historical animosity, distinct cultures etc but I’ve never heard of any racially based massacres, or of English men making Welsh women drink brews into which they’ve pissed.

get real …. (and please don’t rush back to SA on our account. we’re coping without you)

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Christi, the incident depicted in the video at the Reitz hostel of the UFS was incredibly stupid as even the perpetrators themselves have acknowledged.

The most shame, however, should fall on the media who showed unprofessional conduct when they rush to print/broadcast without proper investigation of the true facts. Apparently none of the media even bothered to interview the perpetrators because the whole gamut - the editors, columnists and reporters - were happy in the belief that what they saw on the video was all they needed to know. They would have us believe that all that Hollywood puts out in movies really happened - eg the “murdered” actor was really killed!

Of more concern, is how the media (including you) are exaggerating the incident out of all reasonable proportion. Half a dozen or so people in the video is the statistic that, in their minds, gives them ample cause to characterise a population of 45 million. To what purpose are the media doing this? To exculpate themselves of racism? Genuflexion to our masters in government? To sell more newspapers? To justify further legislation against whites? To fan racial violence and antagonism…?

It is socialist dogma that only whites and all whites, especially Afrikaners, are irredeemable racists and this justifies all manner of hysteria.

Is that why the media are blind to the real and obvious racism that plagues this country? Overt racism by blacks is now more important because blacks control the country, which is effectively a one-party-state in the socialist tradition. The media should show more concern and outrage when black judges hurl racial abuse at other races; when black lawyers and the blacks in the media have racially exclusive associations; when legislation is enacted giving blacks preference in the economy - AA, BEE, “Land restitution” etc.

So that we can speak and think about black racism in the way “Apartheid” has been used to characterise white/Afrikaner racism, we need a new word to encapsulate it. Any suggestions? “Affirmheid” is the best I can come up with, but I am sure that there are better suggestions…

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“can you take apartheid out of Afrikaners?”
Yes.
The Afrikaner has never been a homogenous group of people. Since 1948 it has always been a deeply divided community-even more so in a post-colonial
SA.(?)The poor white (arm blank) of 1948 is the traditional, long term poor of the new SA.
The story of the rich Afrikaner is similar, though different in intensity, to emergent “black” business(BEE among other?). As disengaged as the “black” new rich is becoming so is tradional old Afrikaner money form their “communities”.?
Like racism, it is all a question of power?

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Sabelo
If it were not for all the minorities we would
no have 11 official languages.What language does
your majority group speek??

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Afrikaners will remain in apartheid as long as crime against them is ongoing. For as long as AA/BEE keeps them from obtaining jobs. For as long as the goverment closes down afrikaans schools and force universities to change their language policy from afrikaans. For as long as farmers are brutally murdered. This the racism that the afrikaners face, so these to or three insidents of the last few month are much less than what the afrikaner face from day to day.

Basically for as long as the afikaner is sidelined and their culture and language killed off.

Racism got worse since 1994, so if something is not done, then it could get even more out of control.

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Racism still alive and well in SA? What a no-brainer! Do you really expect that after centuries of racism towards blacks, not only in SA, but throughout most of the world, that just because we’ve had a new democracy in SA for 14 years there will be no racism??

As to racial stereotyping, is this the sole preserve of white South African Afrikaners? Certainly not!

The entire world is awash with stereotypes where one group of people look upon other groups of people in a certain way.

One way to address this in SA is to understand that a problem of this nature does not simply go away. Amongst many other things, it will take deliberate and concious effort on the part of each and every one of us to treat others with dignity every day.

Constantly harping on about one group or another will only inflame tension. All individuals who make themselves guilty of barbaric practices should be dealt with by the law according to the severity of their crime, finish and klaar!

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“1 How many “non-whites” lost their jobs due to the felonious four’s video or post-’94 racist (race-based,if your quibble) employment legislation?”

I am not aware of any “non-whites” who have lost their jobs since the video incident, but relating to post 1994 policies, “non-blacks” continue to have the highest employment in the country. A recent report by StatSA indicates that whites make up 9% of the population and earn 45% of the income available in the country. So, I presume that you would have preferred more, or are you making assumptions because you are lazy and do not really bother to get facts?

“2 Since when are student publications taken seriously? I hope all rag mags are scrutinised, sanitised, expurgerated and corrected politically from now on.”

This question shows remarkable ignorance, foolishness and stupidity. As much as I try to debate the issue and not the people, I really find these comments above rather imbecilic. We are not talking about a publication, rather what was contained in the publication. The publication contained a story of abuse of people who were duped into participating and where there is no equal relationship. These people called these scumbags, “baas” and they called them “sefebe” meaning whore. If that is an equal relationship, then I think you need to have not only your head read, but your bowels too.

“3 Why are Braam Fischer, van Zyl Slabbert, Beyers Naude, Kowie Marais, Tiaan v d Merwe, Eugene Marais, Hennie Serfontein, et al less representative of the Afrikaner than Ms v d Westhuizen and those she chooses to be identified with.”

Another inane question. Is this all you can come up from the Afrikaner community? Surely, you can count more.
I encounter Afrikaners on a daily basis and many of them are great individuals. I cannot say all of them. Anyone that finds justification to this video (the tendency has been that non-blacks have tried to find excuses) is a racist idiot that does not deserve to be taken seriously at all.

“4 Why are charges laid when a minister’s health records are copied in the public interest but when a video for private video is pirated maliciously by a jilted “hell-hath-no-fury”, it is ‘admissible evidence’?”

Again, this is another indication of head up in the arse mentality. It is not the dissemination of the video that is a problem, but the treatment of the people as shown in the video. The fact that the video was kept secret proves one point clearly. The makers of the video knew that the video was inflamatory and if it were to get out, would reflect badly on them. Otherwise, they would have made it public immediately. Afterall, there was nothing to hide, right?
Every citizen of the country has a right to their information not being stolen and made public. The Sunday Times stole Manto’s records and then republished them. Manto is the subject of those records.
In the case of this video, the woman who revealed the video was allowed to watch it. It therefore was not a secret to her. She did not have to steal it. The contents of the video is not protected material and considering that the victims were not really aware of the true intent of the video, they had rights to access to it.
What I gather from you though is that everyone but these thugs is at fault.
They have a right to abuse these 5, have a right to photograph this incident, making a fool of these indivduals and have a right to distribute this video as they deem fit?
I really think you need to read your own comments to recognise how stupid and racist they sound. Then again calling you racist will not have an effect. It is like calling a bald person, bald. chances is that they already know they are bald and telling them they are bald means very little

“Have you watched the famous video.”

Yes, I have

“I got bored after watching a rugby practice. Even Jim Carry becomes entertaining and contentious in comparison.”

Yet, you feel informed enough to comment about the contents of the video? Do you really listen to yourself, or you simply write without effect?

“Talking of things varsitorial, Christi, I say you have failed a Rorsarch test.”

You simply have failed. At least Christi applied some intelligence and introspection in her analysis, something dearly lacking in your “ingsightful” analysis which is neither analytical nor insightful

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@Consulting Engineer

This writing is very much congruent with your style of writing as a vanguard defender of the racism and separatism of whites.

If you were to be tried in the court of logic for obsfucation and fraud you have commited in the reasoning you would probable be given a life sentence in Logic 101.

Your wild assupmtions about the underlying causes of crime in SA are spurious and unfounded in all respects. The truth is crime in SA is greatly driven by poverty and uneducation and the stats clearly shows that blacks in numbers and in percentages are the leading victims of crime. This is not meant to belittle the suffering of whites anyhow.

As if that was not enough you went further to claim that UOFS and Skeilik case are exceptions, that is also not true. The truth is Blacks are suffering in the hands of racist whites everyday but most cases are subtle that you are can’t readily report them.

Your submission is riddled with logical fallacies and appeal for false patriotism. It is good to love your people but that must not tamper with your ability to reason independently and objectively. SA can only get better when we engage one another with honesty and away from the duty to defend our people to the detriment of truth.

In conclusion before you spew a lot of hatred and inflict guilt to some other white people to enlist in your myopic school of logical fallacy you need to enhance your bilateral reasoning abilities and objectivity.

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This was only the beginning in the future you will see more and more racial motivated actions from white people. The Skielik and UFS incidents are just the start and these kids were all born after apartheid, why? You ask. Well the ANC pushes transformation and reconciliation, the problem is both models can’t exist at the same time. Nearly 30,000 white people have been killed since 1994 mostly black on white, yet when a white person insults/humiliate a black person it is front page news everywhere with condemnation. Since when is insulting someone, worse then raping or killing someone? This is getting tiresome the media is so biased it is fast approaching a point where the emperor has no clothes. This university was in forcing an integration program between white and black students with different languages & cultures these students made a mock video to prove that there language and culture should be respected in there hostel( segregated if you must). To discriminate against Afrikaners merely because they are white is also not acceptable. Afrikaners are white and it is not their fault. If Zulu’s wont there own hostel is it not acceptable?? How many white Zulu’s is there?? It is not segregation by racial lines but by culture and language if we are saying they may not exist because they are white! What are we truly saying? Are we then not DISCRIMINATING? If integration succeeds did we not prove that we have no place for minorities??

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Assumption:Afrikaners will remain in apartheid as long as crime against them is ongoing. For as long as AA/BEE keeps them from obtaining jobs. For as long as the goverment closes down afrikaans schools and force universities to change their language policy from afrikaans. For as long as farmers are brutally murdered. This the racism that the afrikaners face, so these to or three insidents of the last few month are much less than what the afrikaner face from day to day.

Basically for as long as the afikaner is sidelined and their culture and language killed off.

Racism got worse since 1994, so if something is not done, then it could get even more out of control.

Fact:
Crime in South Africa is a problem. Fact is that black people suffer from crime more than Afrikaners or any other non-black tribe.
While non-blacks make up only 9% of the population, they continue to receive 45% of the income generated in South Africa. Furthermore, unemployment for whites is less than 10% while that of similarly qualified black individuals is closer to 50%. It is therefore clear that despite BEE and AA, white still do disproportionately well. However, you are free to quote your source that confirms your assumptions.
The government has not closed any Afrikaans school as far as I am concerned. Afrikaaners can have their own schools anytime they want. However, all government schools have to admit all South Africans regardless of language or culture. To simply have schools for Afrikaners only is absurd. Why should they have their own schools where there are no corresponding Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi schools? What makes Afrikaners special other than what apartheid gave them?
I think the idea that racism got worse since 1994 as is absurd as saying the ANC is responsible for El Nino, and since I have wasted time on the rest, I refuse to go even beyond stupidity.

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I praise Christi for writing a piece that encourages debate, I don’t think the Skielik or UFS incident is a reflection of all white peoples sentiments. I do think however, that alot of people are in denial about racism.

I find it strange that so many white people use the farm shootings as a counter to what happened in UFS. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but crime is prevelant all over South Africa and it happens to all ages, races, sexes as somebody uttered earlier criminals are “equal opportunity scum”, willing to obtain something without having to work for it. Many comments suggest that black on white crime far outstrips white on black crime, this “myth” can be outdone by visiting any police station not situated in a suburb, who have the most reported crimes, who is commiting crime in these areas, white guys from the suburbs?

I think we need to move past just colour and yes maybe some government policies make that difficult but at the same time we need to be cogniscant of the fact that most of the wealth in the country is controlled by the minority. On that same note the BEE fatcats are’nt much different either, so we need some means of redistribution, but redistribution should reflect demographics of the population. I find it puzzling how quick some people get their backs up for EE, BEE and AA but they fail to realise how much whites benefited under apartheid, once again not painting all with the same brush but doesnt everybody else deserve what should have been due to them.

@ Willo I think you have a sick sense of humour, you need Jesus in your life

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Well said Christi

……Suffer the Blackman indeed!

1) The painting of a black worker with white paint by a shop keeper in Louis Trichardt;
2) The shooting of a black Zimbabwean because “…I thought it was a baboon!”
3) The tying up and dragging of a blackman behind a bakkie until he died;
4)The shooting of a young boy “because I thought it was a dog”
5) The Skillek massacres because the people are black;
6) The feeding of a black farm worker to lions in a lion’s den;
7) The folkskaas, our own schools, our own Universities etc;
7) The police dog training on Mozambican blacks; and now
Feeding Old black female workers with urine laced so-called food!

The LIST IS LONG…..

Now I would like to know how “innocent” these so-called “innocent youngman who were never responsible or participated durinng apartheid and are now being “discriminated” against because of Government’s affirmative action and BEE policies” are?

We have black children attending classes under trees, black children walking bare-footed at least 30 kilometers every morning to attend school, black children growing up using bucket toilets, black children growing in curtain-divided single rooms which they call home with their parents, many such rooms are shacks built out of metal sheets. All this is a legacy of apartheid but we are told these same kids should compete on an equal footing with the so-called “innocents” we have at the University of the Free State, because apartheid is over and we should forget about the past. Yet daily we are subjected as black people to unofficial apartheid in our own African continent!

Please do not tell us about the highjackings, farm murders, housebreakings etc because many such things are also happening to blacks in the townships, even to government officials. This we all know is crime and nothing else; but the above is downright and outright racism and nothing more.

From the day the first white settler set foot on this continent, the blackman has been subjected to abuse, racial subjugation by one generation after the other of the white race, but we are told children are innocent and should not be punished for the sins of their forefathers and yet they always seem to inherit the same racist traits of their evil parents.

A Ugandan friend of mine once remarked that the problem with us black South Africans is that we have too many Europeans in our country. I argued that they were citizens and not Europeans; for he felt that we are too obsessed with economic stability, not wanting to be like the rest of Africa etc that we have sold our humanity, our own diginity as black people for a few pennies of silver called economic stability. The whites denied black people education and skills because they knew that they could then hold us a ransom for the sake of this economic stability in the event a black government came to power.

He remarked that the race problems are the same problems every black person faced all over the African continent soon after indipendence when all these countries had a sizable white population and the question is why do you think many of all these countries no longer have white populations?, why do you think India despite its British colonial past has no white population today?

I am now persuaded I tend to agree. With the way many of these Afrikaaners are carrying on, I don’t think South Africa will ever be an exception to what has happened in the rest of independent Africa. I am just afraid Zimbabwe might turn out to be just a picknick, given the sizable white population we have in this country, mark my words.

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You obviously have no clue or understanding of the dynamics of the South African society. As an academic I deal with the methodological challenge to ensure validity of generalizations from case study research and ’soft’ data. The way you generalize regarding the Afrikaner community it woefully shameful!! - a disgrace and illogical. I don’t have time to analyze your arguments one by one - and frankly won’t waste my time doing so.

Please read Michael Trapidos much more balanced view - currently posted right next to yours on the website.

Shocking and sad ..

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I agree with Sipho van der merwe on what he said of the demographics on crime. Let’s face reality here: white people do not have a monopoly on being victims of crime. In fact, i would say that white people are faced with crime on a comparatively lower basis than all the non-white people in this country put together. Why would that be? Because white people comprise 14% of this country’s population. Which means black people bear the brunt of these crimes. It means it is mostly black people who have to deal with the fact that criminals live among them, and that for criminals, a black life is a lesser life.

White people simply aren’t used to violence being directed towards them. And neither should they be, none of us deserve the levels of violence with which we live. But let’s not forget that the crime problem did not start in 1994. It started long before that. Access to white people in terms of robbing from and hurting were more inaccesible. Well, we’re all equally accessible now, aren’t we?

It is not only white people who get robbed and raped in the burbs of this country. Black people too. But you’re far less likely to see a black face on the front page as a victim of crime. Black pain doesn’t sell papers. Which leaves white people to think they’re the only people living through this nightmare. What hubris.

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ja shame Christi. To think after all the years, four stupid poepolle from KOVSIES and one dom plaas seun van Zeerust rules the land. One should have thought that there are more serious issues? Or have these sad stories here used by the likes of you to hide the greater failure of the “new south africa”? isn’t it much better (that warm feeling like after you wet your pants) to moun about the stupid whites who will remain racist forever then say something about the real state of the failing nation, considering the fact that you should not bite the hand that feeds you? When you and me where at university in the 80’s, okes like me where forced to stand on our knees and eat dogfood mixed with vrot vleis, tabacco and urine as part of the male ritual called “ontgroening’. Do you remember that? OK Yes i forgot, girls only had to wear silly pajamas and high heal shoes. Can you recall how a PUK student broke his neck during a drunkend ‘ontgroening” incedent? In the greater scheme of things suster, the four poepolle van KOVIES are no different than the “ou manne” who made me eat urine drenched dogfood in 1982, and nobody cried foul about that then.

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If we follow Mac’s logic, the media should not report on murder, corruption, rape or any other crime until they have spoken to the perpetrators. And I thought people were complaining that criminals had more rights than the victims.
Really, what can be misunderstood from the video that the media has reported
1. Were the victims in the video abused or not? Answer is, they were indeed abused.
2. Were the perpetrators enjoying their abuse? Answer is Yes
3. Was the intention of the perpetrators to insult and dehumanize the victims (as seen by their preparing a concotion made of garlic, pee and dog food)? The Answer is a resounding yes
4. Did they ever apologise to the victims? Answer is No
So, other than to try to mitigate something that already looks bad, why would the perpetrators be interviewed? Is there something unclear about the video?
Lastly, the perpetrator’s family were indeed interviewed and that is how we find out that 2 of these bastards are sons of farmers, which helps people see why farmers are often the victims of attacks. It seems they enjoy dishing it out to poor defenseless older women.
This makes them cowards and racists
Perhaps you can help us understand how interviewing criminals will help resolve something that is already so in focus.

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To Tony Makeka:
You say the following: “The south african farmers that suffered were victims of crime not hate crime. ”

This is a recent attack on a woman quoted from News24.co.za: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2282180,00.html

Examples (as you know) of brutality on defenceless people (including farmers) are rife and it is true that black people also suffer brutal crimes. But there is no way you will convince me that there was no hatred involved. This was not just crime. It was hatred and a complete disregard for the life and dignity of an elderly woman … It makes a mockery of a constitution that guarantees everybody a right to life.

“Vryburg - An elderly woman was seriously assaulted on a farm where she lives with her daughter and son-in-law, presumably by a previous farm worker … Anna Viljoen, 86, is battling for her life, connected to various machines in Bloemfontein Medi-Clinic … According to hospital spokesperson Amanda Appelgryn, Viljoen is in a critical condition, has various severe bruises and looks as though she had been throttled and beaten on her throat. Her knee is also broken and she has knife wounds on her body.”

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Sipho, as far as I know there is a big difference between shit and urine. I am unaware that anyone has ever made any health related claims on behalf of shit, whereas it is conceivable that the students were acting out an instinctive urge to medicate the women with their urine.

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Ek-sal please do not even begin to threaten because any problems that can be started by white people in SA will lead to the extinction of the same in the whole continent of Africa. Something I do not wish for because it will derail human development. For human development to accelerate at an impressive pace all human beings need to be taken seriously and there must be peace among mankind.

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Chisti I see you’ve stepped on some sensitive white toes again..

Because I grew up in South Africa, the first two things I notice about someone is their race and gender. I unconsciously judge them accordingly. For me your perspectives on race bring to light this unconscious identification that each of us part take in on a daily basis - mostly without even knowing.

My first response to the Freestate insident was to think it is typical young white male behaviour. One can go deeply into the individual psychology of such people - that they over-identify as white and afrikaans, and hang their own meaning as indivuals on it. They seek to soothe their own personal feelings of disempowerment by degrading black women: those who are ‘other’. Without individual consciousness, any person will hang on to us-and-them interpretations of their world. A good example might be Eugene de Kock who suffered terribly as a child at the hand of a violent father.

In my opinion these problems are individual issues projected onto societal groupings by damaged humans looking for a short cut to ‘being right’ and belonging to a just grouping. The only way to root out racism and human rights violations is to nurture inner work and psychological responsibility in the individuals who make up society. We are, each of us, society.

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God this is getting so boring! The same old arguments with the same tired points.

Bigotry and racism is a human disease that afflicts not only the stupid and the ignorant, but the victims of all races.

Let’s just stop talking about it now and concentrate on empathy, compassion, wisdom and love.

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and humor… Lordy, I just loves Ndumdum. : )

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@XNM

Cool it man, what you are saying is meaningless. Mind you, continentally and even here the blackman is used to life in the trenches, not the comfort of large suburban homes behind high walls, Eskom electricity, luxury cars, big farms, private schooling etc.

Idi Amin did it. Samora Machel did it in 1975. Robert Mugabe has just been at it in the last nine years and and yet nothing has happened to him. He is still standing. So quit the empty threats, for the sake of your blood pressure.

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The only hope for this country is that all of us make a personal effort to treat all other South Africans with respect and dignity. This must become the mantra for every single individual regardless of race. This is the best way to isolate the malcontents who cannot change their ways.

I am a 60 year old english speaking white who despised the white nationalist regime that collpased in 1994. Why then do I find your articles so offensive. I think it is because you do so little to help bridge the growing racial divide. Worse still you seem to draw ghoulish inspiration from the racial discord that plagues our society.

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@ Japie van der Merwe

Dear Jaap, I do apologise! I have this personality quirk that makes me abhor hysterical writing, especially where sensitive matters such as race are concerned. I far rather is be based on objective, researched facts. If that’s not logic in your lingo, so be it.

So you say, if it’s a case of murder then the journalist should not bother with investigative reporting. Interview the murderer? I must say, it might be a tad difficult to interview him (or her) in jail, where I truly hope he (or she) would be sentenced. Of course his (or her) side of the case would come out in the trial, making an interview perhaps superfluous.

But, ou Jaap, if you really meant to say “alleged” murderer, the logic might be a bit different. Small word that – alleged – but it has great implications.

But you have caused me to stray somewhat.

What we are talking about here in the student video fiasco, is not murder or anything remotely similar (alleged or otherwise). It has become something at the other end of the spectrum on the law books - crimen iniuria. Wow! When the first breathless reports came through, there were not even allegations or charges in the legal sense.

I cannot comment on the video itself because I could not find it on YouTube or anywhere else on the internet. Of course I cannot judge using clearly hyped and/or biased reporting.

Your final comments amply illustrate the point I was making – the dangers of such reporting being used to incite one race against the other. You state that the perpetrators were sons of farmers and that was the cause enough for attacks on farmers. You logic is not exactly clear, but it appears that you are blaming the farmers for the racially motivated violence against them. Do you have proof or is this another example of your omniscient desk-bound logic?

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The worst racism and cruelest aggression against Africans are perpetrated by Africans. Its time that everyone wakes up to the fact that racism is an African problem. Run your finger down the map of this continent and count the number of cases of “ethnic” cruelty over the past 10 years (now replace the word ethnic with race, because that is what it is). The genocide of more then a million Tutsis by the Hutu’s while Africa did nothing. The racist murder of thousands in Dafur while the AU did everything to stall the UN from stepping in. Thousands of Matabeli murdered in Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe regime, while also dispossessing whites in acts of retribution. Xhosa Vs Zulu murder and intolerance in parts of South Africa. White farmers murdered by the thousands while the South African government keeps dead quiet. In South Africa, babies are murdered by the million EVERY year as abortion is now the contraceptive of choice. And then there are the despot leaders of Africa robbing and killing their own people (today in the 21st century) and the African Union turns a blind eye. It is clear to all but those who will not see: the worst racism and cruelest aggression against Africans are perpetrated by Africans.

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Dear Christi
Unlike many of the people who posted here, I did not enjoy your article as much as they did.
Ever thought of pointing out the fact that even though we have a very long way to go as far as ‘racial harmony’ is concerned we have indeed come a long way. My kids can, for example, now attend a racially mixed school and make friends with people of all colours and languages.
I find that wonderful.
Yet here we are back at pre-1994 discussions. And you are not helping to ease the pain, you are in fact stirring rather than contributing to discussions that might serve to build this nation.
I dream that one day all of us will open our eyes to see that racism does run both ways, but also that we are on our way to a South Africa that can be better for all people.
A South Africa where being black does not make you stupid, a South Africa where being Afrikaans does not make you racist, a South Africa where being white is not a crime, a South Africa for every colour of the rainbow.
Am I overtly idealistic? Perhaps a bit naive? Maybe yes. Would it make a difference to you if I told you whether I was black or white?
I hope not, because it shouldn’t…

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Lazola, English is obviously not your first language and neither is it your second.
What is “obsfucation”?? Your grandiose attempt at conversing in English makes you
look like a complete fool!! Start by installing a grammar checker and then familiarise youself
with it’s workings! Alternatively, rather converse in your own vernacular. That way, your ilk would
more than likely understand the message that you are trying to convey. You say, “The truth is
crime in SA is greatly driven by poverty and uneducation”. Your rationale leads me to conclude
that under the previous government, there was less crime because ‘potential’ criminals were richer
and more educated. Right? You talk of being able to “reason independently and objectively”. This is something that you obviously cannot do. Do you know the difference between ‘logical’ and ‘illogical’? You ramble on about “the duty to defend our people to the detriment of truth”. Are you serious?? The truth is that more crime is commited by blacks than by whites. This stark reality takes into consideration the population disparity and is a world-wide phenomena, whether you like it or not! Guess what, this is not ‘hate-speech’, this is ‘fact-speech’. Your “myopic” comment takes the cake. For now, our “bilateral” agreement should be, ‘to agree to disagree’. That way you get to keep your cake and to eat it, being contented and totally oblivious to the facts!

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Sipho and all folks quoting statistics of whatever nature. I wonder what the people who voted for the ANC with hope, think of all the M5’s and such like chorries transporting 1 oke to his place of no work. SA has bigger problems than this piece of journalistic junk. When you change a govt’ you only change the faces in the black Mercedes Benzes. It is up to the man in the street to say: Why sir do you not attend to the real problems of the people, ie. crime, poverty, housing and unemployment. Perhaps then we will have a chance to overcome our differences. Of course there are differences, only a very few believe that we are all the same. The trick is to understand the other guy. In Tanzania where we all speak one language, even thou there are 52 tribes, it is so much easier to understand the other’s point of view.
BUT the biggest difference is that the people of Tanzania do not have a culture of violence.

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Racism, in all its forms, is wrong. By wrong, I mean unethical, untrue, unjustifiable, damaging. I am eternally grateful that the apartheid regime of the past has been brought to its knees and replaced by democracy. And I agree with Christi van der Westhuizen - though apartheid has been brought to its knees, there remain some last ‘apartheid strongholds’ in the minds of people. These paradigms need to be changed, so that people’s hearts and behaviour can change.

However, I do need to raise another question:
Is racism a white disease? In our South African context, are only white people capable of racism? Or do we see other forms of racism in our country today?
If we are going to talk about racism, we can’t write and publish one-sided articles. We need to accurately portray what is happening in our country, which means that we need to look at the problem globally. Christi’s article mentions ‘white-on-black violence’. I don’t see any mention, however, of ‘black-on-white’ violence. If we are going to consider the racist video of the University of the Free State, perhaps we should also consider the case of Anna Viljoen - the 86 year old woman from Vryburg who, on 1 March, was assaulted, raped, and then stabbed internally with a knife by a man who used to be a worker on the farm. You might respond, ‘How can you generalise and say that violent crime perpetrators are mostly from previously disadvantaged backgrounds?’ I would encourage you to look at the statistics. And if one looks at the statistics, we see an even more alarming problem - in this whole white/black discussion, we see that, statistically, the highest percentage of violent crime actually takes place in rural areas. This means black-on-black violence.
Christi mentions ‘othering’ talk. I have personally been in discussions with black people where they have made comments like: ‘Oh, don’t listen to her. She’s an Nguni - they always have attitude.’ Or, ‘The Xhosas are now in power.’ Or, ‘Few of the BEE projects have been allocated to Tswana, or Sotho speaking people.’

Yes, we still have a problem with racism in our country. We need to open our eyes though, and see that racism is not just a white-on-black matter. Our efforts need to be focused against racism itself, because as long as it exists, it will lead to oppression.

Racism, in all its forms, is wrong. By wrong, I mean unethical, untrue, unjustifiable, harmful.

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The question of proportionality must be raised along with the understanding that the media thrives on issues and crisis and is often responsible for setting an agenda. Now a rather simple young man raised I presume in racism kills four people that I agree is outrageous and deserving of the outcry it created. However four rather short sighted young students perform a stupid initiaion video and the world is comming to an end. A week later a young white girl is raped in front of her father by five black men whilst she is out walking and there in no media comment? How does one determine that racism is or is not the cause of the attack. The shooting seems fairly obvious. He shot at these people because they were black. The FS thing well that is less clear but the rape how do we judge that. IS a crime worse or more evil because rascism was part of the motivation. If these five black men when planning this rape as i presume there must have been some intent said to themselves we are going to get our revenge for apartheid we are going to rape a white women would that have made the whole thing worse than if they had gang raped a black woman? Does the media by choosing the current issue of the hour play a role here? If I assault someone because I wish to rob them that is bad but if I commit an equally violent act because of their race or sexual orientation then that makes it much worse. It seems to me that teh SA media in particular thrives on crisis. If there is no issue for the wek then one needs to create one. I presume being a journalist in SA is somewhat easy as with `18 000 murders a year, gross incompetence and corruption in many departments one is spoiled for choice when it comes to a story. In Canada or Australia where nothing much ever happens it must be different. Even old e-tv are happy to drum up 55 000 votes by playing the death penalty card. One wonders is teh media so innocent in all this.

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Actually, the white population in the country is 9%, according to StatSA. It has not been anywhere above 10% since 1994.

As to the medical value of urine, perhaps you will not mind then if someone fed your parents urine laced food?

K-Graf:
Thank you for making my point. Your story about the Vryburg incident is proof of the kind of abuse the farmers mete out to their employees such that they return to avenge their treatment, hence the hatred. The hatred is not borne out of racism, rather disgust and anger at being treated like an animal by many of these farmers. You claim that it is the hatred shown in these attacks that make them racist, but you fail to mention the episode of hatred associated with some of the killings, torture (dragging someone behind a bakkie is indeed torture of the worst kind, similar to ironing someone), rape, etc. It happens in all communities and it is not acceptable. Afrikaner farmers are as capable of this sort of deed.

White farmers continue to abuse and torture farm workers, both foreign and local. I have heard of situations in Limpopo where a farmer hires a Zimbabwean for next to nothing, and as soon as the guy wants more money, he is abused and then sent to Lindela where he is then sent back to Zimbabwe. Guess what he does when he gets back to South Africa?
If the Afrikaner farmers did not hire illegals, there would be no reason for many illegals to cross the borders putting the farmer’s lives at risk

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http://www.grocotts.co.za/specialreports_detail.php?mmID=54

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Time to pack up your computer and close your
blog and to take note what Mr Zuma het to say:
‘Afrikaners het ‘n spesiale plek in die land.
Hulle het die land gemaak wat dit is”

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@karen

Excellent post.

My opinion:
1: We should admit that all races are racist. To shout louder when one race is guilty of racism than when another is, is in fact racism.
2: Do not excuse your own race from this. Read up on your people’s history and you will find some attrocities commited to other tribes.
4: Find a solution if you want the problem solved.
5: Stop playing a blaming game. It is making everything worse. The problem is that the media thrives on this kind of news and why shouldn’t they. Why should they report on a happy go lucky story when they can write racial stories that creates this much attention world wide. If we are all honest with ourselves, the UFS story was really not that news worthy. The mere fact that I now have to state that I also think the students behaviour was incorrect, shows how white people like myself feel that we are often categorised with these same group of confused racists.

I always try to be objective, but it does feel to me that white people are on the receiving end of racial debates all over the world. And like somebody else said it does mostly appear to be black and white racism.
Why is this? Why are other races like the Chinese never investigated?

Surely white people these days are more liberal than most other races if you observe countries around the world?

Then why are they blamed for nearly all race related problems?

This fascinates me. There must be deeper reasoning behind this.

I would like to see articles tackling these questions, not the run of the mill stuff that seems to get everybody up in arms.

The media is not really having to work for their money. These kind of stories are just too easy.

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With this UFS saga given press exposure,one has to go back a step or two,to the Lack of Integration in PRIMARY & HIGH Schools. Afrikaans medium schools still exists and the % Ratio of white to non-white is as high as 98% in areas such as Gauteng. I would like to ask the following :What is happening to this integration ,which i beliebve could be the root that should dealt with quickly?This is another face of Racism that stills exists yet nothing is said about this practice.

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I suspect that a large number of reader replies to Christi’s article submitted over the past 2 days has not been published by MG. And I suspect that a number of those replies were balanced and fair, and above all represented independent thought on issues raised in Christi’s article. Responses which MG did not like, and failed to publish as it did not suit a particular line of thought on related issues which occurred in our land over the past few weeks. This is nothing less then censoring for the sake of achieve a desired outcome. Think about this! Is this in the interest of independent journalism? I doubt if MG will publish this letter, but I would dearly like to here from MG editors as to why they refuse to publish certain responses.

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One of the myths that is being punted here is that when black people murder, rape or torture white people there is no racial dynamic. That is just ‘crime’. That the numbers merely reflect the numbers of wealthy targets. Well, I challenge you. Many of our wealthy suburbs are substantially integrated. It is not that difficult to get percentages. Extend that research to the numbers who have suffered from criminal attacks, and the severity of those attacks. I would love to be proved wrong, but if this was merely crime, the proportions of black and white wealthy suburb dwellers being robbed, assualted, tortured, raped and killed would be the same. Having lived in a thoroughly integrated neighbourhood - our little road had two black and two white, and one indian resident - and we all got on reasonably well with my kids playing with the black and indian from two of the houses (the others were out of their age group) I can tell you our stats for six years. White houses - we were robbed 3 times (whenever our dogs were in kennels), the other house twice (elderly folk always home, badly beaten, one died) Indian people - once - with violence. Two black families -wealthy targets (moreso than either white family), often away… never. Now I am not blaming our black neighbours - they were fine people - but there is no getting away from the fact that to black theives we were prefered targets. All the houses were plainly watched. They could have robbed or attacked the black neighbours as easily. But white targets were prefered. That’s racial targeting. Not money. If you consider the treatment meeted out to white victims and black victims in the same suburb it becomes very apparent that the criminals did not consider people of another race as entirely human. Or perhaps they have a revenge motive against the race. But to try to claim these crimes are merely crimes with no racial dynamic and that black victims suffer as much abuse is simply disingenious. The simple answer is to treat any crime committed by any perpetrator across a skin colour line as a crime with racial hatred as an exacerbating factor, calling for more servere sentencing, whether the Skielik idiot, or the murderer of some old white duck on a farm, unless the perpetrator can establish beyond reasonable doubt that there is no racial motive.

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Read what the Sunday Herald has to say about South Africa and the gratuitous violence being perpetrated on whites and blacks.

Quote’ In the past few days my next-door neighbour, John Matshikiza, a distinguished actor who trained at the Royal
Shakespeare Company and is the son of the composer of the South African musical King Kong, had been violently
attacked, and friends visiting from Zimbabwe had their car stolen outside my front window in broad daylight.
My friends flew home to Zimbabwe without their car and the tinned food supplies they had bought to help withstand
their country’s dire political and food crisis and 27,000% inflation. Matshikiza, a former member of the Glasgow
Citizens Theatre company, was held up by three gunmen as he drove his car into his garage late at night. He gave
them his car keys, wallet, cellphone and luxury watch and begged them not to harm his partner, who was inside the
house.
Page 3 of 3
As one gunman drove the car away, the other two beat Matshikiza unconscious with broken bottles, and now his head
is so comprehensively stitched that it looks like a map of the London Underground.
These assaults were personal, but mild compared with much commonplace crime.
Last week, for example, 18-year-old Razelle Botha, who passed all her A-levels with marks of more than 90% and
was about to train as a doctor, returned home with her father, Professor Willem Botha, founder of the geophysics
department at the University of Pretoria, from buying pizzas for the family. Inside the house, armed gunmen
confronted them. They shot Professor Botha in the leg and pumped bullets into Razelle.
One severed her spine. Now she is fighting for her life and will never walk again, and may never become a doctor.
The gunmen stole a laptop computer and a camera. Unquote.

Read this article at http://tinyurl.com/32nh2c to put this discussion into perspective. Quite possibly the foolish white students have some sort of delusions of grandeur, being able to muck other students about, unfortunately black and now making a racist issue out of this. It is quite commonplace for senior students to play act their abuse on junior students, not that it makes it any better. But as the article shows, there are bigger fish to fry than this…

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It is excellent that such discussions are going on. I think they are about 18 years over due. The fact of the matter is that white South Africans make up less than 14% of the population and unless they “get with it” they will have to “get lost”. I am not an advocate of most of the Black Empowerment policies, they are a hand out. It is more of giving a man fish and not teaching him how to fish. The fact of the matter is that if the South African Government had set about educating its people of after Apartheid maybe 30 years from then the people of colour (Black Indian and mixed race) would have a higher stake in the economy. This is now going to happen as a result of BEE.

The discriminatory nature of the Apartheid era would have hindered the gradual (educational)option of redistribution of resources. Back to the issue of taking Apartheid out of the Afrikaner. We dont have to I have been to Western Australia many a time and have found that those who still reminice about this era and the former Rhodesia among other ‘pre-Independence’ African nations have made a home for themselves there. These people were not able to inegrate themselves in the changing society. So the answer is the Afrikaaner who belives ferverntly in Apertheid will simply leave.

As for the Afrikaners who remain we as a nation and continent will be willing to work with them for a better nation. I find it intriguing how most Afrikaaners will refer to themselves as South African but not African is South Africa its own continent? The truth of the matter is that it is simply wrong for less than 15% of the population to control 45% of the economic resources, to be 5x less likely to be unemployed and to make videos like the one from UFS let alone demand ‘they re own space’ Afrikaners are a minority they need to have more respect for the majority. As for taking blame for Apartheid i have never heard anyone complain about the chances in life they had because of the position they’re parents were in and the retribution is just a by product of this as is opurtunity.

As for apologising for Apartheid Even the Australians apologised to the aboriginals, the Germans to the Jews, we are yet to hear an apology from any Afrikaaner Organisation for Apartheid or am I mistaken? The rest of us who really want to achieve the renaissance that Thabo Mbeki has often talked about will stay and build our nation. The main question is does the Afrikaaner want to take the Apartheid out of him and not if it can be taken out, if not it is only a matter of time before it is forced out of him or he is forced out.

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@Dirk

I was also suprised that there were so few posts against this article. I also suspected many were deleted. The first reaction to reading it is anger, and I suspect many read it and replied in anger and were deleted.

I waited a while before I first replied to this latest outrage against whites.

Granted, posts with personal insults, threats etc should be deleted. But the net effect of creating anger and then censoring is that white resentment grows. I don’t know what can possibly be gained by this.

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Do you really mean that apartheid state killed black people indiscriminately?

I think that the apartheid state killed some black people discriminately.

I think that the opponents of the apartheid state killed some white people and some black people indiscriminately.

Like it or not, there was a war on.

But now there’s no war and the conduct and attitude of these “people” is revolting.

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I would like to commend Christi as well as all the respondents who have been courageous enough to take a long and hard look at themselves and the cultures of the groups to which they belong or with which they identify. Too often too many of us take the easy route of looking for someone else to blame, as has been the case with many of the responses to the UFS video that Christi cites.

We are in a moment in this postcolony where being critical is viewed as selling out one’s own side, which is unfortunate and dangerous when either/or answers to the tough questions of affiliation we face are less desirable than ever before.

Please keep producing your insightful and provocative analyses and responses.

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Francois OK refers:
The people of Tanzania do not have a culture of violence because they were not subjected to a racist policy that subjudicated them, forced them to flee their homes and caused the disappearance of significant numbers of their brothers, fathers, uncles, nephews, sisters, mothers, nieces and aunts.
Yes, Tanzanians speak one language, but we are mindful of the complaints coming out of Tanzania who complain of the atitude of South African companies, as well as the apartheid they bring along. So, perhaps it is not Tanzanians that are problems, but the beneficiaries of apartheid who now wish to export it

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Khoza wrote
- am now persuaded I tend to agree. With the way many of these Afrikaaners are carrying on, I don’t think South Africa will ever be an exception to what has happened in the rest of independent Africa. I am just afraid Zimbabwe might turn out to be just a picknick, given the sizable white population we have in this country, mark my words

—-
So what are you saying? To punish the whites you are going to turn the country into an economic basket case with some dictatorial old git hanging on to power for dear life and into a place human rights are a joke.
So when the country gets there, where do we go then? Can’t go further south, lots of water.
Can’t run to Namibia, they still have those racist whites there.
Zimbabwe, well half of them are here.
Mozambique well most of them are here as well.

Sounds good though. You have convinced me as well

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Christi,
You are correct when you say that the UOVS video is a symptom or reflection of an undying inner apartheid amongst Afrikaners.Instead of constantly blaming and accusing Afrikaners the question we should be asking is why does apartheid not want to die in the hearts of the mayority of whites in SA.Is it not possible that the pathetic,double standard,irresponsible and downright incompetent attempts of the ANC leadership to run this country is exactly what is keeping the spirit of apartheid alive and growing.

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The terms “White” and “Whites” are cultural constructs, and among those which caused all the trouble in the first place. How does one test the term, and to whom does it apply? Genetics won’t be much help, as most “whites”, and more especially Afrikaners, have African genes mixed in with those which originated elsewhere. Pencil test? Home Language? Ah - previous advantage! But so long as the terminology of restitution continues to travel down the groove made by Apartheid, racism will be the inevitable outcome.

Restitution there must be, and rightly so.

The only way out of the racism trap is to resort to a discourse of economic change, whereby the genuinely disadvantaged right now are given what is rightfully theirs - a shot at the resources - instead of allocating them to capitalists including a few BEE fat-cats. And the terms in which this change is framed could run along class lines - raising the unemployed and destitute, strengthening the working class and so on.

Does ‘white’ apply to Bram Fischer or Albie Sachs? Does it apply to my parents, who were hounded by the SA Security Police because of their socialist beliefs and activism?

Christi, every time you use ‘race’-based terms like ‘whites’ you perpetrate the terminology of Malan, Verwoerd, Vorster and the rest. Surely you can imagine a discourse that achieves your objectives without perpetuating these hateful and baseless stereotypes. If people believe in these constructs instead of looking at the underlying economic relations, we will never be free.

As science now shows, all humans are descended from Stone-age people who evolved right here in Southern Africa. We are one species.

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The Afrikaans universities have always had this tradition of brutal initiation and not much in the way of free thought and debate. This is in marked contrast to the Liberal English speaking campuses like Wits Cape Town and the former University of Natal. Although some of the progressive Afrikaners like Van Zyl Slabbert went to Afrikaans universities I am pretyy sure that many of the more liberal Afrikaners found their intellectual homes at Englisg speaking campuses. I am not surprised by the video at all.

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Du Toit’s contribution refers:
Admitting that all races are racist does not begin to address the issues.
What is more important is the effect and actions surounding racism. People have a right to be racist, provided their racism does not extend to actions against others which leads to discrimination. It is immaterial to me that Mr John Smith or Parkview is racist. what concerns me more is the action that John Smith of Parkview commits as a result of his racist tendencies. So, which is more important? The racist thought or the racist action?
Yes, there are black people that despise white people, but do not act on it, as much as there are white people who are racist who do not act on it.
I have an English and Baptist friend of mine who is racist. He cringes when he sees cross cultural sexual or intimate exchanges. He admits to being racist, but has never insisted that his opposition to exchanges was due to one race being superior or the other inferior. He has changed over the years, but he has not killed anyone, subjudicated anyone as far as I know.
Furthermore, there are almost no reported incidents of a black person subjecting a white person to racially based attacks, discrimination in the work place (not legislated) or other abuse as compared to the several incidents which have already been mentioned above. So, I do challenge anyone to state the incidents of black on white racial attacks that they are aware of, other than the incidents of crime which we all know is not limited to whites only (unless Lucky Dube is considered white). Considering that 90% of the population is black and that 9% of the population (i.e. white) receives 45% of the income, it does not take a genius to expect that most if not all the unsophsiticated crime will be committed by blacks. It is not an excuse as the crime is deplorable regardless of the perpetrator or the victim. It is however untrue and perhaps inflamatory to claim that whites have been specifically targetted in the past 14 years. Black people make up close to 60% of all the victims of crime. Consider some of the well know serial killers and rapists in the country and ask yourself who the victims of these swines were? Black women in most of the cases.
While farm attacks are deplorable, not only farmers die in these incidents. Their maids and workers often get shot or slain in the process, not to mention the abuse of farm workers at the hands of white farmers who are sometimes targetted for revenge attacks.

You ask people to stop playing the blaming game. Fact is, why should I look back to 5000 years from today, when today, Afrikaner boys (sons of farmers) thought it was fun to humiliate 5 black workers? Why do I have to check the history of Rome when just recently some nitwit from Swartruggens (son of a farmer) murdered 4 individuals in cold blood? Surely, these people have to take responsibility of their actions. We cannot then pass the buck and say that we are all racists, when others do not take their racist tendencies to killing or humiliating people.
If you understand honesty, they you will review your comments and hit yourself hard in the face. We should highlight abuse whenever it happens regardless of who the pep or victim is. To minimise this is a reflection of your lack of objectivity, which makes a mockery of your call for objectivity. Yes, the media takes the angle that will sell and hence will not mention the murder and rape of an old women in Soweto. So, you end up with the impression that only whites are victims and blacks live in paradise.
Chinese have not gone into Africa to colonise and subjudicate people, hence a lack of investigation. In any case, what does it matter? If whites are racist, is investigating Chinese going to mitigate the fact that whites are racist?
Being objective is not something you are capable of. Infact, one that has to mention that they are objective chances are that they are not.
all you do is spend time diverting attentions from these vile incidents so that we appear reasonable as a race.
The more fingers are pointed and people confronted, the easier it will be to deal with problems. Pretending there is no problem will extend this misery further

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What an interesting story.Intergration is a process and not an event.I am a Zimbabwe called a born free[those born after freedom in 1980].Through history books I learnt that Mr Robert Mugabe had to cohabit with his jailers,enemies and counter revolutionaries who were in the majority in the late Ian Douglas Smith Regime.Mugabe extended a hand of reconciliation on 3 March 1980 to these villains and die hard Rhodies.Your Mandela did it on 27 April 1994.Your Archbishop[Retired] Desmond Tutu suggested a Rainbow Nation for Mzansi after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.Everyone,black,white,colored,Indian,Khaki,Brown etc concurred to this.This was despite the crimes which shook the conscience of humanity Arpartheid South Africa had committed to their fellow black brothers and sisters.Everyone knows this including those unrepentant and apartheid apologists.
What I want to suggest for South Africa for it to grow and progress as a country must stop to stereotype and show prejudice to people of other races.Racial justice is a hot topic and will remain such if we take others as inferior.
Celebrate life in diversity and it starts in churches,social clubs,in the workplace,sports,schools,varsities etc.
In short’Do unto others what you would want them to do unto you.’Do you think God was foolish to create us in his image?Who are you to put nametags on God’s people.Perhaps a Devil’s Advocate.
So as long as South Africa want to live divided then race relations will remain strained.Build on on Mandela’s vision for a new and modern South Africa.He will be a happy man at his 90 birthday bash to receive reports that Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma are making frantic efforts to make South Africa one.
In a nutshell the University of Free State racial case cannot be treated in isolation.Do your remember the 2004/2005 Chisale case who was throw into a lion’s den by that white farmer and the lienient sentence he received from the courts.Its shocking but truly apartheid is prevalent in SA whether you like to hear it or not.Root it out to create a better SA for those who live in it.Have you forgotten about the 1955 Freedom Charter which I believe still guide and bond ANC comrades and cadres to this day.Do you need a foreigner like me to lecturer these issues to you?I guess you will deport me like you did in 2005.Sort out your mess.2010 soccer World Cups cannot be held in a country in confusion like yours.Better we take the bid to Australia.

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So much anger, we have a long way to go as a country toward true unity.

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Khoza I do not think you got it right. My input was directed at Ek-sal who was threatening white uprising and I mentioned that if that happens in SA it would lead to the extinction of the white race in the whole continent. The whole continent guards what is happening in SA jealously. That is what I meant. Go and read my input again.

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Shame Christi.. with respect its torture reading the words of someone with a lot to say but whose words lack authenticity? Clearly you have never been a victim of “black” crime in this country (THEY can’t help it right? the ANC isnt doing anything about their plight - its a basic human right to take someone else life for a cell phone and R100..) - UNLESS you are on the ANC payroll? Question: How would you feel about yourself if you were partly to blame for The South African Genocide? That is the unfortunate result (seen throughout history) by inciting the deficient majority against the more successful and sophisticated minority?

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Christi writes very well, but sometimes
reaches a conclusion from the wrong premise.She says racism involved a lot of “othering” talk. This does not only apply to racism. The psychiatrist and witer Scott M Peck identified this as the “we-they” phenonomen which is the root of all abuse - racism, sexism and all other “isms”. It specifically applies to insider-outsider groups which develop their own culture, like armies and police forces. Why else would our present black police be acting as brutally as the previous white police? Why do Xhosa and Zulu clash?

Christi writes about a “morphological obsession that Europeans had with people from other continents in the 19th century”. It was not just other continents, or other colours. The British regarded the Irish as sub-human, and their scientists argued that their sloping foreheads and receding chins proved them a sub race. They were not human so 2 million were allowed to die in the potato famine. I can look up the references for you, Christi - if you want accuracy?

To Khosa I wish to say that unfortunately the abuse of the black man started centuries before “the day the white man set foot on the continent”. The Arabs started trading on the East Coast of Africa in the 7th century, and the slave trade accross the Sahara taking black, mainly anamist, slaves from the Sudanic lands to the Arab Mediterranean lands was well established by the 9th century. The Europeans only arrived along the west coast of Africa in the 16th century, and their penetration into the interior, from the coastal trading posts, only started in the 19th century, after the discovery of quinine to prevent maleris. Before that they bought slaves from African or Arab middlemen in the coastal ports. When the British abolished slavery and sent their warships to patrol the African coast to turn back the slavers, the trade went underground and was conducted mainly from Cuba and Brazil. When the British ambassador tried to persuade the sultan of Morocco to abolish the slave trade, he refused to abolish a system which had been in existance”since Adam and Eve”.

In order to stop racism we must stop the “we-they” and develop a “we South African’s” identity.

It might help if we developed some pride in Afrikaans, which is not a white language at all, but a brown one. (see my post: English & Afrikaans; two despised languages).

In fact the comments about “white” being good, and “black” being bad, are also arguments from the wrong premise. There is no “white” skin colour, and no “black” skin colour. South African and American “blacks” actually were called, and called themselves, coloured, until the Black Consciousness Movement re-named them.

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Well done Christi, you have done what you set out to do with a sensationalist piece - polarised opinion and generated much steam. To suggest that 4 idiots represent a whole group is mischievious in the extreme. The world is full of seperatist, nationalist, bigoted individuals and groups, ask the Luyos in Nakuru, the Tamils in Sri Lanks, the Chechnyans in Russia, the Hutu in Rwanda, the muslims in Kosovo and so on and so on. There is no place in the new Rainbow Nation for bigotry, including rascist journalism. Your piece is just that, a sensationalist biopic guaranteed to raise the heat and further divide the nation. Well done. You achieved just that by continuing to give publicity to non-representative fringe rascists in the form of 4 idiots. Pat yourself on the back, sit back and fan the ensuing fires.

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I’ve been reading all these responses. Most people here are on the attack/defend mission. By mentioning white racism, Cristi did’nt automatically imply that there cannot be other kinds of racism. And besides that wrong and distructive examples are given. Criminals of all races have no interest in improving race relations in this country. And I don’t see how they will ever love their victims. Hate will always be part of the attack. The issue that we should be focusing on is dealing with our own prejudice which may manufest in racist activities. It’s a matter of bridging the divide for better national harmony. If you hate someone that person will hate you back regardless of your reasons for hating them.

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Racism of any kind is rooted in fear of the unknown other.

Any policy based on fear is bound to be detrimental to the country as whole. Unfortunately the ANC government has opted to pursue race based legislation ostensibly as a means of righting the damage that was the inevitable consequence of the racism of Apartheid. This legislation is, as is to be expected, also damaging our country. When are we going to accept that racism no matter how it is labelled is wrong. It is not possible to prevent AIDS by continuously re-infecting yourself with HIV but somehow differently packaged racism is supposed to cure racism. The dire consequences of Apartheid would have been best tackled through non-racist and therefore non-socially damaging legislation. I pray for the day that all South Africans wake up to this reality and start acting accordingly.

We are all human beings

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@K.Graf, first things first I read the artice in the hyperlink you attached and there is no where it mentions the race of either the victim nor the assailant. so I am not saying that nobody in that tragedy was black and nobody was white but you don’t know that either from the article. What you are doing is extrapolating that when someone says they own a farm , they must be white and when someone says they are a farmworker they must be black. I read that article and I see a have and a have not, someone who was evil, do not get me wrong, and someone who was a victim. But I see that everyday and it’s called crime.
.there are no excuses for the act itself but u’re response serves only to show an imbalance in the wealth distribution has been burned into your psyche as well as everyone elses. with 45% plus (i am paraphrasing previous figures) of the wealth being help by less than 10% of the country yeah sure you are going to feel victimized because it sucks to be robbed, you will look left and look right and decide that the one thing you have in common with your neighbor is that u are white. Big Surprise, I bet you if your neighborhood had half black people and half white and you ask everybody who got robbed recently i doubt you would see a difference bewteen racial divide of the victims. Hate Crimes speak to your motivation for choosing your victim. from what I can derive from that article that poor woamn was picked because she had chicken and money, and the workers in UFS were picked because they were black. It’s the motivation for the choice of victim, not the act itself that speaks to racism.
Oh yeah and for the record any one of any color can be a racist. There are racist black people , there are racist coloureds, there are racist indian’s whatever, racism is about ignorant protectionist agendas, generalizations of group behaviour, unqualified aggression based on nothing but gentic traits and idiotic ideas. and more importantly making assinine decisions based off of those idiotic ideas.

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@Japie van der Merwe

Japie, japie
Pleas calm down.
Really no need to get so worked up.
This is not the Huisgenoot or the Jerry Springer show.

First of all, I stated that what happened at UFS was incorrect. This humiliates me as an afrikaner as well.
When I say all races are racist, I am merely stating that it is time to stop blaming white people for everything.
I also asked the question why are white people condemned when they seem to be the most liberal race on earth????
Instead of addressing this question, you tell me that Chinese have never colonized Africa so they should be excused from discussion. The question I asked was why was the white man world wide a target for racism claims. Also should we only discuss African colonizers or are we free to examine other patters in other continents, other tribes, other civilizations?
Is this the ceiling to your academic abilities?
Please read the posts a bit better before responding next time.

Also, if I could take a wild guess, I would say that you are a liberal person, maybe educated to degree or slightly higher level, you are living somewhere where you have never really been exposed to black/ colored or indian culture except for in the work place, you thus have the liberty of daydreaming about how hunky dory everything is except for in your own culture where you tend to be a bit of an outcast because of your beliefs, maybe even your religious views. Maybe the Cape somewhere? You have probably come accross some information about apartheid which you found to be contradicting to what your father told you which has confused you a little as to where you stand in the bigger picture.

It would be interesting to know how much exposure you’ve had to the black culture. I’ve had plenty on the ground level. To think that other races are not as guilty of racist thoughts/ actions is a figment of your liberal, isolated imagination. Just look around in Africa.

Your argument is the same old thing that we are hearing over and over. It is nothing new. If you are objective at all, try to play the other side of the argument for five seconds. I am most probably younger than you and have been exposed to much more integration at school/work, have had more black friends than yourself, have been to terrible and good places in townships: Khayalitsha, Khayamandi, Soweto, Diepsloot etc. (not the tourist tour that you might go on)
Your profile on the other hand seems to be that of a typical isolated liberal white male, maybe even more similar to that of a white liberal female.

Your argument of so many persent of whites owning nearly everything so racism can be ruled out of attacks is not very objective at all for such a self appointed protector of everything objective. It is indeed very speculative and a guess at best. Nobody is saying stealing something is racist. The truth of the matter is that we can not disregard racism in the brutal attacks where old white people seem to go through torture. Were they racist first and thus got what was coming to them? Is this objective enough? haha. I would take a guess and say you are not in the fields of science or law. Just a hunch. There are numerous reports on racist actions from black on white in the news, just open your eyes. Use a search engine. Use your education. Spend some time with black people before you criticize me. I can hear you have not.
I have had Xhosa/Zulu/Thswana/Coloured friends who have been regular visitors at my home. I have also had liberal and racist white friends. I have read up on the liberation struggles in SA and Zim, biographies on township wars, I have photographed many townships scenes etc. The different SA tribes are just as bad as the Afrikaner. Some maybe a bit less, some maybe a bit more. Until people accept we are more or less the same this stuff will continue to happen. Your type of thought is exactly the problem.

We need to accept that we all have made mistakes, but we are basically the same. Look a bit deeper into what I’m saying. Then again we also need to realise that we are different in some ways, but that that also is OK. Pros and Cons. An objective person would realise that black people are worse at certain things and white people at others. Our compositions differ, just like a puma differs from a leapord.

It’s easy to be so liberal and judgemental of your own culture when you are living in a safe little cocoon Japie. I am convinced this is the case with you.

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@Easy Reader

It will help you Easy Reader to only read easy readings that will save you a lot of obfuscation alright and that will preserve your lacking dignity.

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@ Easy Reader

Your reasoning is greatly flawed you seem to be in the world of your own and you can’t distinguish between cause and effect. In fact the less said about your greatly reason-starved comment the better.

In the interest of progress you must not comment on things that you are little informed about and your dad might think you are a wise son if you do that.

Throwing undue insults to people because you don’t understand them won’t help you instead it will condemn you to the deep bottomelss pits of cheap arrogance and ignorance.

There are no short cuts to intellectualism.

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Lazola, not only are you very clever, you are also very erudite, no doubt. Here is your chance to redeem yourself and progress from village idiot, to Mensa material. In one of your many mindless posts, you wrote, “So many books could have been written, so many technological inventions lost”.
So, who in your opinion, is the greatest African inventor of all time?? Clue, I said inventor, not vandalist!! PS. “The People” can help you on this one!

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@christi

I’m no Afrikaner, by the way.
What is so bad about for Afrikaans to exist as a university language and for Afrikaners to want “spaces where they can be a community”?

History teaches us that when language rights are suppressed e.g. of the Kurds in Turkey, or the Tamils in Ceylon/Sri Lanka civil war sometimes results. Language was probably the key reason why the Kurds and Tamils went to war in these two countries,and both these wars have been very bitter, and have lasted over 20 years.

What is so bad about Afrikaners wanting one university where any subject can be taught in Afrikaans? Don’t Afrikaners pay many billions of Rands in taxes each year?
I would definitely not be in favour of an all white public university, but many who are not white do speak Afrikaans as a first or second language and some of them may wish to attend a university where the main language of instruction is Afrikaans.

Many people have prejudices and negative stereotypes of those who are different. Many males, in many different cultures, believe they are superior to women. (Male superiority and a male God is quite central to many different religions). Does this make such males terrible beings, to be hated and despised by those who do not believe in male superiority?
People can and do change, but this is not necessarily a quick process. If humans still inhabit the earth a thousand years from now, I’m quite sure many of the males would still consider themselves superior to females.

Quite a number of my colleagues are Afrikaners. I really don’t know if they harbour racist tendencies or thoughts, but I don’t care if they do. They pass on their knowledge to young blacks, knowledge they have gained over ten or twenty or sometimes over thirty years. The older of these staff were from modest or humble backgrounds, and they did not have the financial resources to study at university, so while they did enjoy some benefits from apartheid, they were defnitely not born with silver spoons in their mouths. They got to the positions they occupy now, though many years of hard work.
They speak courteously and respectfully to black, coloured and Indian colleagues. They are an integral part of, and an asset to, the company.

The United States calls itself a “melting pot”, whereby people of all language and ethnic groups (other than black) were in general mixed together. There were Italian and Jewish neighbourhoods, and Chinatowns, but other groups often did live together. Canada used to call itself a “Mosaic” where the different nationalities and ethnic groups all constituted the Canadian nation, but maintained their identities if they so wished. Canada probably still is a mosaic today. Maybe not all Brazilian cities, but certainly some of those outside of Rio and Sao Paulo also resemble a mosaic, with e.g. an Italian or German neighbourhood. Japanese, Poles, Ukrainians etc. in these Brazilian cities all associate with those of their own group.

Racism whereby people of certain ethnic or racial or language groups are openly or publicly denigrated, humiliated, insulted etc. by people of another group cannot be allowed.

But people wanting to associate with others of their choice, is not necessarily a bad thing.
Many blacks live in previously white suburbs. Quite a number of them prefer to spend weekends in a black township - typically the one the previously resided in, as they claim the white suburbs can be quite unfriendly places.

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@oldfox

Is that really you? Different than your usual posts. Great one.

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@ Easy Reader

I don’t know where to start pal to address your question on books and innovations hence it is speaking in volumes about your ignorance and lack of proper analysis blinded by mythical stereotypes.

Racism always and it will always disenfranchise others whilst advancing interest of others it’s a pity you don’t have clue about the cost and damage of racism hence you never set on the receiving side and no wonder you are grossly uninformed about the impact and magnitude of racism in the deprivation of the human development.

Just a bit of history, my forefathers were not allowed to pursue certain careers like engineering, medicine, accountancy, etc. Can you imagine the potential income lost, the emanating privileges in respect to quality of life missed, and the multiplier effect to the next generation?

Racism has robbed this country so much to the extent that if it wasn’t because of racism this country would be a first world country today.

In short, how many black people that never had an opportunity to be Engineers? How many black people that suffers racism today in the hands of racist corporate world having their talents greatly overlooked and undermined. How many inventions are subsequently lost??

We can’t quantify the magnitude of damage and injustice done but we can adjust our attitudes and make this world a home to all humanity.

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@ Japie van der Merwe

Dear Jaap, I do apologise! I have this personality quirk that makes me abhor hysterical writing, especially where sensitive matters such as race are concerned. I far rather is be based on objective, researched facts. If that’s not logic in your lingo, so be it.

So you say, if it’s a case of murder then the journalist should not bother with investigative reporting. Interview the murderer? I must say, it might be a tad difficult to interview him (or her) in jail, where I truly hope he (or she) would be sentenced. Of course his (or her) side of the case would come out in the trial, making an interview perhaps superfluous.

But, ou Jaap, if you really meant to say “alleged” murderer, the logic might be a bit different. Small word that – alleged – but it has great implications.

But you have caused me to stray somewhat.

What we are talking about here in the student video fiasco, is not murder or anything remotely similar (alleged or otherwise). It has become something at the other end of the spectrum on the law books - crimen iniuria. Wow! When the first breathless reports came through, there were not even allegations or charges in the legal sense.

I cannot comment on the video itself because I could not find it on YouTube or anywhere else on the internet. Of course I cannot judge using clearly hyped and/or biased reporting.

Your final comments amply illustrate the point I was making – the dangers of such reporting being used to incite one race against the other. You state that the perpetrators were sons of farmers and that was the cause enough for attacks on farmers. You logic is not exactly clear, but it appears that you are blaming the farmers for the racially motivated violence against them. Do you have proof or is this another example of your omniscient desk-bound logic?

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@ Easy Reader

My righteous brother Lazola has said it all.

Anyway it does not help much to argue with all the tenets and dogmas you have learnt in kindergarten, this space is not enough, professional help from a psychologist might help.

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I think the disaffected white people have become that way because they believe they have gone from being a normal citizen to a second class citizen. I personally believe, that with affirmative action and BEE, we have still only gone from being overly privileged citizens to being normal citizens. If, as a white male, you can’t get into a tertiary institute, or can’t find a job, don’t blame it on the black man. I know many white males who really need to consider the fact that they may not have studies hard enough in school, or bothered to gain skills as an employee. Their arrogance lets them down, and will be their downfall.

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@ Lazola

I don’t really want to criticise you because I like your writing, but this is not a personal attack… more of a debate.

Once again I am going to re-iterate my point.

Racism is wrong, probably perceived even more so if you’re on the receiving end and probably more today than 300 years ago when sticking to your own was simply a matter of survival and a necessity for some races.

However, if you look at the history of this country, it was not the Afrikaner that introduced racism or segregation. It was rife in other tribes even before the white man came. The English also implemented it before the Afrikaner if I’m not mistaken.

Also, before the white man came, African culture was very, very, very far behind other western/ eastern civilizations.

The mere fact that there are so many black professionals today is probably thanks to the white settlers even though the route taken was an ugly one at times. Could Africa have developed so quickly on its own? It is highly unlikely and all logic would appear completely against it.

Through out history tribes have always seeked out to stick to themselves, enrich themselves and protect themselves. As far as I know, it is a western, liberal concept to integrate everybody of different religions, cultures etc and to recognise and define the rights of minorities and majorities.

Also, you cannot state that this country would have been first world had there been no racism.
Without western influence, this country would not have been where it is today, as much as some people dislike hearing it. Was segregation necessary for the western man to survive in this continent in such small numbers? Most probably. Thus you probably could not have one without the other. Did white man abuse these powers to inhumane levels at times? Yes.

I feel African people have had a very hard time over the last couple of centuries. If I look around today I think Africans are culturally confused. Just so are the young Afrikaners it would seem. Maybe to a different degree and for different reasosns, but confused never the less.

I think South Africa right now is a very confusing place to grow up in. Literally speaking, almost everything is about black and white while figuratively speaking absolutely nothing is black and white.

It is good to have these kind of debates because we need to realise eachothers points of reference and only then can we understand and accept eachother increasingly. We are in a situation where we must either accept eachother or leave for a different country. That simple.

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Oldfox

Is it true ,is that really you? Now
I believe every cloud has a silver fox!!

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@ Dutoit

I have noted the contents of your submission….I am still ruminating.

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@Dutoit,

I agree with quite a few of Lazola’s points in his posting of on March 11th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I was thinking of writing myself how SA has lost due to restrictions placed upon people of colour going back a 100 years, but he has covered much of that in his posting.

You seem to think African culture and adoption of “Western” and other ideas in earlier times are mutually exclusive. Timbuktu in present day Mali had a university long before many European countries, but that concept was introduced to Mali by the Arabs.

You wrote: “As far as I know, it is a western, liberal concept to integrate everybody of different religions, cultures etc and to recognise and define the rights of minorities and majorities.”

China did this centuries ago.
The Chinese nation was forged 2200 years ago. By comparison, Germany, Italy were only united in the 19th century. The dominant ethnic group were the Han, who constitute 90% of present day China’s 1.4 billion people. All the great Chinese inventions and discoveries - silk, wood based paper, printing with movable type, compass, gunpowder, porcelain,… ) - are due to the Han.
As the Han expanded, even long before the unification 200BC, they encountered minorities, some of whom were less developed, and some who were primitive. One of the minorities are called Chinese bushmen. Sometimes the term aboriginal people is used for many of these minorities. The minorities were allowed to co-exist with the Han, and maintain their traditional way of life if they so wished.
Some of the northern minorities were numerous and hostile, so the Han built a wall to keep them out.
The Mongols conquered the central and northern Chinese empire about 800 years ago, and slaughtered some 30 million Chinese, sometimes all inhabitants of an entire city of 1 million were slaughtered within a few days.
Today, there are about 9 million Mongols in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. (another 6 million Mongols live in the independent country of Mongolia).
In 1644, the weakened and corrupt Ming Dynasty of China was overthrown by another minority, the Manchus. To stamp their authority on the conquered Chinese, the Manchus forced all Chinese women to wear the dress of the Manchu women, and all Chinese men had to wear the hairstyle of the Manchus - shaven in front, and a long plaited ponytail at the back. Chinese men who refused to adopt this hairstyle, had their heads cut off. It is due to this policy that Chinese do not wear traditional dress today (other than in Chinese movies )- when the Manchu led dynasty fell in 1911, the Chinese adopted Western dress.
Today, the Mongols and Manchus are two of the 55 minorities in China. All minorities have the same rights as the Han, except one. The single child per family policy of China applies only to urban Han (rural Han can have 2 children). A minority couple can have as many children as they like.
Minorities have their own languages, and some minorities have more than one language, like the Naxi. Minority culture can probably be studied in many different places in China, but one university in Beijing, the National University of the Minorities, specializes in minority studies.
Eminent archeologist Professor Su
Binqi says this of the contribution of the minorities to China:
“The origin of the Chinese culture should be compared to stars that stud the sky, not to a single candle.”
“The different ethnic groups that that form the Chinese nation may have entered civilized society at different times, not simultaneously. Yet all took part in the building of the Chinese civilization by contributing to it what is the best in them.”

China has had accommodated various religions for over a thousand years, the main ones being Bhuddism which came from India, and Islam which came from the Arabs. There are over 30 million Muslims in China.

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Lazola, good post. For a moment I thought that you were suffering from ‘double-deficit’ dyslexia!
It’s a pity that you and ‘the people’ couldn’t progress past the village-idiot stage though! Perhaps you guys are correct in laying the blame for Africa not producing engineers, scientists and the like at the door of racist colonizers. I can just imagine that if there was no Western influence in Africa at all, you guys would probably have beaten the Americans in the ‘race to the moon’. For all we know, you may even have colonized Pluto by now. I can understand your anger at being forcibly held back from being at the cutting-edge of technological discoveries. Indeed, “So many books could have been written, so many technological inventions lost”. Africa is so much poorer because of those damn colonizers. In all probability, Africa would probably have created the most advanced schools and universities. Corruption, fraud, murder and rape would be non-existant right here in Africa, were it not for those evil Europeans. In fact, all ‘African Americans’ would have returned ‘home’ and reclaimed their ancestral right to be here. North Africans would also not be desperate enough to want to escape from Africa and enter Europe. Africa would have produced the most philanthropists and would have had Charity Organisations that would have been the envy of the rest of the world. There would have been no foreign debt having to be written-off and Africans would today be referring to Americans as being ‘third-worlders’. Racism would be a word that was foreign to Africa and it would have been the epitome of tribal harmony, without any ethnic wars. So yes, you guys have good reason to want to rid Africa of all traces of racist foreigners. By the way, ‘the people’, I think that you should return to your ‘initiation school’ hut. This blog is interrupting your ‘umkhwetha stage’. BTW, did you purchase the computer from which you are communicating from??

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@ Dutoit

Thanks man for such an anthropological and ontological argument you have postulated however, it will be conclusive to see the consistency of your axioms in the present day issues like AA and BEE.

Seeing that today most South African Whites can’t appreciate the necessity of employment equity policies in context of South African history, your educated analysis might greatly help.

I will be waiting.

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@Easy Reader

It is pointless to argue anything with you as your reasoning is greatly flawed. You just can’t outsmart yourself. This country does not need tawdry thinkers of your caliber. In fact this country will be much better off without you.

If you don’t have enough cash to emigrate say so and I can setup a trust fund for you.

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@ Easy Reader

You were requested earlier to do only easy readings hence you are greatly embarrassing yourself if you smart enough to understand the meaning of embarrassment. You are an absolute disgrace.

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@Easy Rider

I just want to commend you for a series of excellent posts. Dont lose your cool and resort to insults like they do. They have nothing else in most cases.

We are better than that.The cream always rises to the top and they try and attack you.

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@oldfox

I might have used a bad choice of words and it might not have been clear what I meant. I said it was a western, liberal concept integrating different cultures, tribes etc.

I think I should have probably said, nobody is doing it as well as the West.

I still don’t think the Chinese implemented this in the same way(even today) and as liberally as the West, before the West. China only abolished the slave trade in the 1950’s. Way after the west.
That means they were not nearly as integrated as the West at that stage. The same goes for the Muslims if I’m not mistaken.

China for me isn’t really fully integrated politically compared to the West. Is integrated simply staying together or does it go much deeper than this? If it does, what exactly defines proper integration? The fact of the matter is we should not go into a debate of what integration means, which was never my intention.

My point was and still is; the west is extremely liberal and focuses a lot on integration, especially politically. America is on the verge of having a black president. When will South Africa again have a white president? Haha. The west is following the typical PC routes. Yet, when somebody gets criticized for racism, who does the blame lie with almost every time? Often the white man. Why? Why does one never hear other races getting criticized of racism? Nobody has really answered this.

I mentioned Africa being far behind “Eastern/ Western Civilizations”.
Am I aware of the fact that at a stage the West was far behind? Yes. I try to be objective. I don’t think my people are better than yours or theirs. I think there are differences and we all excel at certain, sometimes different things. I believe in evolution. And thus I believe in difference between people having lived on different continents for such long periods of time.

I am fully aware of the fact that the West was far behind some civilizations in a lot of areas. For instance mathematics at stages etc.
Am I ashamed of this, being from the west? No.
So Africa was far behind the West and the East. Why? We can go into a lengthy theoretical debate how Africa was resource rich blah, blah, blah.
The fact of the matter is: should Africans be ashamed of it? Only if they allow themselves to be. Should they be in denial? Not really.

The question which I would like answered is: Could western settlers have existed in such small numbers without segregation? Should they say sorry for a situation they were born into? Is it fair to keep hammering on one minority group for a vice that all races share?

I don’t think so. But then again, it probably depends on the pigmentation in your skin, doesn’t it?

@lazola

I understand that there must be a shift economically.
But you have to understand that it is a catch 22.

White people will not simply sit back and not send their kids to universities anymore.
It is integrated into our culture.
If it is not possible here or if employment is impossible due to the color of our skins, whites will emigrate.
I’m sure you don’t care too much about it, but that is the other, white side of BEE.
You don’t expect disciplined people, who work hard, contribute huge amounts of tax with very little return, have few kids so that they can focus their resources on them etc, etc to just except that their kids must take a backseat. It does not fit the profile of these people. You cannot expect it of them. It is like expecting a tortoise to jump through hoops.

The skilled and talented white people will leave. The less fortunate and the brave will stay behind. South Africa will loose out, but there seems to be no other alternative for white people.

The screaming irony is that all South Africans will loose out because of the color of people’s skin.

The reality is, if I have 10 jobs and 10 white graduates and 8 black then only 2 white graduates are going to be employed. Next year maybe only 1 white will be employed. Will white people stop producing small families that focus on studies and education or will they leave the country where they no longer feel welcome in?

I wonder.

PS I’m not even going to re-read…got too much work.

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@ oldfox

Ineteresting about Mali. Will read up on it.

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@ Easy Rider and your handlers

You have projected an illusion that would be the envy of a magician in a circus side show.

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@Dutoit

Dutoit said “I understand that there must be a shift economically”.

Now you have wrapped your analysis in style.

It is not that we are fascinated by equity policies those are only meant to address the imbalances of the past you have beautifully alluded in your previous analysis. I really hope and wish that we may reach our transformation targets soon so that we may repel the BEE laws for good.

As for the white emigration, I have some white friends that are really good people and it would be sad to see them leave however, there is group of white racist losers that I would love to see them boarding the next available flight to Sydney.

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Oldfox
Your comment about Timbuktu refers - it was one of the centres of learning and trade, including the slave trade. Certainly Arab Islam colonised long before European Christians. They could not penetrate South below the tsetse fly belt or they would have colonised the South as well.

Howver - the 1 child policy in China. Are not rural people only allowed 2 children if the first is a girl? I thought this was because of the strength needed for the family to farm. I know that the Chinese started the 1 child policy after their population doubled in 15 years, but I did not know this excluded the minorities. Can you give me a reference - I would like to read more.

Chinese are encouraged to emigrate - and then they can have more children. I understand that many of the Chinese contracts in Africa are done with Chinese labour. Maybe this debate will become academic - Africa will become Chinese!

Everyone
The whole world was colonised. Even the colonisers had themselves been colonised before. Who would you have prefered to colonise South Africa if you had a choice? The Spanish ? I doubt South America would agree.

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Lazola, thanks for all the kind words. I’m beginning to see how intelligent, logical and temperate you really are. Nothing seems to faze you. ‘The People’, you are suave. You are sophisticated. You are a class-act, personified. In fact, I highly recommend that the two of you avail yourself to be sent to hot-spots around the world, to smooth-talk suicide bombers out of detonating their charge. You gentle men are ‘United Nations Presidential material’. You guys also have insight and are realists with regards to the awful scourge of unwarranted racism even if it be reverse racism. You two are unlike other bloggers on this site who suffer from dementia. Are megalomaniac and dyslexic. Who are crass and bigoted.
A while ago, I read about two patients who had escaped from the Weskoppies Mental Hospital.
I can’t for the life of me explain why I would think of that now. I’m so sorry, I must be losing it.
Before I forget, ‘Lazola’, thank-you for offering to set up a trust for me. You are so magnanimous.
‘The People’, all of the best for the thnip.

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@ Lazola

Lazola, the problem with the rich and skilled leaving is that it is the poor that suffer, creating bigger divisions between rich and poor, first world and third world.

So there is no perfect solution here.
The irony for me is that the issue of skin color will punish mostly the poor black person even further.

I am not sure of the specifics, but I know there are some rough estimates of the amount of jobs lost for skilled poor person leaving. I can imagine it might be quite significant.

The reality is that this is creating a huge problem. It is something we cannot fully comprehend as normal citizens, but the impact is massive. On the other hand if the imbalance in the economy is not addressed it will be even worse for white people in the future.

There is no perfect solution here and it is sad to have to leave the country where you were born, but many have no other choice anymore.

I would like to see the government reducing BEE requirements on small businesses for whites. That way it might still encourage some to stay, become entrepreneurs and create more jobs. I’ve heard it is impossible for a white person to own a Kentucky franchise now?!

That in my opinion is the flaw with BEE.

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@Dutoit

“When will South Africa again have a white president?

This is fundamental question and it needs to be answered to avoid any possible fallacies that might otherwise arise.

The truth is political parties in SA are primarily racial demarcated and blacks are not the authors of separatism and if you are looking for the reason for that you mustn’t look very far.

In 1990 when Nelson was released he uttered one of the memorial statement” I have cherished the idea of the non-racial South Africa”. This was after 27 years of imprisonment. 10 years later Toni Leon still couldn’t utter a similar line with the same level of clarity and passion like Madiba except his notorious “fight back statement” and his successor Helen Zille with her “take your city back” line is not helping at all in diffusing the suspicion.

The white opposition is still greatly lacking strategy if not a vision to enter black communities (assuming that they want to); they need to be able to answer issues that concerned black communities like unemployment, housing and so-forth. I mean with the ‘fight back mentality’ they might as well forget.

The privilege few whites that grew in Eastern Cape and KZN, I am sure they can agree with me that my African people are quite friendly and warm if you have a right attitude.

On the issue of the West as the champion of human rights.

West is founded on Christian values, like peace, love, kindness, gentleness, patience, and others. This explains why most philanthropists will always be coming from the West.

Christianity has played a major role in shaping the world as we see it today. Most Africans were educated through mission schools that were setup by Catholic and UK missionaries and I am forever grateful for their contribution in the African development and may their souls rest in peace.

Thus said it should be noted though this is not a question of race per se but it is a matter of philosophy and theology.

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@lozola

You said “When will South Africa again have a white president? This is fundamental question and it needs to be answered to avoid any possible fallacies that might otherwise arise. The truth is political parties in SA are primarily racial demarcated and blacks are not the authors of separatism and if you are looking for the reason for that you mustn’t look very far.
”

Whites voted to end apartheid in the spirit of a non racial country where they could peacefully pursue their lives. Give them some credit for that. Despite what you believe we are not all evil people. If you move within the right circles you will realise that very quickly. As you said, you already have white friends so I am asuming you know this already.

And as for Madiba, he was charismatic, sincere and appeared to be an honest politician, but I doubt whether he could do for South Africa economically what somebody like a Leon or Zille could do. There are more to just being charismatic and having the people’s concerns at heart. You can mean well as much as you like, which is admireable, but if you cannot put that accross into results of the same magnitude it doesn’t help much. Zuma to me once again is an example of somebody that “listens” beautifully, but that is where it stops. He never seems to have a defined policy on anything and yet people trust him. It is amazing how people trust him so easily.

As for “take your city” back. That could mean lot’s of things, it’s not necesarily a message to whites and coloureds. For instance: 1:take your city back from corruption. (travelgate etc, etc)2: Take your city back from the underdelivering politicions. 3: Take your city back from the ANC etc. It’s not necesarily a race thing. I’m from the Western Cape and the people there, especially the English white people (of which group I’m not ancestorally part of) are quite liberal and not as racially motivated as some up north (where I’ve also worked for quite some time). I do agree with you, they need to reach out more to black comunities. I think the DA is already focusing quite a bit of resources on this anyway. The reality is this country needs a stronger oposition, otherwise politicions will not be held accountable. But it is also up to black people to make this happen. Our power crisis hasn’t seen one head roll(as far as I know) and in the next election the ANC will be back in power again. This is just one in a couple of huge government messups and, let’s be honest, quiet a bit of corruption. In a strong democracy the party would have been held accountable.

The way in which the ANC is conducting itself in the western cape is also quite shocking. They seem to not be able to accept defeat within the democracy they pretend to hold so dear. Floorcrossing is fine until it works against them etc.

Also, looking at the American election: It’s fascinating how black areas are voting decidingly in favour of a black president where white comunities are also voting for him, but more equally balanced. This could also lean towards a pattern that black Americans are much more racially motivated, than policy motivated compared to their white counterparts.

This is why I question the “white racist” stereotype.
Just a thought.

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@ Dutoit

Afro-Americans voting decidingly for Obama

United States never had a black president in its history even though the Africans have been in America for more than 4 centuries. For many black brothers in States having a black president could be a dream fulfilled.

In a country where prison inmates are mostly black it would be uplifting and inspiring to the black youth to know that truly America is a home for all. Presently black Americans have so many reservations about America as the land of dreams and they believe in conspiracy theory that state organisations such CIA, FBI and Pentagon are out to destroy them.

So seeing Obama taking the helm that will invalidated those stereotypes but if he lose it will confirm the already standing beliefs of conspiracy theory.

Therefore Obama Barack doesn’t just represent a black face but he symbolises and embodies change, determination, resilence and hope for a non-racial society.

In fact some whites too are decidingly voting Obama for these reasons.

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@ Dutoit

Afro-Americans voting decidingly for Obama

United States never had a black president in its history even though the Africans have been in America for more than 4 centuries. For many black brothers in States having a black president could be a dream fulfilled.

In a country where prison inmates are mostly black it would be uplifting and inspiring for the black youth to know that truly America is a home for all. Presently black Americans have so many reservations about America as the land of dreams and they believe in conspiracy theory that state organisations such CIA, FBI and Pentagon are out to destroy them.

So seeing Obama taking the helm that will invalidated those stereotypes but if he lose it will confirm the already standing beliefs of conspiracy theory.

Therefore Obama Barack doesn’t just represent a black face but he symbolises and embodies change, determination, resilence and hope for a non-racial society.

In fact some whites too are decidingly voting Obama for these reasons.

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Voting for a president because he is Black and 400 years of so called ‘oppression’. How enlightened. I thought you vote for who is capable.

What does Obama stand for?

He voted against banning partial birth abortion.
He voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions.
Supports affirmative action in Colleges and Government.
In 2001 he questioned harsh penalties for drug dealing.
Says he will deal with street level drug dealing as minimum wage affair.
His religious convictions are very murky.
Opposed the Patriot Act.
First bill he signed that was passed was campaign finance reform.
Voted No on prohibiting law suits against gun manufacturers.
Supports universal health-care.
Supports granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
Supports extending welfare to illegal immigrants.
Voted yes on comprehensive immigration reform.
Voted yes on allowing illegal aliens to participate inSocial Security.
Voted with Democratic Party 96 percent of 251 votes.
Opposed to any efforts to Privatize Social Security and instead supports increasing the amount of tax paid.
He wants to raise the Capital Gains Tax.
He is ranked as the most liberal Senator in the Senate today and that takes some doing.

If your political choices are consistent with Barack Obama’s and you think that his positions will make it a better place, then you will probably enjoy the ride.

Worst of all, he has no plans on how he will pay for it all. I guess it will be from the pockets of working people. But whta the hell, he is Black; vote for him.

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@dutoit

BEE exemptions are made for “Qualifying Small Enterprises”, which have an annual turnover of R5M to R35M per year.
There are 7 categories of compliance, and the enterprise must select 4 of these 7 to be rated against.
www.thedti.gov.za/bee/small%20enterprises.pdf

Other BEE exemptions apply for small and microenteprises with a turnover of less than R5M per year.

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@Lyndall Beddy

I’ll try to get a single, reputable reference. The wikipedia reference is contested, but perhaps mainly because it does not deal with some of the consequences of the one child per family policy, such as abortions, abandoning girls in orphanages etc.

On my first trip to China, I immediately understood why Chinese prefer Chinese labourers in Africa, which I understand is a controversial practice of theirs, resented by many Africans. Many Chinese foremen and artisans speak very little English, if any at all. So they can’t communicate with locals, or not until they have had many months to learn and practice English, or whatever language they need to use to communicate with local labourers. Chinese companies do however work with local contractors in Africa, where suitable contractors are available.

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When will South Africa have a white president again? Good grief - it that a serious question? Who the hell cares.

When will South Africa again have a president they can be proud of and respect? That is a serious question.

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[…] Voorbeeld is Christi van der Westhuizen, welbekend vir haar intense haat vir haar eie volk, wat in hierdie rubriek vra of mens die rassisme uit Afrikaners kan haal.(Op my beurt is my vraag of mens die […]

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@Consulting Engineer

I wish people were always solely voted on merit, unfortunately is not always that way. If it was question of merit white house would not have been that white. People of colour have been in the peripherals for a longtime, now that the world is finally embracing civilisation and Obama is adequately equipped for presidency and he is non-white too, they might as well vote him.

As I have said earlier, Obama is an embodiment of positive change.

About the other points you have outlined against Obama - I rather reserve my comment however you should know that senator Obama is very popular among the well cultured Americans to say the least.

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@ oldfox

I said: “I’ve heard it is impossible for a white person to own a Kentucky franchise now?! I would like to see the government REDUCING BEE requirements on small businesses for whites.”

You said: “BEE exemptions are made for “Qualifying Small Enterprises”, which have an annual turnover of R5M to R35M per year.
”

I said reduced. Not get it in place, reduce it. Motivate people to create opportunities instead of occupying them.

I do a bit of business, but clearly if I cannot even own a small Kentucky franchise or a petrol station my options as an entrepreneur are being closed down. Where can I still compete fairly except for overseas? Entrepreneurs don’t like this kind of red tape. That is why they become entrepreneurs.

As a white person I think it would be risky to attempt to stay here. If you have the right skills you can have a great life almost anywhere in the world. Who is going to stay in a country that doesn’t treat them fairly when they have the option of being anywhere? Nothing is going right for this country right now. Nothing. Something needs to change very quickly.

Skilled people are not getting punished, unskilled people are. The sooner everybody realises that by motivating people with skills and money to stay, everybody benefits, the sooner everybody will start benefitting.

As for comparing Eastern European people to Africans, it is a very long shot. African people were catapulted into the modern day world. Eastern European people have been partaking for quite some time. African people were advanced thousands of years, maybe not as much as they could have, but to say they were held back is ridiulous.

This is my last post on this topic. We aren’t getting anywhere.

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@dutoit

your exact words were:
“I would like to see the government reducing BEE requirements on small businesses for whites.”

My reply: BEE exemptions are made for “Qualifying Small Enterprises”, which have an annual turnover of R5M to R35M per year.
Exemptions in the above sentence means a REDUCTION in the requirements. Did you download the document from the URL I provided?

The BEE requirements described by DTI have nothing to do with what you claim is an exclusion of whites from owning e.g. a Kentucky franchise.

Lets say you start a small IT business. You can start one without having any black or coloured or Indian equity partners, and have no employment or training programs for black or coloured or Indians.
And lets say you don’t even meet 4 of the 7 conditions to get BEE status. Such a business is perfectly free to operate in SA, to supply the export market, or to supply private firms here e.g. you could provide software to an agricultural union. You won’t in general be able to supply any services on a tender basis to govt, or Eskom, or Telkom, because they all give preference to suppliers who meet BEE requirements.

If however, you supply a unique product, vastly better than competing products, then you may well be able to supply to govt., Eskom or Telkom, even with zero BEE compliance.

If you download the DTI document, you will see that you can have a 100% white owned and managed co. and still fully meet the BEE requirements, but you will have to transfer skill’s, procure from BEE companies, etc.
You have often mentioned that current practices are denying employment opportunities to the unskilled, so I assume you are not averse to employing people from the previously disenfranchised population groups.

If Kentucky has chosen to prevent whites owning a Kentucky franchise, than that may be their own decision, and not something they were asked to do by the SA govt.
I speak under correction but most franchises are open to whites. There are Franchise associations, and they should be able to confirm which are/are not open to white ownership.

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@ oldfox

Have not read the document, made an attempt…will later

“You won’t in general be able to supply any services on a tender basis to govt, or Eskom, or Telkom, because they all give preference to suppliers who meet BEE requirements.”

There is still too much red tape and interference for most decent entrepreneurs who are not desperate to stay in one place. When thinking of quitting your job and spending the next 2 years working 10-16 hour days to get your business/es up and running, all this interference doesn’t leave a sweet taste in your mouth.

Opening an IT company (something I have done) and not being able to tender for government contracts is a huge setback.
Also, you will have greater difficulty supplying services/products to companies who tender to government as they have a BEE rating, which can be boosted by only dealing with BEE companies. Nowadays, it is extremely competitive, with top scoring BEE companies (black, female owned) winning most contracts in competitive segments of IT.

Even if I do start up a new venture, it is simply a matter of time before I have to change my BEE credentials in order to do business with these companies. This is what worries me. I do not want to spend my time in SA building up business and capital, because it doesn’t feel safe. How long before you have to sell most of your shares in your company?

I can’t compete freely anywhere anymore as a neither jobseeker nor can I complete freely even as a small business owner (FREELY AND FAIRLY) and what is to say that the rules won’t become more restrictive. That is why I’m saying, the BEE approach at the moment is too restrictive for small business. I am involved with government tenders so I know more or less how it works. I also own small businesses, so I know this is possible. But when one thinks of the future and how you want to live your life, it is a bit restrictive in this country for me at the moment. It angers me that I have to put up with discrimination like this when I just want to get on with things. I will help disadvantaged people, but stop interfering and penalising me for having a white skin. If I am let alone I will contribute, but helping somebody when being forced to is not the same. Then I will rather do it in a different country where it feels like I am doing it because it is the right thing to do instead of being forced to.

Oldfox, you cannot deny it…it doesn’t look good for somebody in his late twenties that are wondering where he should commit. How long until we as whites have even fewer rights. I have no problem with helping the poor, but when there is a gun held to my head I am not helping, I am being forced against my will.

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@dutoit

I checked with one co. and found that they select the 4 categories out of the 7, so at least one co. applies the BEE policy more strictly than specified in the DTI policy doc.
So maybe its tougher than I thought.
I’ll check with two other companies and enquire how they apply the QSE BEE criteria.

If you have a really good idea that will result in jobs created or economic value added, you could contact the guys listed in the links at
www.dst.gov.za/focus-areas/focus-areas/innovation
Govt. funds are available as grants (25% - 100%) and white owned companies can and do get grant awards.

For supplying “me too” products, like PCs to a govt. department, I personally don’t think an all white co. would stand much of a chance of winning a contract.

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@oldfox

Regarding your aboutface and agreeing with dutoit and the difficulties whites face in tenders, once again my respects to you for admitting you were not originally correct.

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[…] the responses to my last blog, one can only wonder if honest introspection is at all possible in this society, rent as it is by […]

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I see this debate has turned to BEE. Come on - just do what everyone else does! I have an aquaintance who has a product that is the best! He spend 30 years getting it to where it was. Nearly bankrupted himself twice. No-ways he was not going to give that away to a pal of the elite. So he has two of the elite whom he supplies and they get the contracts. So he does not supply the end user any more - but hell the end user is only the government i.e you and me pay more for the middleman to get his cut!

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@ Foolish Proud Christi

Pro 14:3 In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.

Pro 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Eze 30:6 Thus saith the LORD; They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.

@ Blaspheming Antichrist Christi

Rev 13:4 And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
Rev 13:5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
Rev 13:6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
Rev 13:7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
Rev 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Rev 13:9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
Rev 13:10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

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Witriool - good comment. I think you should start your own blog, you write well.

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Christi,

I simply cannot believe this absolute assault on the Afrikaner. You are truly short sighted and irresponsible.
I can only hope that your reasoning and process of thought that gave birth to this disgusting “brain fart” was drug-induced. Here are some more topics you can get stuck into for your next Joke:
1. Why all Germans will allways hate Jews.
2. Can anyone persuade an American Citizen not to support the next Nuclear attack?
3. Failing medical scientist cannot help Australian men: They will allways prefer sheep!

Your article is rediculous, demeaning and racist. I need to take a shower…and brush my teeth. Seeing intelligent people taking part in this and some endorsing it makes me feel dirty and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

P.S. ALL Nigerians are drug dealers…ALL 150 million of them.

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I kind of agree with Christi. There is a pernicious form of racism that attempts to paint black people as “incompetent, stupid, and lazy” and white people as not that. But there are several things I would like to add:

- If affirmative action type policies get taken too far, incompetent and stupid people will get promoted over competent and smart people. This is not a race issue. It doesn’t matter who benefits from affirmative action. Some affirmative action is justified, but take it too far and the beneficiaries inevitably will be stupider and more incompetent… and that will be very evident.

- Groups of people do have a right to self-determination (I believe that for Israel and for Afrikaners alike). Afrikaners will very probably not have much say in the government because they are generally viewed as criminals who should be made to pay for their crimes. The fundamental problem is not self-determination, it’s the linking of race to culture. I will openly accept a black or Indian Afrikaner, should we redefine “Afrikanerdom” on the non-oppressive, positive qualities that Afrikaners possess (they do possess them).

This issue of the relationship between race and culture is actually very complex. It isn’t terrible to want to be with people like you, but to tie that to race and to exploit others on the basis of their supposed racial inferiority is wrong. Many countries are free, open, and monocultural.

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Actually, I would like to add more: While BEE might go some distance towards improving the South African economy, ultimately the best way to improve the economy is to forget about making things equal and promote expansion. New businesses with black CEOs and black employees. Leave the white companies alone… instead of taking over, just out-compete. There are plenty of talented black African business men, but the way the government is going about things sometimes seems to almost prevent the cream from rising to the top. Often the whites in charge are there because they were good. They will succeed in other environments as well (Afrikaner emigres often do). Let them continue to run their businesses and encourage new black businesses to grow.

Even during Apartheid, the evil white supremacist Afrikaners who had house servants still had to work at their jobs. They may have been better paid… I don’t know the exact details since I didn’t grow up during Apartheid, but that they had to work to rise up out of tremendous poverty following the Anglo-boer war is a fact.

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