I also fail to see how it is a crime to destroy a bible in your own home. If I go and buy a bible I can, and will, do whatever I like with it. This applies to any book I purchase.

I can also smear my own blood over any item in my house if I so desire. It’s my home, and my blood. I don’t choose to do this though for obvious reasons, and I don’t know of any Satanist who does, which leads me to believe that either the women they arrested was a bit mentally ill or the stories have been embelished to make them a little more newsworthy and exciting. Wouldn’t be the first time would it now?

Why smear blood on a bible? It’s far easier and probably more effective as blasphemy just to urinate on it or use it as toilet paper.
(Oh, and last time i checked, blasphemy is not a criminal offense either.)
I personally prefer to use really soft two ply on my sensitive behind – but each to their own.

Don’t underesitmate them. Of course they think that what happened in the past is wrong, but they don’t recognise the amount of approbrium as appropriate to the crime.

Your average Afrikaner wonders, if we were so bad, why is our country the only one with a proper infrastructure? I mean if you judge them by African standards, and surely you must, then which government has invested more in public infrastructure?

If it was not for General Hertzog’s industrial substitution policies (to make sure we are not beholden to colonial Britten), would we have industries and a powerful Cosatu?

They look at talk of ubuntu and it pales against the efforts of Afrikaners to helpmekaar.

They might wonder, yes, we spent less on black education in for instance the 70′s and 80′s than on white education, but we spent a higher percentage of the GDP on black education than many other African states did.

They wonder if we were that bad, why was Hillbrow, at the hight of apartheid a place of independent music, hippy culture and libetarianism, and where white and black could mix, while none of those things happen their now. (And no Mellville is avery poor substitute today). The only places where white and black SA mixes today is in corporate boardrooms bearing fake smiles.

They might wonder if we were such rightwing boneheads, how come most of the gay literature in the country is in Afrikaans.

They look at the French War in Algeria, the British War on the Mau Mau in Kenya, (lets not mention the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda (on several occasions, Darfur, Biafra) and take note that the political violence in terms of murder, torture was far greater than during 40 years of apartheid, and wonder why they are the winners of such exceptional baddy status?

All these things that are used to indicate the evil of apartheid misses the point. What is not communicated is that the colossal institutional racism built into our town planning, architecture, transport and social fabric that was and is so damaging and is so difficult to repair and change now. I mean whole parts of our cities need to be pulled down and rebuilt.

But others bark up these other trees and Afrikaners hear them and cant see their logic, to them it seems like a complete exageration and they think its a witchunt based on a deep seated racism and hatred.

Afrikaners love South Africa, but they feel and are excluded from public life, and their contributions not valued. And neither have they had any leadership, which is a massive blot on the likes of FW de Klerk’s name.

If you expect them to act much differently you have little insight into humanity.

Wessel, terrible things are indeed published by the papers you mention and some of their readers would probably agree with those who launched the campaign against Rapport. I doubt if many of their readers would have the same deep hatred of the new South Africa displayed by those who write letters to Rapport. To allude to that fact does not imply a double standard, merely reflects a historical selfconscioussness singularly lacking in the readers I am upset with. It is that turning away form the past and the refusal to acknowledge that apartheid was an evil and the self righteous whining about the new South Africa that I find deeply offensive. It is also this certainty that makes them so intolerant of others as reflected in this campaign. I take offense at such bigoted intolerance. Whether they speak Afrikaans or Urdu has nothing to do with it.

Oh come on Pierre, get off your high horse. Terrible things are published in the Kaapse Son, and the Sowetan, but you won’t react like this. In parts of the country women are burned because they are perceived to be witches. Women are raped because they are Lesbians.

It seems you have one rule for Afrikaners and another for the rest of the country?

What community in South Africa is as enligthened as our constitution? You wont even find such a group in pampered Rhondebosch.

What is exceptional about this story in an African context is that a group of people can mobilize themselves around a specific issue and force a powerful paper to make a u-turn. If only more Africans could do this we might live in a better place.