Newspapers, at present much derided and bleeding red ink, have at least one useful social function. They confine the nutters, rumour mongerers, conspiracy theorists, and bigots to their dank little holes by largely starving them of publicity.
Those who warn of an international Jewish conspiracy or imminent Armageddon if women won’t dress modestly, struggle to get published in credible newspapers. Competition for space is fierce and the local loony claiming abduction and impregnation by randy extra-terrestrials is only rarely indulged.
The internet is different. Anyone can assert expertise and at negligible cost peddle their pet peeves. It has the benefit of providing true freedom of speech to those who struggled previously to get their views aired.
But fear, marginalisation, and rapid social change make for a dangerous combination. The internet also allows all kinds of vile creatures to slither into one’s email in-box.
The most recent one was a collection of farm-murder photographs round-robinned by an educated man, a dentist, who presumably believes he is performing a useful social function. If the intention was to evoke fear and anger among readers, in that he succeeds.
These are scenes of almost unbelievable violence. A sharpened broomstick is stuck up a vagina; a child is bludgeoned to death; and a young woman is disembowelled and hung by her heels from a meat hook.
The text fulminates against a media and government that deny the truth about crime. It talks of Afrikaner genocide, a political war to drive white farmers from the land, and it links to websites that are virulently anti-ANC, registered to the tiny island of Nauru in order to hide the identities of their operators.
The websites, including one lobbying against the World Cup in SA next year, have been repeatedly targeted by hackers. The assumption of many is that such cyber attacks are the work of SA government agents.
A week ago the identity of the owner of ZASucks.com was revealed for the first time when police arrested him in a dawn raid. Albert Oosthuizen’s site claims as its mission “to bring news to the outside world of the crap that has become of SA”.
Oosthuizen was held overnight and released without charge after the prosecutor reportedly refused to pursue a 1993 fraud charge against him. ZASucks is now offline, Oosthuizen appears to have disappeared, and the local media is curiously disinterested in a contretemps that goes to the very heart of freedom of expression.
At issue is what tolerance should be accorded to those who patently distort statistics and events to stir up emotions and to serve a political agenda most people find reprehensible. The answer is actually easy: every bit we can muster.
As ANC Youth Leaguer Julius Malema demonstrates, hate speech and venom are not the preserve of the right. In any case, bigotry is best fought not by suppression but with reason.
Sure, whites are cruelly murdered by psychologically sick people and in some cases this is fuelled by racial hatred and the desire to drive whites off the land. There also must be many more pictures of black people similarly tortured and cruelly murdered, and their suffering changes the story somewhat.
The other side of the story tells of tens of millions of people who don’t behave this way, despite grinding poverty and harsh conditions. That side of the story argues that the best hope for a traumatised SA lies in development that delivers better lives and the gradual normalisation of a violence-plagued society.
The World Cup will help in a small way. So, too, would clarity on the strange events surrounding Oosthuizen and his activities.
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64 Responses to “Internet bigots and loonies also have rights”
Might I remind you that the freedom of expression we now enjoy for the FIRST TIME in the history of South Africa, was only made possible through our liberation by the ANC. BTW. did you send them thank you note for this new found freedom?
Yes, bigots and loonies also have rights, but suspected criminals like Oosthuizen need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law especially if found guilty of fraud and possession of illegal weapons. To conjure up conspiracy theories of why a racist hate-monger like Oosthuizen has fallen foul of the law is absolutely ludicrous and serves no purpose other than to unfairly malign the ANC government! Of course, just like this article, Oosthuizen’s type of gutter politics in ZASucks or Zapiro’s demeaning “satire” in ZANews etc. is merely part of the nature of rabid DA supporters, so I’m not surprised.
Rather than focusing on why the government is so evil, try providing some us with some clarity as to why you think Oosthuizen is not a crook.
Always with the excuses. Nothing is ever finite, is it? Do you suppose that 3000+ WHITE farmers were just the victims of ordinary crime, and nothing else? Not to mention the parallels any educated, free-thinking (read non-liberal, non-lying non-propagandist) person can draw to the Zimbabwe land-invasions and farm murders. You talk about free-speech but in the same sentence suggest that anyone who expresses this right is definitely a loon, as the media is the gospel. You seem to like to live on cloud nine, but the reality of the matter is that whites are being slaughtered and saying it is not so, does not make it so. I wonder if this comment will see the light of say, the idiots at MG see fit to censor almost as much information as the communist kleptocracy does.
[…] Thought Leader » William Saunderson-Meyer » Internet bigots and loonies also have rights www.thoughtleader.co.za/williamsaundersonmeyer/2009/11/20/internet-bigots-and-loonies-also-have-rights – view page – cached Newspapers, at present much derided and bleeding red ink, have at least one useful social function. They confine the nutters, rumour mongerers, conspiracy theorists, and bigots to their dank… Read moreNewspapers, at present much derided and bleeding red ink, have at least one useful social function. They confine the nutters, rumour mongerers, conspiracy theorists, and bigots to their dank little holes by largely starving them of publicity. Read less […]
Granted there are Nutters and Loonies but sometimes what they have to say or show, may be used to gauge the sanity of a country and another perception of reality. To many are too insular in their thinking and approach.
That dentist was not trying to instil fear he was showing the reality of life. There is little that one cannot be found in any book on for example African liberation.
The Angolan Terrs penchant for wrapping the village headman in a new ox skin then watching him die over a number of days while the skin dried out and squeezed him to death. Their reasoning: To show the locals that the military could not save them.
I have read and seen despicable things done in war but that is totally different to what is being done while robbing one in his home. Those stories are never told in full.
However let another colour shoot beat or insult another every detail is discussed in depth in the press without the accused having his side published.
Despite so-called press freedom the press is careful to sanction any item of news that they feel does not fit their ideal of society.
The truth stops at what can be printed without being sued. They try to mould opinion not create discussion.
Mainstream newspapers regularly give space to nutters, rumour mongerers, conspiracy theorists, and bigots.
South Africa’s premier business daily has just published opinion pieces by two well known clowns who deny climate change (global warming) as well as a number of letters by equally misinformed cultural conservatives.
(They must have plenty of equally funny people on their editorial staff.)
Debate is crucial, but at some stage you have to admit mainstream scientific consensus that the earth is for example not flat unless a reputable source comes up with provable data to challenge
conventional wisdom.
A survey a few years ago a survey found that while 80% of informed scientists accept mainstream sceintific consensus on climate change, the media gave 50% of their space to climate change denialsts. No wonder there are so many confused people out there.
Are the mainstream newspapers actually that much better than the internet? Some people just can distingiush the difference between the truth and bull and while others cannot.
@william I agree with you 100% the way forward for our country is not indicated by a signpost which reads INCREASED RESENTMENT AND HATRED this way. No group of people, because it is comprised of fallible human beings, is free from error. Thus to spend one’s time pointing out the errors in groups other than one’s own is largely a waste of time and energy. It is far, far better to be doing something constructive with one’s time and energy.
and nor would our is not fuelled by stoking the fires of resentment and hatred with litanies of wrongs
But one person’s truth is another’s heresy. The trick is knowing what to believe. I still feel safer with a Britannica than the Internet. At least it was judiciously edited, even if the science is all out of date. Most of what’s on the ‘Net is promotion of one sort or another. Never take any advertising or promotion at face value!
Moderation in all things goes a long way. How do people find the time to search out some of these sites?
The travesty here is that first off you trivialise these racist murders. Secondly you don’t challenege why these black racist murders are being committed on a daily basis in SA. Thirdly you don’t acknowledge the race of the perpetrators, which is typical and in line with the rest of the mainstream media whose sole agenda it seems is to demonise whites at every opportunity - the Reitz Hostel incident is a perfect example of this - but nothing EVER gets said about ongoing black racist crime against innocent law-abiding whites in SA. To any discerning reader, covering the truth is as good as lying.
Fourthly, it is these very lies, double standards and deceitful selective journalism by ALL the newspapers in SA which will scream and bleat and yodel on forever about isolated white “racism” in which nobody is injured but will say absolutely nothing when blacks butcher whites in SA like this every day; that gives rise to internet sites like ZAsucks.
And you can say whatever you want about these blogs, maybe they are not professional “journalists” but they are telling the truth about the lie that is the “Rainbow Nation” and if you want, I’ll debate this with you any time anyware, but I doubt you have the balls, moral integrity or plain honesty to allow any debate that will expose the truth about black on white race crime in SA on a scale that can only be described as genocide.
There are websites and ther are websites. This M&G site, for example, is a respectible site. It is responsibly censored by people of superior judgement who know the kind of views that … who know what is permissible.
Comparisons with internet censorship in China or old apartheid regime censors are not justified. Firstly, M&G TL sensors are far more intelligent than those from the old regime. Secondly, they are also morally on a much higher plane. With finely honed sensibilities they are able guard over the public discourse and maintain the sense that SA is a society like any other.
We can be grateful that they are able to protect people like us against ourselves.
Really? What about embedded journalism in the mainstream media? Only last week Business Day was publishing opinion pieces by well known climate change denialists and spin doctors, much to the delight of the coal and oil industry.
Publishing an opinion devoid of truth and maliciously spreading misinformation on behalf of vested interests is despicable.
Mainstream science has spent more than twenty years meticulously studying the phenomenon of global warming (climate change), while a couple of looney scientists mostly linked to the oil industry do their upmost to undermine this work. Debate is good and necessary, but the looneys need to substantiate their claims. They have been laughed off the stage at scientific conventions so now they turn to mainstream newspapers to propagate their misinformation.
Both the internet and mainstream newspapers are guilty of spreading misinformation, the reader must beware, however the internet does give the intellegent reader the opportunity to bypass embedded journalism.
Dear Brett, You’ve just caught my eye. If people are dead, they aren’t alive to tell the colour of the person/people who killed them. Which means the perpetrators would need to be caught in the act, to know. I doubt there are conclusive stats to decide your questions.
“Might I remind you that the freedom of expression we now enjoy..was only made possible through our liberation by the ANC.”
Oh really? Because I thought this right was a immutable human right, not the preserve of a political party, contrary to the ANC beliefs where during the Semenya sage Winnie Mandela threatened the press with taking away their freedoms which “we gave to you”
Such arrrogance. Such ignorance. I think our society is far from free, so I dont send my thank you note just yet. When the ANC make the transition from a struggle party to a democratic party, then I will give the deserved respect.
As for the topic I agree with the article above. I inadvertently stumbled on that site when reading about a young durban woman who was hijacked and murdered recently. The level of racism and vitriol, especially against anyone with another viewpoint was quite unbelievable.
There is freedom of expression. And then there is hate speech. This site was hate speech. Those farm photographs were indeed shocking, and even more sickening when used as a tool for a particular agenda.
However to be fair to Mr Oosthuizen, these events did happen. South Africans are being murdered and robbed at an unbelievable rate, and no matter how misguided his point of view, the problem is not a figment of his imagination. Lets just hope most of us can be a bit more constructive than he was in bringing attention to the problem.
Thank God for the internet, because without it the “free press” would continue to attempt to repeat the loony “left’s” liberal lies, as though they were the truth by a technique loaned from Josef Goebbels oft repeated dictum, that if one repeated a lie often enough, people would eventually believe it.
“Lefties” (here I am using their own labels) always use labels rather than counter-argue a logical point, when they are devoid of a logical answer. Like labeling people as “right wingers” if a contextually logical point of view is expressed, but is at odds with the “left” wing media’s world view.
There are more than two wings in this world rather than the fantasy that is this evil bird with two wings. Continuing to label people, with labels perceived as repugnant (like right wing or ultra-right) by the media is a tactic really designed to counter free rational speech and perpetuate the completely blinkered adulation of the idol, that is the politically correct viewpoint of the mainstream media, where it’s reasoning is regarded as infallible and it’s opponents are blasphemers.
William you are falling into the same trap, with some of your labels. Rather refute a person’s viewpoint logically if you can, rather than just accuse people of a vile “right wing” agenda, as a means to suppress their viewpoint.
@dave harris The internet, not the ANC has finally given every part of the political spectrum space to voice its opinions. BTW, Oosthuizen was brought in on a trumped-up charge dating back 16 years!
Those brutal homicide photos would normally never be available to the public, but were obviously leaked to websites by desperate cops who saw these cases getting sidelined, the perpetrators getting away, and the PC press ignoring them.
Jonathan Haze said of TL: “It is responsibly censored by people of superior judgement who know the kind of views……We can be grateful that they are able to protect people like us against ourselves”
Dind-ding, WRONG! You’re the weakest link, goodbye! It is precisely this attitude that is wrong with SA society. Hell, if it continues like that, we might just find ourselves with a ruling party that thinks it has exclusive knowledge on what is best for all the people
Jonathan Haze, “With finely honed sensibilities they are able guard over the public discourse and maintain the sense that SA is a society like any other. We can be grateful that they are able to protect people like us against ourselves. ”
…and they have really cool Super Powers, too!
As to the essay, I don’t know that tougher regulations on speech are the answer. It is a medium like any we’ve had in the past centuries, it is just more widely available. How do you make new laws to cater to that? If I’ve learned anything from the internet it is that I’ve become more finely aware to the tactics of “loonies” because I read so many more of them than I could have pre-internet. It has made my guard sharper. Gullible people will always exist,but when you start cracking down on dissident voices, however “loony,” where do you stop?
@Hugh Robinson - you sound like many of my scouts friends - were you one also?
The truth however is an absolute defence against any action unlike Dave Harris who appears to be more than economical with the truth.
I did see the photos on ZASucks AND they were disturbingly graphic and while the pathetic likspittle Harris bemoans them he cannot deny authenticity.
He also cannot deny that while they are all criminal - they are all racist and genocidal in nature, for they are all done by blacks with the aim of wiping out a white Afrikaaner community. Whilst there are many black on black murders - and of course the very occasional white on black murders, there are none - repeat NONE committed with the same savagery as the Afrikaaner farm murders.
Brett Nortje asked for statistics - bit hard to get them from the fabulous SAPS and ANC statisticians ask for
White victims of homicide by blacks?
and
Black victims of homicide by whites?
Go a bit further and ask the way and how they were killed?
Jonathan Haze - sorry but M&G is no great exception - they are not on a morally higher plane, with finely honed sensibilities and they do not guard over the public discourse and maintain the sense that SA is a society like any other….. P U L E S E - after all they printed the dross from Malema and Cheune didn’t they?
… because they all have their own little agenda to follow - and advertisers to appease.
@alisdair Budd. If what you say is true why are Google and Yahoo forced to block certain social sites like twitter and Facebook and monitor others?
Like S.A’s Rica act compels ISP and Search engines to spy on us and report anything they feel unusual. The Chinese Government does the same. They collect data on those against Chinese government.
Think about it. Was Zasucks telling lies? We have only heard one side3 of the story.
What gave anyone the right to close that site? Okay I never saw the content but still if a minister and leaders can walk around to big fanfare talking crap why stop the private citizen.
.
“This M&G site, for example, is a respectible site. It is responsibly censored by people of superior judgement who know the kind of views that … who know what is permissible.”
And this type of media high-assery is exactly the reason why newspapers are bleeding to death. People are tired of a bunch of self-elevated, “superior” nincompoops deciding what’s right, what’s wrong and what needs to be paid attention to.
Very true Hard Rain. In general Little real investigative reporting is ever done. I swear that sometimes they get their news from Sky, SABC or others as they seem to repeat content almost word for word.
Can somebody give me one blog where black South Africans congregate to fuel hate for ‘white people’ I know a lot of white sites where white people peddle their hate - newnation, zasucks, southafricathetruth, boerevryheid, to mention just a few(ad net or org or .com at the end.
So tell me what are the chances of all of you here being the very same people living on hate? How can i be sure that even Mr William here is not one of those bloggers?
When voting comes you alwys wonder why black people don’t see you as fellow countrymen and never vote for DA, well they know reading all these blogs that if you so much as won power, apartheid will be back…no this is not satire am serious satire is what you use to demean and ridicule black people and their leaders.
@chris
“I thought this right was a immutable human right, not the preserve of a political party”
So how come we never had freedom of speech throughout our history - ever since colonization?
So I wonder why you think your “Mr Oosthuizen” is innocent? Do you have exclusive insight into your “Mr Oosthuizen’s” lifestyle to claim he is not guilty of the crimes he is charged with?
btw. I like how you call him “Mister” …a mark of respect for your leader…weird but cool.
@nguni
“The internet, not the ANC has finally given every part of the political spectrum space to voice its opinions.”
Hmmm, lemme see now, so the internet was invented by white guy, and according to the six-degree of separation theory, this white guy must be linked with Hendrik Verwoerd in some way. So therefore, technically speaking our freedom of expression was actually made possible because of none other than old Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid. How dumb of me not to have seen that …LOL
Lets remind our friends in China and the Middle East not to complain about not having freedom of speech since they already have the internet!
@ MuAfrika - try reading some of the commentators on the timeslive site (on both sides of the colour spectrum). That might give you a flavour of all manner of hate.
It seems to me that part of the success of the ANC is readily feeding the masses fear about the return of apartheid. Shamefully misguided and completely unfounded paranoia. Although some would argue that in fact apartheid never left - it just has a different master.
Yeah, it’s actually phenomenon I’ve noticed with all media across the world. There’ll be a wire story released through the AFP or some other “press” agency containing a factual error. It will pass through numerous media outlets until some “loony” on the internet points out the error and the mistake is then quietly corrected.
Recycling each others’ turds, that’s what the MSM is good for these days.
I’m beginning to wonder about the average IQ here.. Have none of you dopes picked up that Jonathan Haze’s comments on TL were sarcastic? That he thinks the ‘brave new world’ type editing here is disturbing?
@MuAfrika
The only website from your list that still functions is boerevryheid, says plenty about freedom of the press on the internet..
The lack of anti-white sites could be due to various factors: blacks peddling their hate in other ways (most don’t have internet) as in word-of-mouth, gangs, politicians.
@plonked
You said “Publishing an opinion devoid of truth and maliciously spreading misinformation on behalf of vested interests is despicable.”
You seem to have missed the whole point of this debate. Freedom of expression allows ALL sides of an issue to be aired, not just the side YOU happen to think is right. The so-called “experts” have been so wrong so often that there is every reason to question such opinions continuously.
Remember the expert opinion on:
clinical hygiene-washing between ops not necessary
germ theory - considered ridiculous
plate tectonics - considered as rubbish
Oil shortage - run out before 2000 (Club of Rome)
Ozone hole - fry us all (Forgotten issue now)
Kennedy assassination - lone killer (yeah right)
MuAfrica…there is a lot for whites to complain about methinks, muder, squansering of our taxes, reverse racism, but if you have already tawled the sites you penned in your rant, you would know all of this..
My advise to you if you are African (the darker version) celebrate good times my brother, the ANC is in charge and the world, while it lasts, is your oyster…
@Johan Meyer on November 22nd, 2009. Sorry I missed your comment earlier. Obviously too young to have lived the reality of Africa
Please find a copy of any of the A.J Venter books at your local library on his time serving in the Angolan war.
If that does not satisfy you go for some of the books on the Scouts or maybe Fredrik Forsyth’s book on the Nigerian civil war. How about the Rwandan conflict? Nice bit of that in a book called “War junkie”
Even those do not tell you of the smell and the feeling of utter hatred for people who do despicable acts to another human.
You had to be there to see what a body looks like after it has been crushed in a skin. All these have source in Africa. By the bye Africa murders more innocent people during non conflict than any other since the world war.
How easy it is for you dismiss the terror suffered by white people! And how vague the excuses. What are you advising? That white people should tolerate being mutilated and murdered by blacks because blacks murder even more blacks? And should white people patiently suffer torture and murder just because the majority of blacks do not participate in these horrors?
By this standard the Jews had nothing to complain about the Holocaust - after all, the majority of Germans did not help guarding the concentration camps.
One broomstick up one vagina should be enough for us to shriek and tear our clothes. How despicable is your callousness!
I didn’t read all the comments — just a few at the top and they are quite revealing. Whites are so quick to criticise blacks who they think are racialising issues or are pulling the race card etc. etc. yet most of the white commentators get all frothy about farm murders and whites being targeted yada yada yada and they completely miss the point that this columnist is trying to make.
I might be wrong, but this column is about freedom of expression. Whether you’re as stupid as Malema or as vitriolic as Oosthuizen, everyone deserves to be heard, irrespective of race.
@ dave harris
logical thinking is not your strong point, how you got from the creation of the internet to Verwoerd is a thumb-suck. As I mentioned to MuAfrika the internet is not free of censoring, witness the hacking or closure of most of the non-PC websites he mentions.
@Hugh Robinson - I’ll check those sources. As for Rwanda - the only demographic study on the killings suggested that the majority of the dead were Hutus, royalist Tutsis committed at least as many murders as the Hutu gov’t, and that about 250,000 were killed. The 800,000 mainly Tutsi dead is simple plagiarism of Paul Kagame’s lies. The authors of the study that showed 250,000 dead were called “holocaust deniers,” and have ‘revised’ their claims.
@Hugh Robinson
I’m away from any decent library, so the books are on order, however I looked into those authors:
1. AJ Venter - it is not clear whether he is the same AJ Venter who published some BS on Iraq (sorry, but anyone who still claims that Iraq had a functional WMD program after ‘98 is paranoid-delusional, or a liar. Colin Powell was of the latter variety, and apparently there was much laughter and mockery during his presentation - a pity to have directional mikes.)
Also, does AJ Venter provide statistics of the torture you mention, i.e. any approximation of the incidence of such violence, and in which cases it occurred?
2, As for Forsyth - Biafra/Igboland was brutal - about 1 million dead - but it is not strictly connected to your earlier claims on Angola.
3. War Junkie - and for that matter the stench of the dead - when you are not aware of the statistics of the dead (including those tortured to death), it is easy to lose yourself in the suffering of an individual tortured to death. As an example, take the UN peace-keepers in Haiti, who shoot (occasionally in the presence of journalists) unarmed protesters in the jaw, so that they slowly bleed to death crawling - I’ve seen such footage, and it always gets me upset - but then again, thanks to the USA/Canadian/French invasion and associated policies, ~30000 children were raped between 04 and 06 (The reference is available if you are interested).
There is in fact a documented genocide taking place against Afrikaans farmers which is noted by none other than Gregory Stanton - the President of Genocide Watch. Stanton has publicly noted [ also on the local Carte Blanche television news magazine program ] that “the Boer farmers are at stage six” for total genocide & that the killing of those farmers constitutes a genocide under the Genocide Convention. Therefore the growing genocide against them is well known throughout the international community & is documented.
Fact Check Required. on November 25th, 2009 at 4:25 am
@Brett Nortje
Do you want to make a point or does it hurt your head to formulate a rebuttal against any of my comments?
@Hugh Robinson
“By the bye Africa murders more innocent people during non conflict than any other since the world war.”
I wonder which orifice you pulled out these statistics from? We do realize that lying is just part of the job of being a bikini salesman, but this is just nuts….LOL
@Fact Check Required
A fact check is indeed required:
1. Genocide watch gives the total dead from the 97-present war in Congo-Kinshasa as 2.5 million, rather than the 5 million that is generally estimated. (Hint: the war was in large measure caused by Romeo Dallaire and Paul Kagame’s terrorism in neighbouring Rwanda.)
2. Their numbers of dead for colonial regimes are rather small. The Kenya example is rather revealing.
3. They give numbers varying by three orders of ten magnitude for Congo-Kinshasa, but are silent on the 15 000 dead thanks to USA terrorists during the 93 invasion of Somalia.
4. Rwanda - they want to claim that only 1000 Hutus were killed by Kagame? I’d say genocide watch is a genocide denial organization.
But really, the problem is these NGOs: Take transparency international (an NGO that has been studied in some depth): they took funding from the likes of Enron - no wonder they are compulsive liars.
@Johan Meyer, The subject if you forget is “Internet bigots and loonies also have rights”
The original example was of graphic murder pictures and freedom to allow such information to be published for whatever reason.
The reply to your question was an overall statement of what we do not see in the press. Now because one clashes with your train of thought does not mean the evidence presented is wrong.
Pleased to get you reading though even if it was on the internet.
That said, amoungst the ranting I fail to understand the your point “… thanks to the USA/Canadian/French invasion and associated policies, ~30000 children were raped between 04 and 06 (The reference is available if you are interested)….”
What on earth has that got to do with freedom of Speech and how News media manipulate society?
War Junkie if you do read the book will give you insight into the news media and their motivation behind the news you see.
@harris you reading this Meyer has selected some interesting reading for you.
@Hugh Robinson
The connection is that the news media misrepresent some realities, and fail to represent others. E.g. the mass rapes that the invasion of Haiti caused (including by releasing pedophiles from prison to make space for political prisoners, and by training known pedophiles as police) - I guess I should supply the link… And I owe people an apology - the median estimate of the under-18s raped due to said policies was about 18000 - see the link, although they don’t go into enough detail.
The media is smart enough to generally avoid outright lies, but once a lie has reached general acceptance, they’ll defend it to the hilt. So for instance, they continue to claim that Bosnian Muslims were nearly destroyed in the Bosnian war, or that Tutsis were the victims and Hutus the perpetrators in the killings in Rwanda.
None of the facts I mentioned (which you dismiss as ranting) got any attention in the media.
To bring it round to freedom of speech: Websites that make claims that are not ‘politically acceptable’ are under attack. Several rightwing websites about RSA are apparently down - right now a leftwing website (zcommunications.org) is under attack. My thinking on the matter is that the various regimes (governmental and corporate) cannot justify their activities, various lies are being debunked, and people are organizing around these matters, hence the censorship.
@Hugh Robinson
Your comment to Harris: If you are referring to Genocide Watch, I’d like to point out to you that the British actions and policies are generally estimated to have killed several million people in Kenya - ditto Congo-Kinshasa.
@Fact Check Required
In as much I detest what is happening to the farmers, they are not a tribe so technically speaking it can’t be genocide. No matter what Stanton says.
What these mindless, viscious gangs who do the murdering fail to see is the bigger picture: SA is becoming a netto importer of food.
@Johan Meyer. I seriously do not know what you are on about? Please do not select one sentence and determine it to be the whole.
Moreover do not attribute my thinking to that never said. Genocide watch are a bunch of attention seeking Aholes but more than a handful believe what they say.
My comment to Harris was made to encourage him to follow your example and investigate. Once informed he would be wiser and not write such crap.
We agree then that the media misrepresents facts that suit themselves?
We agree that a Lie can be useful inasmuch that it in some cases may lead to further investigation by those who care to investigate? Whether the truth is reported in the mainstream is another matter.
I assume we agree that too many take media reports to be accurate and therefore assume facts based on the reporters bias. That reporting can be one sided.
My main point is you cannot trust the biggots and looneys in the mainstream media any more than you can trust the biggots and looneys on the internet.
How can Business Day publish blatant misinformation (unless you are delusional) of two climate change denialist spindoctors in their opinion piece two days running without a thought to mainsteam science?
That is not free speach, that is either ignorance or malicously propagating the propanganda of vested interets (in this case the fossil fuel industry).
@Johan Meyer, who said
“I’d like to point out to you that the British actions and policies are generally estimated to have killed several million people in Kenya”
Estimated by whom, Johan?
You’re the one who is full of it. Care to provide credible sources for this amazing assertion?
Nthabi, if WSM’a basic premise is flawed why should we stick to his game-plan?
The simple fact of the matter is that, since 1994, the ANC from the top down has been preoccupied with racial mobilisation that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents under a flag of truce, that the main stream media (largely owned by ANC deployees) has been part and parcel of that racial mobilisation, and that the response of their largely unaware target has been uncoordinated, confined to blogs because of the demise of the cowardly National Party.
Can anyone offer the statistrics I asked for? WHat ethnic minority across the world does not have researchers who keep such statistics?
One simple question: Why has the ANC invested so much in the disarmament of elderly white South Africans, who have paid their taxes and never given the state reason for reproach - while the ANC sits on not only the army, the police, BUT ALL ITS pre 1994 ARMS CACHES?
I don’t believe that there is a person denying the British Massacre in Kenya…..What the hell
I bet you going to deny the German genocide in Namibia and the death camps too-because the victims were African or because you are ignorant??????
The US commanders in Iraq are not the first to be confronted with the dilemma of whether to face up to a military atrocity, or bury the story along with the bodies. Fifty years ago, when Britain was fighting colonial wars in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus, concealment was altogether easier. This article tells the story of an atrocity committed by British military forces in colonial Kenya, a tale that has echoes of Al-Haditha. But whereas the perpetrators of the Iraqi massacre are to face trial, the story of the shooting of twenty Kenyan civilians at Chuka in June 1953 has been hidden behind a veil of official secrecy.
Evidence on these events should have been released into the Public Record Office in 1984. The file was withheld by the Ministry of Defence and marked for closure until 2038. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act secured its release in January 2006, and we can now reconstruct the disturbing story of the Chuka massacre. But not everything on this file has been revealed: and that raises tough questions about the culpability of the British Army in colonial war crimes…
Ok just read up on it too don’t hid behing the article’s premise and the internet to deny such a thing… what next you gonna tell us Hitler never killed the Jews?
In reading the many arguments and diversions one thought has struck me.
On average a Loony is one who swims against the flow.
Is it not true to say that, like politics it is those who control the mainstream or the flavour of the moment who have more say on how to determine what is Looney what is not?
Remember when were told that cholesterol was bad. The media world and every health nut went crazy.
Until some bloody Loony said, “hold on there is good and bad cholesterol”. “We need this to live.” It took almost ten years before the Loony was proved right.
Create a lie, reinforce the lie with other lies and some sucker in the media will take up your cause and it will eventually, if well structured be believed by all. We need Loonies to swim against the flow.
The shooting of twenty Kenyans genocide? You’re kidding, right? Remind us quickly:
1) How many Kenyans Meyer claimed had been killed
2) How many Kenyans died in the MauMau uprising
3) How many white South Africans have been murdered since 1994
4) How many Kenyans were killed in the violence that accompanied the election and the Mugabeing of election results?
@Hugh Robinson
Much of the cholesterol myth is still around: Are you aware that LDL (often called bad cholesterol) comes in two varieties, one bad and one neutral? The neutral variety enters the blood when one eats fat, and the bad variety from carbs, in particular fructose - when one eats whole fruit, the fructose is consumed harmlessly in the gut, as the fibre prevents the fructose from hitting the liver, but with refined food, all of it hits the liver. See Sugar, the Bitter Truth.
@Brett Nortje - I’ll answer you (on the count of millions, rather than the 100 000s being discussed here) in the next three or four days - the issue being the number of dead due to famines that were made worse by the British presence (much like the Irish potato famine, during which Ireland produced twice its own caloric needs, but had to export most of it) - I’m swamped by work right now.
Using your definition of a ‘loony’(swimming against the stream) there are more than one type of loony.
There are those ‘loonys’ that question mainstream ‘wisdom’ with good reason. Whether they are right or wrong, good for them.
Then there are loonys like flat earthers, who no matter how conclusive the evidence they stick to and propagate their belief that the earth is flat.
When people question mainstream climate science it is good. When you have fundamentalist nutters like the flat earthers who spew out absolute garbage dressed as science, you are dealing with a ‘loony’ out of touch with reality. No reputable national or international scientific body has challenged the IPCC on CO2 from our industrial era contributing to climate change since 2007, only the flat earth type loony’s who throw crap at the wall and dub it scientific. Added to that, their perpetual rubbish is funded to a large part by vested interests. Is that not a warning bell? Remember smoking ‘did not cause cancer’ DDT was harmless, GM foods are as safe as water and produce higher yields, ha, ha..
Always question, always be a bit of a ‘loony’ which is what a real scientist does, but intelligent people should dismiss the loony’s who trot out propaganda on behalf of vested interests.
Why give them 50% of the space in the mainstream media to fundamentalist loonys, which according to the author of this article we are protected against by relying on main newspapers.
@Hugh Robinson
The one thing crazier than a Looney is a racist looney who claims “Africa murders more innocent people during non conflict than any other since the world war.”
Racist loonies derive their oxygen by concocting lies and deliberately spread misinformation to portray blacks, especially Africans, as subhumans prone to violence and corruption while ignoring the real perpetrators of violence and corruption for the last thousand years on our planet. Congratulations Hugh Robinson, you have finally figured out an apt self describing category.
Not bad for a bikini salesman, eh?
@cactus. Yes I agree. It is good then that we do not believe all that the government says.
@daveharris. Like you I am the perfect example of the ANC version of a SA white racist. If this was not a censored site to protect people like you. What I write would have you s***ing your pants.
Bye the bye in place of insults how about proving my finding wrong. Follow Mayers example and read even if the info you find is on the internet.
William I am very disappointed that you censor this site.
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Saunderson-Meyer writes the syndicated Jaundiced Eye column, which appears in The Weekend Argus, The Citizen, and Weekend Witness. He also writes a books column, Killer Thrillers, for the Sunday Times.
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Might I remind you that the freedom of expression we now enjoy for the FIRST TIME in the history of South Africa, was only made possible through our liberation by the ANC. BTW. did you send them thank you note for this new found freedom?
Yes, bigots and loonies also have rights, but suspected criminals like Oosthuizen need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law especially if found guilty of fraud and possession of illegal weapons. To conjure up conspiracy theories of why a racist hate-monger like Oosthuizen has fallen foul of the law is absolutely ludicrous and serves no purpose other than to unfairly malign the ANC government! Of course, just like this article, Oosthuizen’s type of gutter politics in ZASucks or Zapiro’s demeaning “satire” in ZANews etc. is merely part of the nature of rabid DA supporters, so I’m not surprised.
Rather than focusing on why the government is so evil, try providing some us with some clarity as to why you think Oosthuizen is not a crook.
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