It has been, to say the least, a bizarre and upsetting week in South Africa. What started with the killing of the politically irrelevant old supremacists, Eugene Terreblanche (who might or might not secretly have been attracted to young black men and boys), ended with the tepid “dressing down” of Julius Malema by ANC President Jacob Zuma (who sometimes also moonlights as the President of South Africa).
Most analysts, journalists and fearful members of the white minority have interpreted these events against the backdrop of the singing of an old struggle song by Julius Malema.
But surely all this would never have been blown out of all proportion like it was, if all members of the ruling party were impeccable democrats with an abiding respect for the Constitution and the judiciary, if the Road to Ventersdorp were not littered with potholes and empty election promises, if service delivery protests were not gaining ground because of the complete collapse of local government service delivery in some areas of the country, and if some ruling party members were not deeply implicated in cronyism, corruption and abuse of power.
The hysterical reaction to the killing of Terreblanche and the antics of a little corrupt demagogue like Julius Malema would not have occurred if – 16 years after the advent of democracy and the supposed end of apartheid – all farmers had learnt to treat their workers with dignity and respect, if all white South Africans had learnt to face the unpalatable truth that they had unjustly benefited (and in some ways are continuing to benefit) in myriads of ways from apartheid, if most members of the white minority had made serious attempts to come to terms with their own lingering (but often unspoken and undetected) racial prejudices and attitudes of racial superiority.
It is in this atmosphere of discontent about lingering racism, rampant corruption and a lack of respect for the democratic rights of ordinary citizens in which extremists could momentarily dominate the national conversation. It is time for us to take back our country from the Malema’s and the Visagies and try to think of ways to fix what is broken.
So what should come next?
The ANC and its President (who seems more worried about spin-doctoring and about spending quality time with his wives, mistresses and many children than actually running the country) should begin to face up to some unpalatable truths. It should accept that it is in power, that it is ruling the country and that it should take responsibility for what is going wrong in the South Africa. The ANC is the ruling party and should behave like one.
It should stop pretending that it is still in exile and that the Nationalists are still in power. It should stop talking about what it will do, and actually do something for the voters who elected the ANC into office. Instead of buying fancy cars, throwing obscenely lavish parties and generally wasting our money, the ANC government could learn to be a bit more frugal with our taxes so that it could be spent to build houses and school libraries or to pay for a Basic Income Grant to assist the poorest of the poor.
Stop blaming others. Stop blaming the past. When racists exploit and abuse their workers, do something about it. When big business, school governing bodies, and other social actors resist principled and fair forms of racial and economic transformation, stop complaining – as if, as the governing party, you have no power - and do something about it. But, of course, act in a manner that is in the best interest of the country as a whole and not in the interest of a few well-connected ANC politicians, tenderpreneurs or Kebbilists, who are out to exploit BEE and transformation in a manner that will reward incompetence, laziness and greed.
Fire corrupt, lazy and unqualified officials who sit around at home when they should really be fixing the potholes, when they should be making sure our water is clean and our electricity is working, when they should be attending to the everyday needs of poor people who live in informal settlements, when they should be making sure that our school teachers arrive at work sober and on time and actually teach our children to read and write.
Strictly enforce the existing rules regarding conflicts of interests and clean up the tender processes to prevent the Kenyafication of our public finances. Expel ANC members who steal from the poor, who corruptly obtain tenders which they cannot competently, efficiently and cost-effectively honour. Try and respect the voters who have elected you into office. Stop acting as if voters are stupid and ungrateful, as if they have to be told by heartless technocrats what their real needs are and how these needs should be met.
At the same time, white South Africans need to take a long hard look in the mirror. Very few of us supported Eugene Terreblanche and most white people would claim that they are appalled at the kind of racism displayed by the average AWB supporter. But what do we do at dinner parties, in office meetings and at rugby matches, when our fellow white South Africans say blatantly racist things, when they patronise black South Africans, when it becomes apparent that they hold black South Africans to a higher standard than they do their fellow white compatriots?
Do we speak out about such injustices and do we make common ground with our fellow citizens whose human dignity is being attacked and whose honesty and competence is being questioned explicitly or implicitly because of their race? Do we mutter under our breath or smile benignly instead of challenging the racists? Do we turn away from the social and economic injustice that lives and breathes all around us? Do we shrug our shoulders when we are confronted by the poverty and deprivation caused by apartheid and blame it all on the ANC or on black people in general?
For example, why do so few white lawyers speak up about the need for transformation in the legal profession? Why do so many such lawyers perversely still brief less competent white advocates merely because the advocate is white or was an old school buddy or plays golf with the partners of the firm?
Until white South Africans take a long hard look at themselves, until they stop hiding behind a smug facade of racial superiority to insulate themselves from any responsibility for the past political oppression and economic exploitation of black South Africans, how can we move forward as a country? How can we claim to be any better than Eugene Terreblanche and his followers if we ourselves – through our silence or through our often unspoken assumptions about white superiority – help to fan the flames of racial animosity?
All white South Africans need to take responsibility for the past before we as a nation can move on. This does not mean we should become cringing apologists for incompetence, laziness, corruption or abuse of power by members of the governing party or anyone else. Taking responsibility is not the same thing as accepting second class status in one’s own country. It does mean that we should accept that we have either contributed and/or are still benefiting from apartheid. It means we should show through, words and deeds, that we are prepared to do more than merely sit on the sidelines and whine and complain about the ANC-led government while trying to make as much money as we can – all the time scanning the papers for immigration opportunities.
It is probably naive to think that the killing of Terreblanche and the embarrassing antics of Malema will lead to a sudden transformation which will allow both the ANC and the government it leads and the vast majority of white South Africans to suddenly take responsibility for the part they have played and are continuing to play in the creation or perpetuation of South Africa’s problems. But one has to start somewhere, with one ANC leader or member at a time, with one white South African at a time.
It could be you. It could be me. We have to start somewhere.
@ PdV
“Why do so many such lawyers perversely still brief less competent white advocates”?
It is because they follow the bad example of RACISTS like Hlophe, Selebi, Zuma and Nthai, who consistently brief white counsel when there are thousands of black advocates who could do a better job!
Until the ANC fears losing political power, I have little hope that they will govern in a responsible manner. The ANC is just another historical example of the fact that power corrupts. It is no mystery, give any group unchecked power and they are going to abuse it.
I disagree that a more enlightened upper class is the solution. It would help, but that is not going to save us from the Malemas of our world. No, we need a better educated voter (about our constitution and bill of rights). One who will reject popularism. If we, the citizens, want our country back we need to build a political opposition that challenges the existing structures.
Until then we need to support journalists, and defend the constitution and independence of Judiciary.
@ Prof.
This is by far one of your better posts… Respect.
“Why do so many such lawyers perversely still brief less competent white advocates”?
The *competent* black advocates are making a killing. They get all the government work.
“It means we should show through words and deeds that we are prepared to do something more than merely sit on the sidelines and whine and complain about the ANC-led government while trying to make as much money as we can while scanning the papers for immigration opportunities.”
Give examples of what we are meant to be doing please.
After all , the Malemas and ET’s might save us from ourselves.
Dear Pierre
As a authority on Constitutional matters, I would be interested in hearing yor opinion in the recent challenge on the election results by opposition parties. What is your view on the subsequent pronouncement by the court on the case, where it was decided on a technical point and has now been appealed.
Dear Pierre
As a authority on Constitutional matters, I would be interested in hearing yor opinion in the recent challenge on the election results in Namibia by opposition parties. What is your view on the subsequent pronouncement by the court on the case, where it was decided on a technical point and has now been appealed.
David, there are so many things one can do. From very small and seemingly insignificant and almost embarrasingly trite things like making a conscious effort at work not to act in a way that exclude people of other races from conversations in tea rooms and around water coolers and asking people of other races one encounters every day about their feelings and their lives, to more significant things like getting involved with an NGO as a volunteer, helping out Equal Education with their drive to build school libraries or volunteering with the TAC, joining a truly non-racial church (if you are religious), speak up about the racism of friends and family.
Pierre De Vos says:
April 12, 2010 at 11:32 am
“not to act in a way that exclude people of other races from conversations in tea rooms and around water coolers”.
Hmmm.
So it has been noticed!
Pierre De Vos says:
April 12, 2010 at 11:32 am
“David, there are so many things one can do.”
Maybe David can try taking a minibus taxi to get grocery shopping done, preferably on a hot or rainy, busy day – and not cheating by getting dropped off at the pickup and drop off point!
Thanks Pierre
I agree with you, we should all be doing something unselfish to help others in SA. Hopefully this is what people mean when they say they will never emigrate but will rather “fight for their country”.
Most of my family give of their time or their money to help the less fortunate, its how we were brought up. I would say 90% of my friends are not racist, although if they do anything to actually help, I do not know about it.
@Maggs Naidu
Thanks, I lived with public transport for 2 years of my life. 2 years was enough. Now I ride a bicycle and use my wife’s car when she doesn’t need it. (Fortunately she normally does the grocery shopping)
I’m not sure how using a minibus taxi will help in the context of this discussion though.
David says:
April 12, 2010 at 11:55 am
“I’m not sure how using a minibus taxi will help in the context of this discussion though.”
Since you’ve traveled in minibuses for two years – that was preaching to the converted.
I take it back!
Thankyou for this post. We each need to find active ways in our own lives to challenge prejudice, and also to confront the powerful – in our homes, our workplaces, our unions, religions, political groupings, and in government. Even better, we should reach out to like-minded people and build alliances in all these places, because together we can do more.
I am afraid running soup kitchens or volunteer to NGO can soothe the guilt but I doubt if it will be sufficient.
We need to couple these feel good initiatives with some giving. All those(apartheid beneficiaries) with assets worth more than R3m, must be subjected to a once off tax that will fund meaningful projects.
Only complete reform of economy can defuse tensions
Cape Times May 28, 2008 Edition 1
Drucilla Cornell, Mahmood Mamdaniand Sampie Terreblanche
We believe that the violence that South Africa has experienced over the last week is systemic in nature and will not end until the underlying causes of economic distress have been dealt with thoroughly.
South Africa is in a state of emergency because of the failure to address desperate poverty and is in urgent need of a mechanism to begin public discussion on how to ensure dignity for all those who live here.
Even by conservative estimates, over 50% of the South African population experiences dire poverty.
Many of the poor live in townships, and for the most part, what is at stake in these townships is a battle for mere survival in unbearable living conditions. The consequence of this poverty has invariably led to the current outpouring of frustration and rage in various South African townships.
When survival itself is at stake, it is not surprising to see violence against those who can only seem to be a threat to whatever little means of a livelihood there is. There is only one solution, which is to address the underlying economic distress – to address the complete failure of supply-side capitalist economics in South Africa.
To begin, therefore, we call for a Justice and Reconciliation Commission, which cannot be more timely and more necessary – in light of the dashed hopes of those who thought that the new dispensation would provide them with a better life.
We read in the paper that the conflicts in the townships betray the leaders of the struggle in South Africa.
But is it not the other way around; that people feel betrayed because they continue to live in apartheid-like conditions?
In 1997, Professor Mahmood Mamdani and Professor Sampie Terreblanche called for a Justice and Reconciliation Commission, which would focus on the systematic exploitation endured by the majority black population for over 350 years of racial capitalism.
The aim of such a commission is to focus on the systematic character of racial capitalism, which began long before the institutionalisation of apartheid.
The work of such a commission would be both to educate whites, who were the beneficiaries of this exploitative system, as well as to develop a programme of reparations, restitution and, perhaps most important, the establishment of economic measures that could effectively grapple with the devastating institutional effects of an internal system of colonisation.
We are calling for a two-year commission to take up this work. The commission would also explore alternatives to the current Anglo-Americanisation of the South African economy, which has effectively blocked any substantive development of the country.
This commission would focus primarily on the consideration of comprehensive programmes for poverty alleviation. This is not to be confused with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which focused on perpetrators and reparations for individual victims.
Community organisations that have worked tirelessly to develop programmes for restitution and reparation should be seriously considered as part of the democratic discussion of economic reform.
Consultation with economists who are exploring alternatives to capitalism will be vital.
The outcome of the commission would be a comprehensive programme of economic reforms in all basic areas of life: education, housing, health care and land reform.
This report would consider responses to the aggressive Washington Consensus, which pushes a particular programme of supply-side economics that constrains the re-distribution programmes that must be undertaken in the name of restorative justice.
As long as this extreme injustice continues to exist, we are naïve to have any expectation of peace.
* Professor Cornell is South Africa’s National Research Foundation chair, based at the University of Cape Town as Professor of Customary Law, Indigenous Values and the Dignity Jurisprudence. She is also Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Professor Mamdani is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and the director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University. He was Professor of African Studies at UCT during the 1990s. Professor Terreblanche is emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Stellenbosch
I still say the best thing any white person can do is move to a small town near Cradock, play the mandolin, and help kill then incinerate stray dogs.
Thanks.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5426039
So, Pierre, you are saying that you want South Africans, from the President to the ANC to white farmers to your neighbors and colleagues, to take responsibility and to act to make things better, rather than sitting on the sidelines and complaining?
How odd…..
This article is so nauseatingly pc, so grovellingly and anally pro ANC, so stuffed with intrinsic anti-white generalisations, it is far easier to sit on the side and whine, as you aver, than to comprehensively refute and trash this nonsense you have written. It seems like a few days of respite over a weekend when you haven’t been chastised by readers for your baseless propaganda, results in an immediate regression and backsliding on your part into white-bashing. What makes this even more offensive is that you, as a retreaded Nat supporter, have the temerity to lump whites who devote enormous amounts of support in taxes, personal time and sacrifice to foster social upliftment for the less fortunate, into the same category as yourself.
This has to be one of your worst offerings to date. I’ll take ten Dan Roodts to one of you any day.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying in this post. I think that South Africans who have benefited from the previous regime do not seem to realize the extent of their benefit. For example they can still send their kids to good schools and this is just a small but important example. This is quite apparent to the poor majority who also have to deal with a government which is struggling to deliver. South Africans have to be realistic and accept that on both sides of the divide there are simmering tensions, not necessarily openly, and find a way to address issues. This is not a legal problem but one that requires society and this involves political parties, independent bodies and citizens to contribute. It is quite sad that on the eve of the country hosting a big event, the country is faced with deepening tensions. The sooner those in power realize this and they to remedy things the better it will be for the country. WC bringing people together ala 1995 is wrong and misguided. These current leaders need to shape a the country into the said ‘rainbow’ nation or towards one envisioned in the constitution.
Graham says:
April 12, 2010 at 14:19 pm
“I’ll take ten Dan Roodts to one of you any day.”
Graham, thanks for the compliment.
Gwebecimele, I would be very happy to pay a once off reconstruction tax or reparations tax on ONE condition: that the spending of the money is strictly regulated so that it is not wasted (ala SETA’s) and not stolen through corrupt practices and it really achieves something constructive. In fact, it would feel great to make a financial contribution, say, to pay for the building and stocking of a library for every school in South Africa.
Pierre De Vos says:
April 12, 2010 at 14:30 pm
“In fact, it would feel great to make a financial contribution, say, to pay for the building and stocking of a library for every school in South Africa.”
The CEPD through their CLING programme may be a way to go.
Or Ppen!
Well said, Pierre, so well said!
Pierre De Vos says:
April 12, 2010 at 14:30 pm
“Graham, thanks for the compliment.”
Hey Pierre, it may well be complimentary to be worth 10 x Dan Roodts.
Dan Roodts may not be so chuffed to be = 1/10 th x Pierre!
Prof, well written. But notice how the majority of your usual contributors have been negative. It seems that it can only be factual, objective, independent, legally sound, and worthwhile if its anti-ANC or government. Please, Prof, do not allow the reactionary elements of this blog, who do not want to take any responsibility for the transformation process our country has to undergo, to make you unwittingly make reactionary statements. This article is progressive and looks at understanding the problems and looks at possible solutions rather than ahistorical blame-setting. Thanks.
@ Graham
Paying tax out of an apartheid loot/benefits alone will not wipe the slate clean. The convinient sudden death of all apartheid supporters/beneficiaries is puzzling.
Hey Gwebby Imbecile
Pierre is still alive!
Maggs, hope you think Dan is worth something, because the cumilative effect of 0 remains 0, if you catch my drift? As I was saying, trying to answer the prof’s question about howcome advocates doesn’t get appointed even if they are better than others is pretty much self explanitory, if you’re in trouble, you need representation, you look for the best and that’s what you’ll find. If somebody obides by the law, that’s obviously a good thing, but nobody is going to dige you a noddy badge. Professional practitioners simply can’t really comply with the legislation that requires them to give their business over in the end even if they believe in the cause.
Like the son who told his father he wants to take over the family business no matter how many times his father explains to him that he is a medical doctor. Your name is your business, how do you hand that over? Also, you don’t need to belive in the cause of this constant and tiring indoctrination of transformation to appoint a couple of tokens to create satisfaction of whomever’s approval you need, you can simply look at the numbers, calculate how many of which races you employ and know within minutes which candidates you could invite for interviews. The fact here prof, is that these number have already been met and exceeds the expectations with regard to government jobs and it’s exactly where the resistance is being generated.
If you don’t want to except, it’s fine, but I read your explanation the other day where you use the racetrack as a metaphor to explain how one athlete will win the other one who was held back by sinister motives and whilst reading I thought, indeed like making me study for earning a wage according to what I’m competent to do then getting a Ford Ikon with 75Kw and 135Nm of torque, but the other guy gets in Joburg first, why? because not only was he equiped with a 750Nm, 230Kw VW Taureg that can excelerate from 0-100 faster than a GTI, he also gets a blue light brigate and if that’s not all complete indemnity from road rules, armed and merciless enforcers and sponsored tyres so he can afford to swich off the traction controll to show his friends how far he can spin all this is also something that needs to be taken into consideration when you distiguish between fact and fantassy. Thank you.
@ Graham
Prof continously make his views known in this blog including this article and all we seem to be getting from you is denial, tax excuses and hiding behind generalisation.
Judging by your outburst at his article, it can only mean one thing.
While I agree to a certain extent with this article, I am really worried about the company you keep, Prof. The white people I know are, for the most part, doing their bit to bring about change. They employ people of colour, assist with educating their children, support their families, often when they are battling to make ends meet.
What concerns me about your post is that you demand action from whites and the ANC, but appear to believe that all other citizens of this country are entitled to the benefit of this action.
When do the balance of the population take action to rectify their own lives? Too many excuses are bandied about which relieve them of the pressures of actually having to really work for anything – apartheid, access to social grants, racism, substance abuse, broken homes.
I work in my community every day to assist people in upliftment, improve the education in our schools, job creation projects. I cannot begin to tell you how many of the projects we embark upon are thwarted through political agendas (ANC and COPE), apathy of the beneficiaries, corruption and nepotism and a complete lack of desire to actually do any work.
If people wish to change the perception of others, they need to stop conforming to stereotypical behaviour and start taking responsibility for their lives.
@ Graham
“Hey Gwebby Imbecile”
.. irrefutable proof that not all white South Africans have benefitted from a superior education. or perhaps you haven’t left the school yard yet and we should in fairness suspend judgment?
@ Pierre, Maggs and Gwebecimele
Graham’s antics notwithstanding and unbeknownst to him, no doubt, he is making a valid point that is also implied in Pierre’s comment: when financial contributions, whether this takes the form of comparativley high annual income tax or an once-off restitution tax, are hopelessly squandered, it creates resentment and alienation. it thus stands in the way of genuine investment, both financially and emotionally, in the common good (as well as obvioysly being a disaster for those dependent on, and entitled to, service delivery).
a wonderful column by Rustum Kozain (http://www.rapport.co.za/Weekliks/Nuus/As-selfs-die-kranse-nie-antwoord-gee-nie-20100409) in the Rapport on the weekend refers to the heartache of white South Africans who feel that they have been rendered voice-less in the country they love. something similar applies to the heartache of feeling one’s contributions derided, and good will ridiculed. Graham’s post is an unwitting example, and an indication of how far we still have to go, and how big our hearts will have to be to get there.
Samantha says:
April 12, 2010 at 16:16 pm
You are right on the button. We do similar work no doubt and have similar experiences. Everything you said I resonate with. Further, I know many of the paler hue who help wherever they can and I’ve learned to rely on them alone to continue my own efforts. I simply refuse to deal any further with any government departments, leaving that to my non-white companions when it is absolutely necessary, as for example when having to communicate with departments, or to provide ridiculous, long winded and repeated documentation, or the requirement for a poverty organization needing the services of lawyers and advocates and expensive auditors, which who is going to pay for when the funds are rarely delivered once granted, or rarely on time, and often stolen.
In ten years of working in the communities it is my experience that white racism or the boers supposedly wanting past privileges now lost, returned, only once have they been a problem in accomplishing community projects, generally helpful and often with money. Twenty fold that, the obstruction rests directly with ANC government cadre filled bodies.
There, I’ve said it. It’s not the whites or white racism preventing service delivery.
We all know who responsible.
More than anything it is the petty politics and corruption in virtually all the departments who hold things up to the point of oppression. When you sincerely work on behalf of the people, it the bureaucrats and politicos who are the obstruction, not white racists attitudes.
Pierre
You wrote: “Until white South Africans take a long hard look at themselves, until they stop hiding behind a smug facade of racial superiority to insulate themselves from any responsibility for the past political oppression and economic exploitation of black South Africans, how can we move forward as a country? All white South Africans need to take responsibility for the past before we as a nation can move on.”
I had to read this passage twice to be sure that I understand you correctly. You suggest that we are stuck somewhere on the road to racial Utopia and you blame it on the inability of whites to take responsibility for the past? At the risk of offending you, I must protest that this is a myopic thinking. The issue of race relations in our country is far more complex and solving our problems require more than white-bashing.
Heywood Jubleauxme, the passage you quote does not say and was not intended to suggest that the only problem in SA is the failure of many white South Africans to come to terms with their privileged past. It was meant to suggest that this is one of the preconditions for dealing with race and to move forward. Having said that, a bit of self-reflection is obviously needed and pointing out the blindingly obvious fact that many white South Africans seem unable or unwilling to move out of their comfort zones – perhaps at least partly because of a deeply ingrained and internalized master narrative about the superiority of “whiteness” – is not white bashing. In my book it’s about speaking truth to power.
Gwebecimele says:
April 12, 2010 at 13:00 pm – one-off tax for wealthy whites
I can’t see that a transfer of existing wealth from whites to blacks is going to achieve anything long term. The real need of the country is for blacks to gain the experience, skills and education that whites have, to create additional wealth for all going forward. We need decent political leadership to help align us all towards this goal, not the current populist rabble who secure votes by appealing to the baser instincts of desperate people.
There are only so many flat screens and swimming pools to be harvested from whites – there will not be enough to go around and we all know who will be at the front of the queue. Zimbabwe is a pretty good example of how this wealth transfer idea can all go wrong.
Pierre, please do not encourage people with white tendencies to think they can purchase redemption for the originaal sin of apartheid by working in communities, funding libraries, and praying in the same pews as blacks. This is Black Sash old-white-ladies-breast-beating indulgence. Blacks know from experience that liberals love any excuse to patronise them and pose as the saviors of the pitiable victims of a cruel history. (That is why “mentoring” in the affirmative action context must be rejected as arrogant superiority-posturing.)
While I thus reject you soppy ameliorism, I am grateful that you did not go so far as to recommend that white people become politically active. For that is even more unacceptable. It is presumptious in the extreme for liberals like “Madam” Zille to think they can tell Africans how to run an African country. Even more repulsive are whites who pretend to be “radical.” We certainly do not need any more white messiahs like Jeremy Cronin!
Friend says:
April 12, 2010 at 15:46 pm
“Maggs, hope you think Dan is worth something, because the cumilative effect of 0 remains 0, if you catch my drift?”
I have no idea who Dan Roodts is or his/her value – I assume your zero value has a basis.
So I will change my calc : Pierre = X + (10 x Roodts) … according to Graham + some tweaking!
Lady Jek says:
April 12, 2010 at 16:42 pm
There is a lot going on that is unacceptable – in the public sector a significant number of voices have expressed this, including our President, ministers, judges, the media, political activists across the spectrum, religious leaders, prominent South Africans and and and.
Most South Africans find that frustrating and feel almost helpless.
More needs to be done to remedy that.
That aside, the question Pierre asks (correctly in my view) is “(w)hat should come next?”
Why would any South African feel “voice-less in the country they love”????
Thank you Prof for the good words.
It is sorely needed.
@ Maggs
“Why would any South African feel “voice-less in the country they love”
Maggs, I have always been an admirer of your work.
But, with respect, this is a silly question. We know when a white person, be it Leon or Madam Zille, Helen Dolny, or even a Jeremy Cronin, speaks out in opposition to the ANC, they are only revealing the arrogance of their racism
And why SHOULD non-Africans (and whites in particular), have any political voice in South Africa? They ran the country to their own benefit for 400 years. They remain overwhelmingly custodian of economic power. Let them now shut up – and be grateful that they have not been driven back into the sea from whence they came. They are welcome to continue to make money, so long as their services are useful to Africans!
Pierre, it seems to me that your proposal resonates with the neo-Christian theology of the TRC; what is called for is white acknowledgment, repentance, and forgiveness, sealed with the usual sacrements of liberal atonment.
Undeniably, such a course would help, especially on an inter-personal level, and especially in Ventersdorp.
But the deeper problem, structural inequality, would barely be touched. The only short term solution for that is forcible redistribution. What has been chosen instead is an incremental deracialization of capitalism. But capitalism itself is intact, and in fact has been intensified by de facto privatization of health care, transport, security services, etc.
Has Zuma abandoned Mbeki’s Class project? I think not.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 12, 2010 at 21:00 pm
Hey Big D,
So you reckon that people feel voiceless because someone screams racist?
That’s not good enough a reason.
Recall for example the spat between now Judge Dennis Davis and then HRC Chairperson Dr Barney Pityana.
Pierre, for example, is unwilling to let angry, dull, aggressive, intolerant, silly, raving lunatics determine his space.
Our President is another example of someone who despite all the loud voices is prepared to stand his ground.
We have an exceptional Bill of Rights, possibly the world’s best constitution, a host of institutions that many be used to defend our right to express ourselves (appropriately of course).
If people want to duck at the slightest retort, tough titties for them – they are “voice-less” because they choose to be.
Yes, Maggs, you are right. I forgot we have the world’s best Constitution.
As for our President, he is indeed a man who stands his ground. We knew that when he described ET as a “leader of standing.”
Thanks.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 12, 2010 at 21:27 pm
ET as a “leader of standing.”
Eish!
It is proven yet, maybe just speculative!
oops – isn’t proven yet
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 12, 2010 at 18:06 pm
You confuse me, and I’m sure others as well with your irony. Are you suggesting that we whites don’t act, don’t continue to try to improve matters?
Prof says:
“…perhaps at least partly because of a deeply ingrained and internalized master narrative about the superiority of “whiteness” – is not white bashing. In my book it’s about speaking truth to power.
Well said, to a degree, and I’m not ashamed of my approval… I do feel superior to a Malema, no doubt about it. I’m more educated, swift in my comprehensive thinking, much less of an ignoramus, and I retired from greed at 55 to spend my elder years contributing sincerely to my community, and yes, I repeat, in terms of my own ethics and values I feel superior, although I hate to disappoint black racists here, it has nothing to do with colour, more to do with awareness of world culture, what works, and what doesn’t.
I am not ashamed of my abilities, of my education, of my privilege which determined that my parents insisted on good education, insisted on my being aware that my role in life was to serve all the people, whether Jewish, black, Chinese or white, and especially the elderly and the children (that’s what it is to be raised a Methodist, viewing all as brothers and sisters.
However, my feelings of superiority come from knowing I’ve had more privilege, more education, more instruction about the play of life, more insistence from family to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.
I would suggest, and perhaps Maggs and others can excuse me here a bit, that regardless of how blacks think about whites, it is we whites who can make the difference in South Africa simply because we still have the advantage, not political, partially economic, but mostly breeding. Its a little bit like a parent accepting that they have a responsibility to their children. No offense intended.
I don’t think I’m a ‘white supremacist’, that blacks, Jews, Poles, whoever, that others are inferior. I think I’m a supremacist period, cause I’ve had the opportunities to be such through education and parents with high principles, where so many others haven’t. And I have no guilt whatsoever. Its arts, culture, education in history and law and societal evolution ingrained in me by my family and betters.
So no, I’m not apologizing. I’m just getting on with it.
On a less serious note, Maggs: ‘tough titties’, always one of my favorite sayings. Not that I’ve encountered any.
Michael Osborne, it seems to me my argument, although it might resonate with a kind of neo-Christian theology you speak of, is not the same as the TRC model. I was careful to state that I see the steps above as a first step to fixing the problem. My call on whites to confront the past is ethical (and thus hints at the neo-Christian theology you speak of) but it is also profoundly pragmatic. If white people want to have a political voice and if they want to contribute to the normalization of politics, a first step, I argue, would be to address the root cause of the sterile politics of race and racial grievance we have in SA. That would require the adoption of a different mindset and a non-racial attitude which would help to disarm the dangerous populism of the Malema’s who exploit the racism and smugness of some whites to delegitimize the political voice of white voters and of other critics of the ANC who can be branded as coconuts or as being anti-transformation. Once we have a slightly more normal society in terms of race, we can begin to deal with the deeper structural issues around corruption and economic inequality, and can begin to really debate the best way to close the huge economic disparities in our society. If we do not take the first step, the race nationalists will exploit white racism to deflect attention from the fact that they are enriching themselves and generally acting in contempt of the poor and vulnerable who vote for them. Whites have a self-interest in confronting their own racial prejudices or the racial prejudices of others in their community. It is also the right thing to do, though – whether one is a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or an atheist.
Hey, how about – instead of a whole bunch of pseudo-intellectual masturbation – white South Africans pay 60c out of every Rand they earn to ensure a better life for all?
i would have liked to see john roberts essay for this topic.but anyway, following the dressing down of julius he said “in polics..friends are not friends forever and enemies are not enemies forever”. i know people believe that he is so stupid to an extent that he does not know even the meaning of those words. i think the real political change is contained on that statement, ew might even see him on DA family one day.
Michael says: “But the deeper problem, structural inequality, would barely be touched. The only short term solution for that is forcible redistribution.”
Tell us what you have in mind, Michael?
Pierre
More wild generalisations and sweeping hyperbole. I think you need to put an age limit on, or at least identify the whites who need to feel guilty and stop their smugness. Here’s an exmample :
My daughter entered school in 1994, the first group under Nelson Mandela. She attended and integrated school and had both black and white friends. In essence she was colour-blind and innocent.
She graduated cum laude last year from UCT and had friends of all colour at varsity.
This year she entered the job market. Despite 5 matric distinctions and graduating near the top of her class, she has made the shortlist 5 times for top jobs but each time was overlooked and told that the job had gone to a less qualified black person. Should she just suck it up and take the smug look off her face ?
She had no problem with blacks before.
Now she does.
She’s just had an offer to join a company in Europe because of her record.
So bye-bye white skills and hello black mediocrity.
Now tell us how we fix that and tell us why she shouldn’t have this new dislike for blacks ?
What I meant to add was this :
It’s pointless trying to fix the past, because in doing so, we are creating new racial problems for the future and creating unfair conditions for children that had no part in apartheid.
When we go around apologising for our existence to black people does that include illegals? It does seem a bit illogical apologising for being here to someone who made his way south from the Horn asking all the way ‘unajua wapi naweza kupata watu weupe?’ He might be insulted.
kenneth says:
April 12, 2010 at 23:16 pm
“following the dressing down of julius he said ‘in polics..friends are not friends forever and enemies are not enemies forever’. i know people believe that he is so stupid to an extent that he does not know even the meaning of those words. i think the real political change is contained on that statement, ew might even see him on DA family one day.”
Interesting observation!
It may well be early indications that he is ready to jump ship.
Brett is right about our pseudo-intellectual masturbation and a 60% flat tax.
How about this: whites pay the balance (40%), upon every orgasm they achieve in the course of such masturbation. (SARS take note: white female multiple orgasms count as a single cum if completed within 60%, but ad valorum penalies apply at a marginal rate to every peak of satisfaction attained after one minute by any single white woman.)
Could you go for that, Brett?
OK Pierre, I follow your narrative; whites are essentially banished from the marketplace of political ideas as punishment for apartheid. The redemptive sacrifice for readmission is confession of sin and acceptance of responsibility, marked by symbolic but important acts of contrition, working in soup kitchens (or, like Coetzee’s Lurie, burning dogs.)
Once whites have in this fashion reattained their political citiizenship, they re-join the national debate to answer Lenin’s famous question” “What is to be Done?” I suppose my objection was this: unless the next step is for whites to agree to radical economic redistribution, they will, notwithstanding their sincere contrition, continue to be resented for being disproportinately wealthy, unless and until they are joined at the top of the heap by enough Africans to “transform” the racial divide into the class division of your “normal” society.
Dworky, don’t come here with your tendencies – YOUR WHITE TENDENCIES – this is a blog of the revolution, a revolutionary blog! Here you behave or you jump!
“Expel ANC members who steal from the poor, who corruptly obtain tenders which they cannot competently, efficiently and cost-effectively honour. Try and respect the voters who have elected you into office.”
It’s happened in the past and will continue to happen where those who are targeted are not suitably aligned or where they are “disposable”.
Tony Yengeni was not the only one who received a massive discount on the “Yengeni”.
Goniwe was disciplined; the now late Ambassador Mashabane was defended.
And and and.
We have all been to judicial sales. We all know what ‘market value’ entails and we all know that it is usually a fraction of the value the owners thought an asset or a business as a running concern was worth. I would like to ask our esteemed (probably inestimable) communist contributors a couple of questions pertaining to Sampie’s intellectual masturbation:
You nationalise every single legal person overnight. Where does the money come from? Not for compensation – for the next month’s wages?
You have just destroyed the tax base: Where does the money come from for pensions for the aged in month 3? Child grants?
Oh – kewl – they will not need money because they will not need to buy anything? And there will be nothing to buy anyway?
o forget for the sake of this hypothesis that nationalisation and our Constitution are inconsistent and that if we choose one the other goes out the window
o forget for the sake of this argument the deletorious effects nationalisation of mineral rights (and the leaking of the draft empowerment charter) had on the mining industry, on Anglo, the retirement funds of every unionised worker (including the career of one Seth Nthai…) oh, you know, everything?
Forget, for the moment, the spillover effect Eishcom’s load-shedding had on the mining industry down to your local Steers outlets, the two outlets in your local mall now being one….
Oh, kewl – you have already?
I again reiterate my question as to why it is only whites who should be making any contribution to nation-building.
My son was born in 1995 and my daughter in 2000. Both of them attend a fully integrated school, which has in fact got more black and coloured children in the hostel. Neither of my children have ever had any problem with other race groups and have friends of all colours.
Last year, my son back-chatted his (Black) Head of Hostel after some punishment had been meted out. One of the other Black boys accused my son of using the “K” word. A group of Black matrics then took my son, who was in Grade 8 into one of the rooms and “interrogated” him for over an hour accusing him of being a racist. Throughout the entire ordeal, he stated unequivocally that he had not used that word, although he had called him an idiot under his breath. My son was hysterical by the time he called us. While he was telling us about the ordeal, the Head of Hostel came into the room and asked who he was talking to. When he said it was us, the Head asked to speak to us. During the course of this conversation, he used the “K” word at least 20 times, stating that he had other white boys use it, as well as Black kids and stated that this was why they were all touchy about the race issue.
My point to him was that the behaviour used by his team was nothing short of thuggery and intimidation, based on the hearsay of some boy who could not prove that my son had even said the word. The fact that they were so quick to believe that any sort of dissent had to have some racial bias speaks volumes. Not about the behaviour and attitudes of white people, but about those of Black people.
The leadership of this country have engendered a mind-set that any criticism of a Black person by a white person is automatically racist. This is unacceptable to me and relegates the attitudes, expectations and thinking of white people to the backbenches. Why should white people be apologists for holding everyone to a certain standard? And, unlike what Pierre suggests, we don’t hold Blacks to a higher standard, but to the same standard that we hold all people – a standard of morality, a standard of behaviour and a standard of excellence that will benefit everyone.
Simultaneously inciteful and insightful – http://www.sairr.org.za/sairr-today/sairr-today-press-release-statement-by-the-south-african-institute-of-race-relations-on-the-ramifications-of-the-killing-of-eugene-terreblanche-6th-april-2010
Another issue that should be raised is the splitting of the pie after nationalisation: are 10m economic refugees from other countries going to get their fair share of the proceeds of redistribution, especially SADEC countries? It would be unkind to throw open the country’s borders for 15 years then exclude indigenous people who took advantage of the kind offer to share in the pie – because of an accident of birth!
It also seems logical that when the pie is split said split is calculated according to and apportioned to heads of households rather than according to a formula in which apportionment is made on a per capita basis. The reason being that a child who was the product of a planned preganancy ought not to be disadvantaged with an equal share to families which have multiple unplanned children particularly as said irresponsibility will lead to further diminishing of shares if the process of redistribution takes longer than 9 months from valuation.
Any land that is appropriated ought to be divided according to the same formula above.
Funny that there is talk now of Lesotho wanting to be incorporated into South Africa. They must be suffering a legacy of even worse white oppression than South Africa. And no doubt ex-Lesothans will be entitled to affirmative action freebies, like the rest of their black brethren from all over the continent.
Now that is a mean-spirited insinuation of a kind I would never make – that Lesotho is running towards where the whiteys are, I mean.
Undoubtedly, the people of Lesotho want to be part of South Africa because they desire enlightened, exemplary, foresightful governance and our efficient administration.
Muahahaha!
@ Sirjay
For the first time, Agreed.
Sirjay says,”I am not ashamed of my abilities, of my education, of my privilege which determined that my parents insisted on good education, insisted on my being aware that my role in life was to serve all the people, whether Jewish, black, Chinese or white, and especially the elderly and the children (that’s what it is to be raised a Methodist, viewing all as brothers and sisters.
However, my feelings of superiority come from knowing I’ve had more privilege, more education, more instruction about the play of life, more insistence from family to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.”
I say
The system we have continue to produce people like yourself in large numbers and it must be dismantled if we want to achieve equality. The superiority feelings you have, is the corner stone stone of racism.
I have children attending mixed schools that are managed by white people. There is no prize for guessing which culture dominates in those institutions. South Africa has Lebanese, Irish , German, Greek schools but you will never hear of a Venda or Tsonga school. I have taken a decision to delay introducing lessons on subtle racism to my kids until they matured enough to handle it. They are subjected to these cultures and other unfair treatment in these institutions. Despite the increase of number blacks in these schools you will hardly see them in numbers competing in sports and other extra-mural activities. Every year the suburb newspapers reflect the absence of black pupils in the high performing category at matric. In my age group (THE FEW) that attended private or model c schools have come to realise they benefited in having white contacts but were never taught black consiousness. They were kept in this false moment until the day they reported at work( THEY BECAME SUBORDINATES OF THEIR EQUALS AND TAKEN ON GRADUATE PROGRAMS).
All I am trying to expose is the inequality and racism at schools. The fact that you have friends of other races says nothing about an individual’s race tendencies.
There is no doubt that apartheid, culture disruptions and poverty also dismantled families and parenting in South Africa. Blacks ways of living and supporting structures have been weakened while other races have supported and provided with priviledges by the state. After 16 yrs of democracy and lack of individual and government interventions, blacks must start sharing the blame for their circumstances.
At a rather superficial level your article makes sense, but……
Around 1994 Nelson Mandela took the first step in a journey which was to create a better life for all South Africans. At that time many of us who despised the apartheid system (and I do not care whether you believe me or not) looked forward to a far brighter future under enlightened black majority rule. All the right things were being said and the portents were favourable.
That goodwill in the hearts of white people has been steadily eroded by all the manifest shortcomings which you so eloquently highlight above. There is hardly a good thing that can be said about a government which started off in such promising fashion 16 years ago.
I would suggest that most whites would change their attitude immediately if the ruling party started to deliver on the Mandela dream. That is the egg from which a cooperative white chicken will be hatched
I think two submissions sum it up nicely:
From the “White” side Pierre De Vos says:
April 12, 2010 at 14:30 pm
We would like to contribute, but we don’t trust those who will be responsible for the distribution of the contributions.
And from the “Black” side Gwebecimele says:
April 12, 2010 at 13:00 pm
Don’t come with any token gestures, we want your money, or whatever other physical assets you may own.
What a load of utter BS. I did not directly benefit from apartheid. I did not get a chance to go to University. I support my parents as they earn a pittance. My father has been without a job for almost 8 years now. I am not going to take responsibility for something I did not do or encourage. What SA needs is good leadership who looks out for everyone in this country. We need to drop the racial card and move on. Hatred breeds hatred my friend. Whites are not welcome in this country. We have educated university students singing “kill the boer”. Tell me what is going to happen in 20 years? South Africa is another failed African state. Get out while you can before your wife is raped in front of your eyes and then a bullet put into your head. I sure as hell am. And the beautiful thing is that I will be going to a first world country where I will not be told I have to take responsibility for something my forefathers did.
Gwebecimele, it’s because of racism your kids cannot attend a traditional school? PLEASE WAKE UP. The ANC is directly responsible for the failure of our education systems. Why does a black entrepreneur not open a private school which teaches black values and traditions then? There is an opportunity right there as I am sure our black diamonds would clamour to send their kids to such an institution. Maybe your kids cannot compete with the others? Ever thought of that? Stop blaming others for your misfortunes!
Chris says:
April 13, 2010 at 13:20 pm
As long as transformation is reduced to piles of cash, out of order chaos will arise!
I don’t think it’s chance that I only saw the last bit of a documentary last night on National Geographic or Discovery about the French Foreign Legion. All I heard from the soldier was: “the reason why Africa is so f%#&ed up is because the people are so f*&#ing lazy”. That’s when it hit me.
@ Chris
Can I have your old flag and grey shoes.
@ Friend
That is why they are good for slavery and hard labour.
Gwebecimele, they certainly are no doubt about it, in all these uncertainties speculated about that’s one thing that history has tought us is the they are good for slavery and hard labour, I may still have a pair of Grass hoppers with long socks and a comb that you could borrow.
I would not be opposed to whites paying repatriations. Then get rid of BEE and AA. It would be great exercise for the country to do. Put a figure on how much white South Africans really benefited from apartheid.
Curiously, Wikipedia estimates that the white population comprises of 9.1% of the total population of 50 Million. That is 4.5 Million whites in South Africa. I am not sure about you, but I if us so called whites benefited from Apartheid and segregation for 350 years, we should all be pretty well off. I believe that the bulk of the money is sitting abroad. Trying to get those individuals / organizations to pay up would be pretty impossible.
@ Samatha
“we don’t hold Blacks to a higher standard, but to the same standard that we hold all people”
I am not sure what standards you personally apply, Samantha, but it seems to me that the racism of many “liberal” whites comes out in holding black people to lower, not higher, standards. The bigotry of lowered expectations is one of the most insidious forms of racism.
A very good article Prof, but I also think it is high time Blacks also contribute in nation building and take responsibility rather than relying on hand outs.very WORRYINGLY THOUGH, IT IS NOT ONLY wHITES Attorneys who must brief Black advocates our Black politicians must start believing in our Black legal personeel, so the problem is also with Blacks!How would these same Black politicians feel if we started doing like them and believing Madam Zille instead of them?
Talk about colonization of the mind!
Let’s ask a couple of pertinent questions here in the context of “whites” and “all whites continue to benefit from apartheid”:
Firstly, may I ask those who contend for the above to please define what a white person is? I am willing to bet that you cannot do so on any consistently logical basis (and I say the same for the other “racial classifications”). You would realize this if you done any sort of research around the Population Registration Act and how it was implemented. While you are going through the necessary contortions to figure out how you are going to answer this, let’s take a few simple example to test what I am saying: I know two people, both of whom would, I suppose, by the standards seemingly used by almost everyone on this forum, be referred to as “white Afrikaners”. Their only child is a little boy by the name of Thembi whom as I suppose you will all infer by the name, was adopted by them and will I suppose once again, be referred to as “black”. Yet Thembi has never known any other parents. Now have regard to our adoption laws which sever all relationship with the biological parents and have regard only to the adoptive parents as if, in all respects, they were the biological parents. Tell me all of you, is Thembi “white” or “black”? Is he an ongoing beneficiary of apartheid or isn’t he? Should he or shouldn’t he be entitled to BEE benefits in this country? Thembi is not an isolated instance. There thousands and thousands of children like him across the country. Now let’s look at another acquaintance of mine, Sarah. Sarah’s father is “black”, her mother is “white”, both born in this country. Is Sarah a beneficiary of apartheid? And then there is Joe whose father is black but whose grandmother happens to have been born of the union of a black woman and a white man. Then I would ask to consider four year old Jimmy. His father is a “white” South African, his mother a person born in England whom I would call a gorgeous honey blond. You see she has just a hint of a natural tan and the most lovely green eyes but is the product of a pucker British upbringing. It is said her great-grandfather came from Bombay but I really am not sure (my own ancestors – or some of them anyway – came from the Sahel, that part of Africa stretching from Senegal to Egypt). Is Jimmy “white” or not? Is he an ongoing beneficiary of apartheid or not? His mother never lived here before 2001.
There are any number of people in this country who fit into the above descriptions or similar – literally millions. You may even find that it’s the majority when you start to dig below the surface. Ever heard of Bess, the sunburnt queen?
Before you answer this, please consider the implications of what you are about to say and how it might start to make you look like Nazi eugenicist – you know, the definition of a quarter Jew and who goes to the gas chamber and who does not.
As an aside, I can’t wait to see how Gwebecimele is going to describe how much each of the foregoing persons must surrender of their personal assets (sorry .Gwebecimele, I am not trying to be hurtful to you, only to make the point).
The next thing I want to ask you is this: please explain how ALL whites (assuming that you have somehow managed to get past the first question without making yourself look like a complete idiot, never mind a disciple of Hendrik Verwoerd) continue to be beneficiaries of apartheid. It’s a glib statement to make but please explain it in the context of real application. While you are at it, please explain how it applies to those persons who are today living in squatter camps (you know the ones that JZ visits) who have nothing, no skills and no hope whatever for a better future because I personally have difficulty understanding exactly how they are better off than any other people in this country in similar circumstances.
You see, the simple truth is that questions of economics and dominance aside, you are all disciples of Hendrik Verwoerd and you are all brothers of Eugene Terre’Blanche. You all divide the world of your mind (and thus the world without) into those artificial categories of race with which the history of the South African nation is poisoned (sorry Pierre, that includes you too as far as I can tell). Until you start move beyond that thinking you are a racist, plain and simple. This does not mean that I disagree with what Pierre says about how some people treat others but that I disagree profoundly as to how he sees the solution and the causes. I think that fundamental cause is not that one “race” treats another as inferior or similar mechanisms but rather a lot more fundamental than that – it’s a question of how you perceive yourself and how as a consequence you start to perceive others. Maybe when you start to understand that in fact you do not fit into a neat race little box you will also start to understand that neither do others. At that point hopefully you will start to treat other people without regard to what you but rather with regard to what they are as people. Then start to understand that those who treat others in a particular manner because of their god-given appearance are simply ignorant bigots who have thought nothing through; they are idiots who deserve nothing more than simple disdain. Censure them but make sure that when you do so you are not guilty of some equal sin yourself.
This much I promise you: until minds are de-colonised from the Verwoerdian poison which has been so widely imbibed, South Africans will never be free of racial strife. Not now, a hundred years from now or three hundred and fifty years from now. Sadly, government policy in South Africa does nothing but introduce yet more and more such poison into our society. I beg of you all, do not perpetuate the legacy of Verwoerd. So much blood was split over it and all we are doing is creating the basis for yet more of the same.
@ Michael Osborne,
Excellent point!!
But, once again, I think that Blacks (or maybe just the ANC) are as much to blame for this as Whites. When questioned on a number of issues, our leaders justify behaviour that Whites (or imperialists, or Afro-pessimists) would deem unacceptable by using the “culture” card.
A silly example relates to punctuality. I pride myself on always being punctual for meetings and yet, when our Mayor and our Councillors and other members of our community arrive 30 to 45 minutes late, we are told this is African time and we must accept it.
When Zuma was outed for his latest child, his defendants referred to his culture as the excuse for this behaviour.
So, should I hold people to the same standards that I expect of myself, or should I amend those standards to suit other peoples’ culture? If the former, am I not behaving in a “superior” manner? If the latter, I am, by your definition, a racist.
Sorry, one correction: Zuma’s defandants should be Zuma’s defenders!!! Freudian slip, methinks!!!
@ Peter John
Please spare us the different mixes you can come imagine.
According to the latest Stats SA official mid year figure we have the following
79,3% African, 2,6% Asian, European 9,1% and Coloured 9%. These are clear cut classification that do not have any contradictions.
I have no doubt that more than 95% of South African will fit these rigid classifications.
I am a black African who made a concious decision to marry another black African fully knowing the possible confusions that you have highlighted and my own preferances. All of us will freely make our own decisions and live with pro and cons of our choices.
With all the possible variations in the world and the limited time and I will limit my self to the “SA mixes” if you allow me. ALL whites including those born yesterday have benefited from apartheid and continue to benefit. Those who migrated here less than probably 5 yrs ago will have to prove their source of their wealth. If that wealth was made using unfair means ( unfair labour practice, price fixing, illegal activities etc) then it is subject to apartheid tax.
The intention of BEE, AA and other raced based policies is to promote equality. Once you have equal number of whites and blacks in elite positions then we must change the formula to (race+ class) and that would create an opportunity even for the most poor person even if he is white. Until then race is the ultimate factor. There must be representation in all spheres of our lives. I am not proposing elimination of white but rather an equal society with whites owning their equivalent 9% of JSE, LAND,etc
A white who marries a black person remains as a apartheid beneficiary and the black partner is a PDI ( Prev Dis Indiv). Their child who is mixed (Coloured) will be as such. An African child adopted by whites remains black and he/she will treated as such by our society. That child will suffer the remains of apartheid with/without the cushion of his parents.
I do not believe in concepts such as African-American, European-Indian, Chinese-African but rather on African, American, Indian, European etc. How then should people classify themselves thats entirely their own choices.
Being African must never be reduced to looks/appearance but must also include beliefs and allegiance to Africa.
The redistribution is not about teaspoons, hats and ties but land, mineral rigths, space for culture and other ill gotten gains. Keep your churches and schools but stop making noise when we develope ours. You used state resources for these and so shall we.
Gwebecimele says:
April 13, 2010 at 16:38 pm
Here’s an extract from a very interesting read :
“The Crisis that Apartheid Created for the South African Economy
When the African National Congress (ANC) inherited the economy in 1994,
they inherited an economy that was massively distorted by Apartheid’s
political and economic policies and the economy at the time was in long-term
decline.233 Although South Africa’s per capita234 Gross Domestic Product
(GPD)235 ranked as a middle-income country, living standards for the majority
resembled those of much poorer countries.236 The fact that developed
countries did not suffer the levels of malnutrition, homelessness and illiteracy
that South Africa was exposed to should be taken into account.237 Inequalities
of income, wealth and skill existed between race groups, men and women
and between rural and urban areas.238 Studies at that time showed that South
Africa had the most unequal economy in the world because the black majority
had effectively been excluded from economic ownership and control,
deliberately undermining black people’s ability to accumulate capital.”
http://etd.uwc.ac.za/usrfiles/modules/etd/docs/etd_init_9168_1176725622.pdf
@ Gwebecimele
“Being African must never be reduced to looks/appearance but must also include beliefs and allegiance to Africa.”
Please explain what you mean by allegiance to “Africa.”
Does that include Morocco and Egypt?
And why would a dark-skinned person be more loyal to Morocco than to Haiti?
The notion of dividing the world into five “continents” — arbitrary cartographic divisions — is an invention of colonialist map makers.
Free yourself of mental slavery!
To give us a more complete picture, Maggs, why do you not give us
1) a population break down for 1994; 2010; and, just to be fair, 1978?
2) an idea of migratory patterns from SA into SADEC countries and from SADEC countries into SA? (If you feel tempted to finesse the second part of the question with regard to the establishment of SADEC just give us a breakdown of the countries that constitute it…)
Thank you, Peter John, for an excellent exposition. You, Brett Nortje, John Roberts and a few others provide us with a small bulwark against the politically correct flood of inane, unctuous and largely incomprehensible drivel spewed forth on this site by racist advocates of social engineering. Gweby, with your latest diatribe and tortuous and convoluted attempts at justifying the completely unjustifiable, you show your true colours – a white-envying racist, eugenics advocate, and black apartheid practitioner. Hendrik V would have unconditionally endorsed you. More of the same, just a different colour.
If, instead of using population demographics to lay claim to a particular quantum of South Africa’s assets, Gweby, you rather used apportionment of IQ, maybe you would find that your equity and social engineering targets have already been met.
Brett Nortje says:
April 13, 2010 at 18:20 pm
“To give us a more complete picture, Maggs,”
Still looking for pictures, I see.
Gwebecimele, at what age do you require a child to start showing ‘allegiance to “Africa”‘? How, and; what if they do not?
Maggs, I knew you could not sustain the effort! Your ‘brain’ hurt?
It is not that I am trying to be mean, Graham, I assure you!
Those advocating ‘redistribution’ and ‘nationalisation’ are just shocking when it comes to specidfics, finer detail.
We saw what happened when the ANC assclowns leaked the draft empowerment charter and also when they nationalised mineral rights. Drive the back roads to Carletonville. Potchefstroom. Stilfontein. Orkney.
Ghost towns!
I think people like Gwebe owe us some answers. Kewl. Nationalise everything. How much cash does that actually translate to for redistribution? Who coughs up the cash-value for redistribution? How much does every person get? You have just destroyed the tax base; what pays for next month’s pensions and child grants? Those going concerns stand empty. Who coughs up the salaries of the people who used to work there? Juju?
Absurd!
Brett Nortje says:
April 13, 2010 at 18:33 pm
“Maggs, I knew you could not sustain the effort! Your ‘brain’ hurt?”
hahahahaha.
And tummy too.
Especially since you missed “the effort”.
On the upside laughter is good medicine.
So, do you want the picture in colour?
Or would you like to try colour by number?
Either way it won’t be too complicated, don’t want to put the lonely cell into overload.
@ Gwebecimele,
I am afraid that your post indicates nothing more than outright racism and a rampant victim mindset. And that has been my point all along. While the Whites are expected to “take action” at bridging the racial divide, we must happily sit on the sidelines and watch as people like you DEMAND payback. I’m sorry to say, but I actually have nothing to give you. I am, at the age of 40, paying for my own university education through Unisa because we were too poor for me to go to university. I have worked my entire life and paid my taxes and I dedicate my life to trying to uplift the poor people of my community.
So what do you want from me? My car? You can have that, as long as you continue to pay it off monthly. My home? Take it, but make sure you meet the bond repayments. My TV? Feel free – I’ll show you to wiggle the plugs to make sure that the sound works. You can’t get it fixed because it is so old they don’t have parts for it anymore. How about you take over my debt, as well? You are more than entitled to it.
And, just for the record, I am an eighth generation AFRICAN. Accordingly, I take umbrage at being called a European. I may be white, but I am African.
@ Samantha to Gwebecimele
I think your post betrays the fact that you missed the following line from Gwebecimele’s post on taxing apartheid benefits;
“All those(apartheid beneficiaries) with assets worth more than R3m, must be subjected to a once off tax that will fund meaningful projects.”
Gwebecimele,
You haven’t even tried to address the issues I have raised but only continued to repeat what you have said before. That is because you are simply unable to address the issues in a way which gives you an outcome that is convenient to yourself.
As for the “clear cut” racial classifications, you obviously have not the slightest clue as to what you are talking about.
If you have done any even very basic research you will know that those were created by the Nats. The Nats in turn followed the most illogical and haphazard methodology in classifying people.
Do I need to remind you for example about the pencil test and the finger-nail test, not to mention the colour of your gums and any number of other humiliating things?
These classifications are in essence still being followed as valid today.
So, Gwebecimele Verwoerd, do you say then that the Nats had it right and that the Population Registration Act should never have been repealed? Because that is the only basis upon which such racial classifications rest. There is nothing else at all. And given how you cleave to these, we have to assume that you believe Hendrik Verwoerd was right and that his message is the gospel that we should all be bound by in perpetuity.
Stand up and tell me on what other basis, if any, you think that such racial classifications exist and what tests are to be applied to ascertain where a person fits and how such tests are to be applied and by whom?
Heywood Jubleauxme says:
April 12, 2010 at 17:30 pm
Hilarious name missed by most, including Pierre. Pierre even repeated it in his response, which could have been a simple “no thanks”.
It’s pretty obvious that black people have some deep-seated grievances with whites – and by deep-seated, I mean the sort of gripes that no amount of ardour about the imminent world cup will resolve. It seems possible that a fairly broad and tacit enrichment claim lies at the core of those grievances: white people benefitted from apartheid. They benefitted at the expense of black people. And given this causal connection between one groups enrichment and the others impoverishment, it follows that whites are, after a fashion, rather liable to blacks. Notwithstanding for the time being that the above statement amounts to an almost obscene oversimplification, it does appear to make a measure of sense. But the statement’s fairly obvious weakness flows from its simplicity.
There are at least two ways in which the foregoing implicit claim is just too simple. The first is that the term ‘benefit’ can mean many things – for instance (a) monetary wealth (b) cultural supremacy (c) opportunities and (d) the sense that the government of the day is likely to be sympathetic to the aims and concerns of whatever group happens to be in question. And on (a) to (d), a lot of whites haven’t benefitted at all over the last several years.
Secondly, while the abovementioned tacit enrichment claim may look half-sensible in pleadings or sound half-sensible in a class room or even in a court room, in a broad social context such as South Africa wherein many factors interact, that charmingly simple claim just does not pass muster. For one thing, it’s insensitive and exclusionary towards white people who were alive during apartheid who (1) did not design, promote or bolster that regime and in some instances actually (2) actively opposed it. In brief, we really need to challenge hidden conceptions of social justice. And while waiting for the ANC-led government to pull its thumb out and initiate such a project on a broad scale is destined to be an exercise in patience and temperance, it seems quite clear that some individuals may want to do so.
Prof, with the greatest respect from a coloured standard 4 school leaver forced to go earn a living way back in 1984, far below the level of intelligence of your and esteemed posters on this blog – not to mention considering myself extremely privileged to join issue with you on your blog in respect of issues of the day :
1. It can fairly be stated, as a general proposition, that poverty lies at the root of our societal problems which, in turn, informs the myriad of issues surrounding transformation ;
2. I therefore find your white bashing ludicrous because I fail to see how if whites, as you suggest, must “accept that we have either contributed and/or are still benefiting from apartheid. It means we should show through, words and deeds, that we are prepared to do more than merely sit on the sidelines and whine and complain about the ANC-led government while trying to make as much money as we can – all the time scanning the papers for immigration opportunities.” Will assist in poverty (our time bomb, so to speak) alleviation (our time bomb, so to speak). Inherent in that proposition is that blacks are incapable of doing anything for themselves, so whites must provide;
3. Why should whites or anyone provide for blacks? What I achieved, blacks can achieve too, after all, the majority of black youths are supposed to have a far more superior education than I had since my education was classed gutter education (no, standards 4 – below gutter-)
4. Get the masses working and stop with the excuses on their behalf.
work, work work should be next and if you cant find work, get ingenious and create work.
@ Leigh
I am in a position to show you a pleading by a self trained standard 4 (now grade 6 school leaver) and a fully fledged black attorney and black advocate : somehow i dont think u will be shocked out of the sum result:
I hate to see people trying to live godly lives having to endure unrelenting, grinding poverty. Who is to blame? A white child born yesterday as Gwebecimele (and I think his view is fairly representative) would have it?
That is absurd.
Most white South Africans pay 60 cents out of every Rand they earn to ensure a better life for all. What more can anyone reasonably ask? If these were black sharecroppers an artform like blues would have evolved from these taxslaves.
If there is no real delivery look to the ANC assclowns: Maggs, you could easily supply us with a list of state departments which did not spend all their budgets on the people’s business since 1994…That which is spent is usually wasted on tenders by people like Juju. The administration is in chaos and the people are in the streets because this government is not delivering. All the democratic structures are in place to boot the bums out if they cannot do the job.
I have a low tolerance for bullshit. And I do not take to threats veiled to various degrees kindly. Anyone who thinks a race war is preferable to using the democratic system to boot the assclowns out to effect delivery can suck a bodypart. Anyone who finds solace in keeping up an unrelenting blame-campaign to stir up racial animosity can suck a bodypart. Anyone who prefers comfortable lies to the hard cold truth can suck a bodypart.
Anyone who keeps up the threats and then tries to disarm me so they can safely do all of the above can suck the muzzle of my Tanfoglio TA90.
Get it?
The ANC better shape up or ship out.
Gerald, communication by suggestion is a little beyond you. And the same goes for wit. So just say what you mean and what makes you say it so that maybe we can make some progress.
Surely the only people not benefiting from apartheid these days are middle to lower income whites. The rich ones are buffered by their wealth. And Blacks have the benefit of BEE and AA as a result of apartheid.
Samantha, you make a fair point: middle to low income white South Africans do not benefit from apartheid. In fact, it’s the case often enough that they can’t even expect to be recognised as proper South Africans or any sympathy from poor blacks because the tacit misconception that seems to be doing the rounds is that struggling to make ends meet is somehow mystically less difficult when one is white.
Brett Nortje says:
April 13, 2010 at 23:10 pm
“I have a low tolerance for bullshit.”
Yeah, it’s been noticed.
You keep spewing it out!
“ANC MPs slate local councillors
14 April 2010
Anna Majavu
“ANC members of Parliament yesterday lashed at their counterparts in local government, accusing them of failing to meet 75 percent of their own service delivery targets.
“The MPs linked the service delivery protests ravaging the country to failure by the ANC- dominated South African Local Government Association to deliver on its mandate. …
“‘Look at the report on what has been achieved – zero. There must be a link between your failure and these service delivery protests,’ ANC MP Roy Ainslie told Salga chairperson and Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo.”
http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1131923
I have more respect for blacks who managed to take advantage of the scarce opportunities during apartheid than whites who cry foul that they missed the manna dished out by a nanny state. Even amongst blacks 100 yrs from now there will be group that will cry foul that they never benefited from banning of apartheid.
Well, I will never be apologetic about my views of an equal, just society.
@Samantha
It is interesting that you easily generalise that black are ALL benefiting from BEE & AA while you refuse to accept that whites benefited from apartheid.
You say:
“I am afraid that your post indicates nothing more than outright racism and a rampant victim mindset. And that has been my point all along. While the Whites are expected to “take action” at bridging the racial divide, we must happily sit on the sidelines and watch as people like you DEMAND payback. I’m sorry to say, but I actually have nothing to give you. I am, at the age of 40, paying for my own university education through Unisa because we were too poor for me to go to university. I have worked my entire life and paid my taxes and I dedicate my life to trying to uplift the poor people of my community.”
Continue hiding behind soup kitchens or go to the cinema for an Invictus therapy. How dare you say blacks are sitting on sidelines while you are taking action. It is nothing but your guilt that sends you to poor communities.
@ Peter John
I did not invent race groups. If these groups were used to peddle a particular cause it is only logical to correct that outcome using them. May be a few hundred years down the line these would disappear but they are relevant NOW.
@ Michael
Please read Mike Muendane about an African.
The quality of debate in the last 20 or so posts seems to have have improved significantly with Leigh, Samantha et al. providing, in my view, well reasoned and logical argument. Maybe whining by whitey about substandard delivery, in this case the standard of debate, has merit after all, Pierre.
I like your gun, Brett. I promise not to tell Jaco Bothma or any GFSA zealot that you have it.
“Being born in a stable does not make you a horse” by Mugabe
http://garbadiallo.dk/Who%20is%20an%20African.pdf
Gwebecimele says:
April 14, 2010 at 9:50 am
Yes, and being born in a garage does not make you a Mercedes Benz!
@ Gwebecimbele:
“Well, I will never be apologetic about my views of an equal, just society.”
Nor is there is any reason for you to be. Where we diverge is in how the objective is to be achieved.
“http://garbadiallo.dk/Who%20is%20an%20African.pdf”
It is a good article but it deals with identity, not racial classification which is quite a different matter and upon which your proposals are founded.
“I did not invent race groups. If these groups were used to peddle a particular cause it is only logical to correct that outcome using them.”
But you still have not answered the question of how you determine whether a person falls into one category or another. You do not want to deal with the hard issue of specifics. Do we go back to using the pencil test then, Gwebecimele? Is a darker skinned Nigerian more “black” than a person who regards themselves as a Tswana (maybe the pencil seats more firmly in one instance than another)?
You see, what you simply refuse to admit is that there is no logical, just and rational way of determining who fits where in your racial classification. If you say “one drop” of African blood, well then everyone almost without exception is black. If you say “one drop” of Caucasian blood excludes you, well then such a thing as black virtually does not exist at all. And where to draw the line between the two and how to draw it given all the possible permutations? Well, that is precisely the problem and to that there is no just or logical answer.
Gwebecimele says:
April 14, 2010 at 9:35 am
It seems, just as there is no one around who supported apartheid, that there is now no one to be found that benefited from it.
If some comments are to be believed, then the iniquity that has been structurally and systemically entrenched is just an illusion – or that the reality has been erased by BEE/AA over the last fifteen years.
Somebody owns a broken TV therefore equatability has been established.
Eish!
@ Gwebecimele,
I’m afraid that you misread my posting. I most certainly did not say that Blacks are sitting on the sidelines. I said that Whites are expected to do all the work in bridging the racial divide, but at the same time, must sit back while people DEMAND payback.
Not that I need to explain myself to you, but for the record, I carry absolutely no guilt whatsoever. The work I do is geared at upliftment, not hand-outs. I, like you I imagine, believe that only when OUR people can pull themselves out of poverty, then will we all be truly equal.
I do not believe in doing for people what they can do for themselves. I encourage people to grow their own food. I assist entrepreneurs in registering their companies to get work. I facilitate training programmes for skills development. I assist people with legal matters. I am busy with a half a million rand project for literacy and numeracy in our local high school, which will hopefully increase our matric pass rate from 28%.
This kind of work is about empowerment of people, not about facilitating their continued dependence on hand-outs, grants and apartheid guilt.
As a white person, I cannot help you remove the chip off your shoulder. Only you can do that for yourself. And once that chip has gone, you will be amazed at how much more upright you can stand, taking pride in your accomplishments and cherishing your own unique qualities. Why do insist on giving so much power to the white minority over your life?
“Graham
April 13, 2010 at 18:20 pm
Thank you, Peter John, for an excellent exposition. You, Brett Nortje, John Roberts and a few others provide us with a small bulwark against the politically correct flood of inane, unctuous and largely incomprehensible drivel spewed forth on this site by racist advocates of social engineering.”
Graham, that said, I also believe that there is a moral duty on everyone to de-colonise their own minds and to reach out to those around them, especially those who are downtrodden. I agree with much of what Pierre has said. Where I disagree is in the solution: my belief is that until we can move beyond thinking of ourselves and others in terms of racial categories we are going nowhere. The difficulty is in how to get people to reconstruct their thinking.
Samantha says:
April 14, 2010 at 10:57 am
“Whites are expected to do all the work in bridging the racial divide, but at the same time, must sit back while people DEMAND payback.”
That is far from reality, bordering on delusional.
Maggs:
“It seems, just as there is no one around who supported apartheid, that there is now no one to be found that benefited from it.”
That’s true Maggs. They all now live in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, the US……
But seriously, many if not the vast majority of those who left did so because they could not see a way to deal with the hard issues in this country. They also did so because of the type of issue raised by Gwebecimele: this concept that for the rest of their lives and that of the following generations they would be made to pay forever for the sins of their fathers. They felt in this country, I am given to understand, exactly how you have described feeling in the face of Western culture. Wanting to be free of this (as you wish you could be free) they left. They took with them the benefits of apartheid as you conceptualize it. That benefit comprises by far and away for the greater part, their skill and intellect. Wherever applied it generates rewards. And so we, through our talk and actions have in effect significantly deprived our people of the vast pool of apartheid benefits that were available here in the form intellectual capital, which is required to lift our people out of poverty. The redistribution or tax Gwebecimele references is all good and well but it would amount, in the long run, to nothing more than a “revenge tax” because it certainly would not lift the circumstances of our people in any sustainable or meaningful way and would only serve to further drive away the intellectual capital resources we so desperately need.
Transformation and upliftment is critical but how it is achieved is something that needs to be addressed with great care as it is very delicate indeed. Drive away the existing intellectual capital and you destroy the very base you need in order to create that transformation and upliftment. Thus the service delivery protests. Government needs to take great care with how it deals with the farmers. In their heads they carry generations of apartheid benefits. Many of them, sick of this country and its politics have moved elsewhere in Africa, where they are welcomed with open arms and often provided with vast tracts of land at no or little cost. There they are now, applying their apartheid benefits with great success. If this trend gathers speed, in the end our people may very well be facing food shortages and perhaps even the sort of starvation you have heard about in Zimbabwe. The apartheid benefits are there in many instances but how to leverage them for the benefit of our people is no easy matter at all.
Maggs Naidu
April 14, 2010 at 11:21 am
“That is far from reality, bordering on delusional.”
I agree.
@ Maggs,
I was referencing Pierre’s article and Gwebicimele’s statements, not my own opinion.
I envy you your detachment. It is so much easier to pass snide comments, put a little cut-and-paste in now and then and quote others, rather than to truly and honestly engage in the discussion.
While Gwebicimele and I do not necessarily agree, both of us have used our own personal experiences to formulate our arguments and to provide others with a better insight into what the race issue means in real terms.
Your detachment, on the other hand, ensures that you never run the risk of exposing yourself, while allowing you to deride and ridicule other people. So much safer on the fence, isn’t it? At least, you can always say “I told you so”, because you never commit either way.
@ Peter John
Is it not the opposite that you have not provided any alternative except education plus forget & forgive.
Let me assist you. If you select cars according to colour you cannot then use number plates to get them back to original samples.
@ Samantha
You are not assisting the debate either to claim that blacks after your tv or car. Maggs views on a whole range of issues are known in this blog.
Sorry Maggs to be your spokesperson.
Samantha says:
April 14, 2010 at 11:38 am
“I was referencing Pierre’s article and Gwebicimele’s statements, not my own opinion.”
Me too.
It’s interesting to note that you quoted others rather than having “run the risk of exposing yourself”.
Of course you are correct – I would not dare express my own view on anything that may be deemed to be controversial, in case get attacked by a host of those who comment here.
It’s much safer and wiser to sit on the fence than have the ravaging mob tear into my comments
.
@ Samantha
You said:
“While I agree to a certain extent with this article, I am really worried about the company you keep, Prof. The white people I know are, for the most part, doing their bit to bring about change. They employ people of colour, assist with educating their children, support their families, often when they are battling to make ends meet.”
I say:
So whites are doing black people a favour by offering employment and other benefits. I guess that is the future you want. You have a God given right to be a “Giver”. I am glad I am in no position to receive handouts.
Gwebecimele says:
April 14, 2010 at 11:54 am
“Sorry Maggs to be your spokesperson.”
Thanks for that.
Of course everyone who reads often knows that I am ready to duck behind quoting others, sitting on the fence …
And especially hiding safely behind a moniker so that I will not be confronted about my views when those are, on the rare occasions, controversial.
Peter John says:
April 14, 2010 at 11:27 am
Those that left, left – transformation is not about what they feel and why. Those of us who are here have to apply ourselves to creating a better life for all (I have family who emigrated during the bad old days because they found it intolerable and family who emigrated post 1994 for reasons other than the sky is falling).
“The apartheid benefits are there in many instances but how to leverage them for the benefit of our people is no easy matter at all.”
Firstly, in my view, it’s not so much about apartheid benefits, rather it’s about apartheid consequences.
What is it that we can do as individuals, groups, communities and society as a whole to make a difference.
Denying it is one way, but not necessarily helpful.
Gwebe,
I am not sure I understand your post correctly but I will try to deal with it anyway.
I think you are partly right in what you say when you sum up my views.
I firmly believe in equal participation for all in the economy. My reservations are though that I do not know how you achieve this in any sustainable way unless you develop the intellectual capital of the nation.
I also think that your proposed tax brings with it various problems. I am not going to rehash what I have said in that regard. I think that the BBBEE Act and the Codes are flawed but conceptually honourable. I find it regrettable indeed that so many people (on both sides of the game) have successfully perverted the underlying spirit (a cynic might say that indeed, effect has been given to the spirit! but I do not). That said, I also believe that problems notwithstanding, enormous strides have been made.
It is absolutely beyond debate that everyone needs to participate in the economic life of this country and then on an equal footing and that steps need to be taken to achieve this. The problem is in how to do this without causing more harm than good as, has in certain instances been the case to date.
An additional issue is that although it is not the intention, some of the remedial proposals (and indeed steps already taken) sometimes are interpreted as persecution and unfortunately also sometimes have effects that are similar persecution. I believe that to some degree this is unavoidable but it is a matter which needs to be handled with great care and sensitivity which has sometimes been lacking in the past. This is not about protecting the interests of apartheid beneficiaries but about protecting our people and our nation. You cannot rent the nation down the centre and expect meaningful progress; you cannot have a group feel persecuted and then expect them to reach out and extend a hand. The difficulty we face is that both sides of the debate feel that *they* are the ones being persecuted. Those who were the victims because so many have been excluded and remain excluded from the economy; those who were beneficiaries for reasons we have already addressed. We really do need – desperately need – a national consensus by the moderate majority as to a way forward and a modus vivendi which will enable us to uplift our people over time. Calling for apartheid taxes is not going to move anyone closer to that goal but only alienate the very people who are needed to achieve the objectives. We need to access the apartheid benefits (which as I have said is mainly in the form of intellectual capital) and we can only do so with the co-operation of the beneficiaries – there is just no other way it can be achieved. Let me point you to one area which highlights this: if you go to our very private schools in this country, you will see a very high percentage of children from families of former victims (I say former because if they can afford these schools then they probably have moved beyond their original circumstances). Yet there is absolutely reflection of demographics in the teaching staff nor are there any calls made for that to change. You see, there is a tacit recognition of where the intellectual capital of apartheid benefits still resides and the reality that there is only one way to access it – by passing on to the next generation. Those children have become real achievers and will be (hopefully) our next set of leaders. You cannot tell from one to the other what their family history is, except by making a guess based on the colour of the skin or the name – and even then you would probably be wrong as often as you are right.. Sadly, that lesson (no pun intended) has been completely ignored in the broader societal context and you see the problems all around you.
As for forgive and forget, forgive – yes. Forget – never! We must never forget the evil that was. Nor should we perpetuate it. Forgive does not mean that we surrender the objective of working towards a just and fair society. But it does mean that we need to move beyond the anger, bitterness and yes, sometimes hate, that still permeates South African society. I will say to you again that we will only achieve this through a reconstruction of our own minds (my earlier posts refer) and by achieving a much higher degree of social equality. Sadly, neither are capable of “quick-fix” solutions. It is a process that is going to take time to achieve. Whether we have that time available given all round frustrations and fears is something I have reservations about. But the alternative does not bear thinking of either.
Gwebe, I understand what you are saying and from what background you are saying it. None of these posts has been intended to attack you personally (although I admit some of them have been robust) but simply to get people to re-examine their own thinking, how we see each other, how we propose to reach other in this country and how we propose to build a sustainable model of social equality without destroying what has already been achieved. I agree that the victims are entitled to participate in the benefits of apartheid, whatever they are. There can be no moral argument to the contrary. The difficulty – and where we need to be very careful – is how we identify those benefits and how we go about accessing them. If we are not careful we really do run the risk of ruining everything for everyone. However, approached intelligently and carefully we have the basis for creating social justice over time. Sadly though I think that thus far people have been sledgehammers in some instances where they should have been using scalpels. People like JM really are enemies of the people. I say this because they drive away the very apartheid benefits we need our people to be able to share in and that we need to redevelop and reconstruct our society.
There is a great deal more that I could write but I am unfortunately out time. I will though ask you to think about what I have said, even if you disagree and you remain in disagreement. Even though I have given you “both barrels” so to speak in this discussion, I value what you say even though I may disagree strongly. So I promise I will think more about what you say. I do not expect that I will ever agree fully with you but that, I think you will agree, is not the point.
Gwebecimele
April 14, 2010 at 12:02 pm
“So whites are doing black people a favour by offering employment and other benefits.”
If that is truly a widely help perception, god help us all.
@ Gwebicimele,
Perhaps my referencing my possessions was a little unfair in the context. However, I don’t own “mineral rights, land or other ill-gotten gains”. So, how then, should I be making reparations for the fact that I am white?
Your next post is a little concerning. I quote: “So whites are doing black people a favour by offering employment and other benefits. I guess that is the future you want. You have a God given right to be a “Giver”. I am glad I am in no position to receive handouts.”
Should I not employ people? Should I not assist young people with their education? Feeding people through soup kitchens is obviously unacceptable, too.
What exactly is it that I, as a white, alleged apartheid-beneficiary should be doing, Gwebicimele?
Maggs Naidu says:
April 14, 2010 at 11:58 am
Samantha says:
April 14, 2010 at 11:38 am
“I was referencing Pierre’s article and Gwebicimele’s statements, not my own opinion.”
Me too.
- Sorry, I thought you were referring to me in that quote
I think you may be right – putting yourself out there is definitely not fun. But, I do feel that we need to engage on a deeper level, if not to get agreement, but to at least have an understanding of what other people think, feel and believe.
BTW I do enjoy your quips and comments.
So Gwebs, what would you like whites to do – not offer jobs and assistance? Not do anyone a favour? You seem confused. On the one hand you want whites to “pay”, but if they do assist, its “doing blacks a favour” in the most sarcastic tone possible on a written blog.
@ Samantha & Peter John
I honestly feel that I have argued my points clearly. I have been in this blog for a while and my views are consistent on equality, justice, fairness & prosperity. I have listed long term and short term initiatives that can be implemented to improve the fate of fellow South Africans. I am fortunate to be in a position better than millions of South Africans and certainly do no need handouts. We must reverse the consequences of apartheid by whatever means or we will all go down with our wealth.
Matshiqi said,” Where in the world do you find a majority that is a cultural minority. Whites take things for granted.
Unless you put an alternative on the table, I suggest that lets just agree to disagree.
I want to leave with one message though my views are similar to those of most black people. You can ignore them but you will surely remember them one day. Struggle continues!!!!!!!!!!!
A salary is money paid in exchange for services rendered not a favour.
@ Peter and Samantha
Here is my posting 5 days ago.
Gwebecimele says:
April 9, 2010 at 13:34 pm
@ Peter John
Well put arguments.
Ours is a reaction to a system which require a multi-pronged strategy.
1. Education is the long term part of the strategy for the vare same reasons you have mentioned.
2. Preferential Procurement is(Short to Medium TERM) meant to promote black and upcoming entepreneurs(IF IMPLEMENTED PROPERLY WITHOUT THE VARIATIONS OF FRONTING)
3. EE is the short term answer current marginalisation of black peolple in the workplace(with realistic targets and supported by education it should succeed).
4.Social Grants and Housing are immediate relief to those who live in dire poverty( Children born in these families should receive proper state education & health and become better citizens. Adults in this category should benefit from small business support & skill development to move out of poverty)
5 Enterprise Development(IDC, DBSA, Banks etc) should support black professionals& others to start their own practises/business (short to medium term).
Land redistribution, Culture, Language transformation and other initiatives will open opportunities for farming ,radio, tv, content development
The list is endless.
Whilst I agree with most of your points but I think it is a bit smplistic and it does not take into consideration the imbalances of the past.
We must separate the jockey from the horse, there are good intentions and if implemented properly all of us would be better off.
Gwebecimele,
I hear you and I don’t disagree in principle.
I will only say one thing more: it all needs to be done in a sustainable way.
Sadly, this has only too often proved to be the exception and not the rule. To use only one example, the land redistribution initiative has shown what a shambles can result when the foundations have not been properly prepared.
@ Gwebicimele,
You and I do not disagree in principle – at all!!
Where we do disagree is on the issue of blame and the means for the redistribution of wealth.
There are a number of ways that redistribution can occur without taking wealth from one group and giving it to another.
Redistribution requires policies, plans and strategies that are carefully thought out, properly implemented and consistently monitored.
Furthermore, the greatest key, I believe, to equality lies in education. Every sector of our society should be putting pressure on our government to improve education.
Your point regarding employment not being a favour, but a payment for services rendered is taken. But, imagine if it ceased.
I am miltantly opposed to the killing or maiming of whites.
That is why I demand only that they (a) surrender their property to the state, save for clothing, personal effects, etc; (b) reimburse the state for state subidies of their teritary educations; (c) relocate to the Gobi desert, where their skills in harsh-environment agriculture will be appreciated.
Thanks
I said:
We must separate the jockey from the horse, there are good intentions and if implemented properly all of us would be better off.
“A salary is money paid in exchange for services rendered not a favour.”
Precisely, but you chose to interpret what Samantha said as if she saw it as a favour. Her point was, that at a basic level, many people provide employment and go beyond the salary for services they are legally required to by assisting their employees in other areas too.
I would like to ask you one question Gwebecimele. When, in your opinion, will PDIs be fully compensated for the injustices of the past?
Emjay,
The answer is some 336 (350 – 14) years from now. As I have it, that is the current thinking at government level. Quite seriously.
Gwebecimele, re separation of jockey and horse: how?
@ Emjay
Until whites own 9% of JSE, LAND ETC
@ Peter John
Although I do not support the idea of blacks buying small stakes from white firms financed by greedy opportunistic banks, BBBEE with its seven elements is a sound policy that can achieve a lot if implemented properly. Policy=Horse, JoCKEY=IMPLEMENTERS.
Duma Gqubule wrote a review on Mining BEE
Read below:
IN OCTOBER 2002, mining industry stakeholders reached agreement on an historic charter for the sector. The charter came into effect in May 2004, following the enactment of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act of 2002.
In terms of this act, companies or individuals with mining rights had to apply to the then Department of Minerals and Energy for new-order mining rights. To be awarded new-order mining rights, companies had to show they had met a number of conditions, including the objectives of the charter. These included the achievement of 15% black ownership in five years and 26% in 10 years.
Last week, Mining Minister Susan Shabangu found herself in a difficult situation as she convened a summit at the Drakensberg Sun to review progress. The government has awarded all companies their new-order mining rights, but many at the summit will point out that there is little evidence, almost eight years later, that the sector has met the objectives of the charter, especially the targets for black ownership.
Some mining companies say they have long since met the requirements of the charter. In Anglo Platinum’s annual reports for 2004 and 2005, for example, former chairman Barry Davison asserted: “The group has already met its 2009 target of 15%.”
We recently conducted research on black ownership in the platinum group metals (PGM) industry, the largest subsector in the mining industry. We found that the gross value of black shareholding (or “black economic empowerment (BEE) market capitalisation”) in the listed platinum sector was R30,7bn or 7,95% of the sector’s total market capitalisation of R386bn.
However, the value of black shareholding in Impala Platinum ( Implats ), the country’s second-largest platinum producer, accounted for R19,9bn or 65% of the sector’s BEE market cap. This shareholding consist of the Royal Bafokeng Nation and an employee share ownership programme. The gross value of black shareholding in Implats, Northam and Aquarius accounted for 89% of the sector’s BEE market capitalisation. If one excludes the black shareholding in Implats, because most of it had nothing to with the charter and was not a traditional BEE deal, the gross value of black shareholdings was R10bn — or just 2,79% of the sector’s market cap.
Given the good performance of platinum share prices since the charter was signed, notwithstanding the recent retreat, one wonders what would have happened if transactions had been concluded at the holding company level and not at the operating company level? The virtually nonexistent black shareholding at holding company level was an unintended outcome of the charter, which said: “The currency of measurement of transformation and ownership could, inter alia, be market share as measured by attributable units of South African production.”
As a result, Anglo Platinum and Lonmin , the country’s largest and third-largest PGM producers, pursued transactions at the level of operations or individual mines. Anglo Platinum also facilitated the creation of black- owned Northam and Anooraq .
If one looks at attributable BEE production, the face value of black participation is at 13,34%. The figure drops to 9% if one excludes Implats. But such statistics do not mean much. They do not take into account the debts acquired by black shareholders. For example, everyone in the industry knows that Incwala, Lonmin’s R4,5bn “black-owned” offspring, has gone bust. In the year to September 2009, Lonrho suffered a 50% (or 1,2bn) revenue collapse, a loss of 129m and retrenchments. This had a huge effect on Incwala, whose future is now uncertain.
The sector’s performance on the ownership indicator, whether one is looking at shareholding at the holding or operating company levels, does not look good. As one black businessman says: “There has been malicious compliance by mining companies. Many of them concluded transactions which they knew would never result in the vesting of ownership with black people.”
The Department of Mineral Resources must shoulder some of the blame – for granting new-order mineral rights to companies that did not have to prove that ownership would vest with black people. Looking back, one of the biggest weaknesses of the Mining Charter was its lack of a rigorous measurement system with clear targets and definitions to significantly reduce the possibility of different interpretations by companies.
Lack of capacity in the former department of minerals and energy to evaluate complex funding structures facilitated the confusion. Therefore, Anglo Platinum could claim five years ago that it had already met the charter’s ownership target for 2009.
The Department of Trade and Industry BEE Codes of Good Practice (2007) provide a robust measurement system for companies outside the mining sector. Last April the Department of Mineral Resources published the Codes of Good Practice for the Minerals Industry (“the DMR Codes”), which included general principles for measuring ownership and a scorecard.
The DMR Codes include some of the concepts found in the DTI Codes on ownership, but without the detail that is necessary to eliminate confusion. Despite the problems with the DTI Code on Ownership, the DMR Code is a significantly inferior tool for measuring ownership.
However, the inclusion of a net value (the unencumbered black equity interest) indicator in the DMR Codes is significant. On this measure, none of the platinum mining companies, except Implats and possibly Northam, are anywhere close to achieving the 26% net value target contained in the DMR Codes.
This raises serious problems for Shabangu: all the platinum companies have received new-order mining rights but few of them are close to achieving the 26% net value target. The same probably applies in the rest of the mining sector. In other words, the government’s significant leverage in the sector (the ability to award licences) has not even been used to achieve “narrow BEE”. The same could be said about using government leverage in mining to achieve broader economic development objectives.
The platinum price was below 600 when the charter was signed. It has since increased to more than 1500. Other countries have huge sovereign wealth funds to show after the recent commodity boom. For example, Norway’s Petroleum Fund has accumulated 450bn. It has extracted massive economic rents from the oil sector – through taxes, licence fees, dividends and direct ownership. In the past the state gave its own oil company 50% and more of licence awards.
There are two solutions for Shabangu, according to one industry insider. She can cancel the new-order mining rights and start a process of re-issuing them with strict conditions. Or she can renegotiate terms with existing new-order mining rights holders. The latter option would require the government to establish the infrastructure to conduct a deal-by-deal analysis of funding instruments to determine net value currently in the hands of black shareholders and persuade companies to renegotiate terms and commit to new vesting targets and dates.
But a focus on “narrow BEE” will not fly this year.
We need a new model of BEE that is linked to broader economic development objectives. If we are to have such a debate, we will realise that high interest rates, an appreciating currency and a timid approach to industrial policy prevented the country from reaping its own “Norwegian dividend”.
- Gqubule, a consultant and economic analyst, is the author of Making Mistakes, Righting Wrongs (Boomerang
@Gwebecimele
April 14, 2010 at 15:06 pm
“Although I do not support the idea of blacks buying small stakes from white firms financed by greedy opportunistic banks,”
I agree. The participating preference share is a particularly pernicious issue and one that has caused me considerable heartburn.
“BBBEE with its seven elements is a sound policy that can achieve a lot if implemented properly. ”
I agree.
“Policy=Horse, JoCKEY=IMPLEMENTERS.”
Okay, I misunderstood you then. In that case I also agree.
I will say though again, that of all the above, the most important and the most difficult task we face is the intellectual capital development. The rest I am afraid is not going to be sustainable if we cannot address this effectively and I don’t see anything yet that is taking us forward in a meaningful way – somewhat to the contrary in fact. This is a hard job and we are going to have to be creative about it. I really would like to see more emphasis on skills development and mentoring.
Back to Tender Board. Remember Danisa Baloyi was a member.
http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-25_2579502
Peter John says:
April 14, 2010 at 14:03 pm
“To use only one example, the land redistribution initiative has shown what a shambles can result when the foundations have not been properly prepared.”
Indeed.
It has been shoddy.
To start the principle of market value vs fair value needs to be revised.
Support is extremely weak and certainly leaves a lot to be desired.
A whole lot more needs to be done and that which is being done has to be done better.
Solutions and alternatives should be found.
None of that however takes away the need for redistribution, nor is there a case to retard the pace (which ought to be accelerated).
@ Maggs
I asked Prof the other on his comment on Prof Gutto’s claim that ANC/Government has been misinterpreting the constitution on land redistribution for the last 16 yrs. Gutto claims govt can bypass the willing seller willing buyer and it is catered for in our constitution. I guess blue lights are high on the priority list.
@ Peter John
Another deal gone sour. Vodacom has also just divorced iBurst.
The World Cup construction contracts are over, lets run with the loot.
Read below
G5 deal – BEE partner “failed” to inform Registrar
BUSINESS DAY ONLINE and Franny Rabkin. Published: 2010/04/14 02:45:10 PM
Group 5 – image – Business Day Online
1 of 2
“Unwinding the BEE transaction with Ilima is a huge disappointment to Group Five as the group remains committed to the advancement of broad based black economic empowerment” Company statement on SENS.
The deal, signed in 2005, was for 10,8% of Group Five ’s shares and was worth R336 million. The construction company realised that a suspensive condition in the 2005 contract — to register a special resolution with the registrar of companies — had not been fulfilled. This rendered the contract void from the beginning.
ILima has accused Group Five of treating it unfairly because it had waived suspensive conditions in favour of its other BEE partner, Mvelaphanda Group .
But Group Five says its arrangement with Mvelaphanda was not connected to iLima.
Then in November Group Five announced that iLima’s protracted refinancing efforts had failed, despite what it termed “significant efforts by iLima, Group Five and other interested parties”, adding that the current adverse financial market condition had exacerbated the situation.
Group Five`s direct and indirect exposure to iLima amounts to R172-million.
GROUP FIVE has announced earlier today on SENS that its 9.2% BEE shareholder, iLima Consortium Limited (iLima) will give back over 11 million of its Group Five shares.
Group Five announced in June 2009 that the BEE transaction would “unwind” and that this would entail the return of the shares held by iLima to the company.
The Group made an application to the Johannesburg High Court in September 2009 for an order compelling the return of these shares. The judgment handed down by the Johannesburg High Court, found in favour of Group Five.
The result of the judgment was the 11,015,959 Group Five shares currently held by iLima will be returned to Group Five and cancelled.
G5’s share price has gone up .5% on the news – but in a SENS statement is says the unwinding of the BEE transaction with iLima is a “huge disappointment to Group Five as the group remains committed to the advancement of broad based black economic empowerment. However, important lessons have been learnt that will be applied in future in the structuring of any potential/proposed BEE
transactions.”
A Group 5 spokesman told Business Day Online on Wednesday that full details of these lessons would be available and Directors are unable to comment at present as they’re in a meeting.
The unwinding of the iLima element of the Group Five BEE transaction does not impact upon Group Five’s other BEE shareholders or Group Five’s BEE management and employee schemes.
The iLima group of companies is a diversified BEE group of companies and trusts that include youth, women and broad-based parties.
Gwebecimele
“Another deal gone sour. Vodacom has also just divorced iBurst.
The World Cup construction contracts are over, lets run with the loot.”
Don’t know the details of this one. May be as you say, may be a legitimate scrap. But I have been intimately involved in others and there were /are times I really had/have to shake my head. Some people are genuine in their desire to make a plan for the future. Others are just plain opportunists.
Gwebecimele says:
April 14, 2010 at 15:46 pm
The willing buyer/willing seller approach was probably the result of advice by people with the most sinister of motives.
Our constitution seems to be fairly clear so there ought to be no confusion.
“25 Property
(1) No one may be deprived of property except in terms of law of general application, and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property.
(2) Property may be expropriated only in terms of law of general application-
(a) for a public purpose or in the public interest; and
(b) subject to compensation, the amount of which and the time and manner of payment of which have either been agreed to by those affected or decided or approved by a court.
(3) The amount of the compensation and the time and manner of payment must be just and equitable, reflecting an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected, having regard to all relevant circumstances, including-
(a) the current use of the property;
(b) the history of the acquisition and use of the property;
(c) the market value of the property;
(d) the extent of direct state investment and subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the property; and
(e) the purpose of the expropriation.
(4) For the purposes of this section-
(a) the public interest includes the nation’s commitment to land reform, and to reforms to bring about equitable access to all South Africa’s natural resources; and
(b) property is not limited to land.
(5) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable basis.
(6) A person or community whose tenure of land is legally insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to tenure which is legally secure or to comparable redress.
(7) A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress.
(8) No provision of this section may impede the state from taking legislative and other measures to achieve land, water and related reform, in order to redress the results of past racial discrimination, provided that any departure from the provisions of this section is in accordance with the provisions of section 36 (1).”
@ Maggs
“The willing buyer/willing seller approach was probably the result of advice by people with the most sinister of motives.”
I think that initially, the ANC government made a conscious decision not to expropriate land for three reasons;
1. Foreign Investments,
Had the RSA Government expropriated land to give to the unskilled black majority, that would have resulted in the foreign investment being nipped in the bud since foreign investors might see it as equivalent to nationalisation. Remember the Apartheid govt peddled the lies that the ANC was a communist organisation. Remember as well that foreign investments had already taken a backseat during the Apartheid and the foreign investors were waiting to see how the country will move forward before committing their funds thereto.
2. Lack of Skills iro the people to whom the land was to be transferred, and
Remember that it would have been utterly useless to give land to people who will use it only to bury their fathers and grandfathers and practise, at best, subsistence farming instead of commercial farming. Such a transfer would have to take a backseat until the skills transfer is done.
3. Funds
The Apartheid govt had exhaused the state coffers whilst financing the army which they needed to keep the leash on the black man by quashing any rebellion or social unrest, even in townships. Remember the army was also carrying out raids in the neighbouring states whilst Dr. Wouter Basson and his bunch of scientists were busy using state money to develop poisons to kill the black men. All this raided the public funds and the Apartheid govt had also owed funds to international institutions like the International Mother and Father (IMF) and World Bank.
Therefore, the ANC govt, in my view, had no choice but to delay the implementation of the land re-distribution until the situation becomes less harsh.
@Sine
“Therefore, the ANC govt, in my view, had no choice but to delay the implementation of the land re-distribution until the situation becomes less harsh”.
Yes, I think this is right. Things are going much better with our economy now. So this is a very good opportunity for wholesale land redistribution.
@ Maggs
Are you as tired as I am of this talk of “skills transfer” as an excuse to slow land redistribution? As if only people with so-called “experience” can be farmers! I say: give people land, and they will pick up the skills quite quickly!
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 14, 2010 at 19:48 pm
Hey Dworky,
Nice to see you – I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms.
Again you raise what I think is an important issue.
“Dumping” people on land is not sufficient – more ought to have been done.
Resourcing, support and skills development should be integral to the redistribution of agricultural land (and even in support of existing small scale farmers).
Maggs, I agree that much more funding is needed for education.
But we can deal with education once the land problem has been sorted out.
I say: “Land now – education later!”
What do you say?
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 14, 2010 at 20:13 pm
“Land now – education later!”
You make it sound like you’ve just hijacked a plane transporting school books!
Ok seriously, I agree if education is integral to the arrangement.
@ Sine
Firstly we never achieved the levels of the planned FDI anyway and SA performed badly compared to other emerging economies eg BRIC. Sometimes we must just accept that we messed up, pick up the lessons and move on. Black need land not only for farming but also for wealth creation(assets/houses) via developments such as cosmo city and that requires no skills transfer. How many blacks would love to be first time home owners in towns and cities. Instead we sold the coastal line to foreigners and golf estate developers.
@ Gwebecimele
I hope one time I have time to read Mike Muendane on being an African.
In the meantime, please answer my question. Do you (or I), have more in common with an Arab engineer in Morocco than a “black” librarian in Haiti?
If so, what does it really mean to be an “African”?
And why do we care about continental divisions anyway?
Sine says:
April 14, 2010 at 19:01 pm
“Remember the Apartheid govt peddled the lies that the ANC was a communist organisation.”
Indeed they did. Not many people believed them though. Excludes Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher of course.
“foreign investments had already taken a backseat during the Apartheid”.
To the extent that it did, it was a consequence of the bottom line, not morality. Recall that businesses in the developed world who did business in apartheid SA were in the latter years subjected to pressures in their home countries. Also the bottom line for many corporates did not justify their presence here at the time – Pepsi pulled out because they could not establish a viable market, same for Citi bank and a host of others.
“foreign investors were waiting to see how the country will move forward before committing their funds”.
Foreign investors are only interested in the (one) bottom line (the other two per King III are pretty much like what traffic lights and stop signs are to mini bus taxi drivers i.e. either decorative or for others to follow).
“Remember that it would have been utterly useless to give land to people who will use it only to bury their fathers and grandfathers and practise, at best, subsistence farming instead of commercial farming.”
The framework for land redistribution was weak at best and disasterous in many instances. Land could have been acquired and held in trust until a proper way forward could have been established. The Ngonyama Trust in KZN seems to work pretty well.
“All this raided the public funds and the Apartheid govt had also owed funds to international institutions like the International Mother and Father (IMF) and World Bank.”
Indeed. The ANC handled that in the most exemplary way. The lack of funds cannot excuse away the pace and mode of land redistribution. Consider that vast amounts of funds were squandered (recent reports of the goings on at the Land Bank for example). Add to that the question of priorities – did we really need to allocate nearly R100 billion to buy arms to defend us against enemies who don’t exist?
“Therefore, the ANC govt, in my view, had no choice but to delay the implementation of the land re-distribution until the situation becomes less harsh.”
I would agree that having had to deal with a range of priorities, the challenges were huge and many and the progress on many fronts have been formidable. Hindsight is always 20/20, as it is always easier to say that they could have, should have … .
If government is going to wait until the situation becomes less harsh, then it will never happen.
Consider especially that those who hold land and resources are several steps ahead of government and often inform the process anyway.
@ Michael
I am unable to answer that question based on just profession and nationality.
@ Sne,
Consider especially :
“(8) No provision of this section may impede the state from taking legislative and other measures to achieve land, water and related reform, in order to redress the results of past racial discrimination, provided that any departure from the provisions of this section is in accordance with the provisions of section 36 (1).”
@ Michael
I said earlier on , ‘Being born in a stable does not make you horse” which means birth alone cannot be the ultimate decider.
Later I mentioned that mere looks are not sufficient to make one an African.
Thirdly I mentioned allegiance to Africa as a compulsory requirement, in my opinion.
@ Maggs
Thanks for your posting on constitution and land redistribution.
Farming skills is a critical element in land redistribution and should not be negated in any way. The majority of farmers in our community have all got a tertiary education in some element of farming, whether it is zoology, botany, agriculture, engineering etc. These are not just dumb farmers, but educated businessmen. Too many people assume that it is easy to just take a piece of land of grow things. Farmers have a wealth of skills that appear to be overlooked in the whole land debate. In order for a commercial farming enterprise to be successful, a farmer needs to be knowledgeable in a range of areas from water management to veterinarian practices to mechanics to animal husbandry.
That being said, the government are also failing our emerging farmers. Our town boasts the SA National Emerging Farmer of the Year for 2007. This man started with nothing and has built up his farming enterprise, himself. Last year in June, a local farmer offered him a 5500 ha farm at a rate well below market price. Our farmer applied to Land Affairs for assistance in purchasing this farm. It is now almost a year down the line and Land Affairs have still done absolutely nothing on this deal. This farmer cannot take the next step until he has a viable farm and yet, the government is the only problem in the whole equation.
My final point is that we also have a number of “small” farmers in our town. These are people with a few goats and sheep who want nothing more than to feed their families. Our municipality purchased a 3500ha farm to be used as commonage for our small and emerging farmers, requiring them only to pay R 10.00/head of livestock. These farmers are not prepared to pay this paltry amount, insisting that they should each be given their own land for their stock. So, they refuse to use the commonage, and contrary to the by-laws of our town, the livestock roam the streets, destroying private property.
These are just some of the broader issues around the land redistribution problem in this country.
Hey Gwebe – check this out.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/microsoft-investigates-as-sweatshop-spotlight-shines-on-supplier.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
Samantha says:
April 15, 2010 at 9:18 am
The need for skills in farming (and other economic activity) has not been missed. Land redistribution is not dependent on skills. Agricultural output is.
@ Maggs
I am not suprised at all.Guess who stand on top of the mountain and shout Human Rights to China?
Check the link below, very interestin read.
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Falling_Off_The_Edge:_Globalization,_World_Peace_and_Other_Lies_by_Alex_Perry
Gwebecimele
” I mentioned allegiance to Africa as a compulsory requirement, in my opinion”
But this is my abiding question for you — what do you mean by allegiance to “Africa”? Surely one is not allied to a piece of land that was arbitrarily labelled as such by colonialist mapmakers.
I assume you really mean allegiance to a core set of values, or to a culture. The problem is that Africa is so huge and diverse that it cannot be said to have any single value or culture.
Gwebecimele says:
April 15, 2010 at 8:33 am
“I am unable to answer that question based on just profession and nationality.”
I will take the liberty of posting below which should help to guide and inform that discussion.
The National Question in Post-’94 South Africa
A Discussion Paper in Preparation for the 50th National Conference of the ANC
by Z. Pallo Jordan
(Abridged version)
This paper proceeds from the premise that the ANC had to make a number of concessions to the old order in order to secure the beach-head of majority rule in 1994. They were made with the implicit understanding that the main thrust of movement policy would be to consolidate that beach-head and employ it to lay the foundations of a truly democratic society.
It is our further contention that the economic unification of the country spawned a number of centripetal forces which have conspired to create a common South African society. However, the productive relations structured and determined by Colonialism of a Special Type (CST), reproduced a racial hierarchy which was institutionalised and has engendered equally centrifugal forces reinforced by the racial and ethnic divisions sponsored by the apartheid state.
Our third premise is that the ANC has been the most consistent advocate of an inclusive South African nationhood rooted in the universalist, liberatory outlook of modernity and the realities and imperatives of South Africans of all races sharing a common territory. I would therefore contend that issues of democracy, non-racialism and national liberation, on the one hand, and those of racial oppression and ethnicity, on the other hand, come together in acute fashion. And that the attitude one adopts to these two sets of issues defines distinct commitments.
Virtually all the liberation movements that attained victory after 1947, including our own, have been forced to make compromises at the point of victory. National liberation has rarely come in the form that the movement sought. Consequently, the terrain on which successful movements have to manoeuvre after victory is not necessarily all of their choosing or making.
Our own national democratic revolution is no different. April 27 1994 – the people finally assuming power – will remain a very significant day in South African history. But in reality it merely marks a high point in a continuing process.In that ongoing process there will be moments of rapid advance, but there will also be the need, sometimes, to retreat. Retreat does not mean conceding defeat, it is most often a tactical option chosen to put off till a more opportune time, action one would have preferred to take in the present.
What I am suggesting therefore is that national liberation movements have, in many cases, been compelled to postpone aspects of their programme in the light of an intractable tactical conjuncture. The retreat, in other words, is undertaken in order to prepare for a more coherent and better planned advance.
It is important that we boldly acknowledge and accept that the movement has had to seek compromises and make concessions to the old order so that we could attain the important beach-head of majority rule in 1994. A victory that was further consolidated with the signing into law of the constitution in December 1996.
The Nature of Apartheid.
The ANC never regarded apartheid as mere racial discrimination, though of course racial discrimination was central to its practice. Apartheid was a multi-faceted and comprehensive system of institutionalised racial oppression with the following characteristics:
* White minority rule in which the Black majority – African, Coloured, Indian -were statutorily excluded from the political process;
* the conquest and dispossession of the indigenous people of their land and its wealth, institutionalised in formal legislation, the 1913 Natives Land Act being seminal;
* an undisguised White minority monopoly over economic power – the land, mines, industry and commerce – as a result of which the propertied classes were virtually exclusively White, while Blacks, on the whole, owned little or no property;
* a system of labour coercion which employed a host of extra-economic devices to compel the indigenous people to make themselves readily available as a source of cheap labour power;
* a system that required a highly repressive state machinery directed against the conquered people whom the apartheid rulers regarded as a rightless mass to be held down by force of arms.
At the core of the system was the conquest and domination of the African majority who were the most exploited and oppressed.
National oppression thus found expression in the palpable form of a number of economic, social and developmental indicators – such as poverty and underdevelopment, the low levels of literacy and numeracy among the oppressed communities, their low access to clean water, the non-availability of electricity, their low food consumption, their invariably low incomes, the poor state of their health, the low levels of skills, the generally unsafe environment in which these communities lived, etc.
To uproot oppression required, amongst other things, the correction of precisely these conditions. In the view of our movement the content of freedom and democracy would be the radical transformation of South African society so as to create an expanding floor of economic and social rights for the oppressed majority. The changes that would bring about this transformation were set out in the Freedom Charter. Though it is not a programme for socialism, the Freedom Charter envisaged the seizure of economic assets in the land, the mines and monopoly industries.
Political democracy placed the levers of power which could be used to address the most immediate and pressing social and economic needs of the oppressed communities in the hands of the ANC. The RDP was an attempt to reconcile our vision of transformation with what was immediately attainable in practice. The RDP has been further refined as the GEAR strategy, aimed at operationalising the RDP in the context of the global environment within which South Africa exists. Parliamentary democracy requires the ANC to package our policies in a platform that can muster the votes needed to win at the polls.
Is there a National Question After 1994?
As conventionally understood in South Africa, as elsewhere, the National Question concerns the oppression of one or a number of other people/s by a dominant colonial power. Consequently, the right to self-determination or to national freedom/independence does not apply to the dominant group, but is applied exclusively to the oppressed or dominated group. International law, as it evolved since 1945, including a number UN General Assembly resolutions on South Africa, further underwrote this interpretation of the right to self-determination. Neither International law nor established tradition recognises any right to self-determination by an oppressor group or nation. This is a right that can be claimed exclusively by the oppressed!
In South Africa conquest, accompanied by the development of agrarian capitalism and later mining, set in train a number of socio-economic processes that continue to unfold. Large numbers of Africans, formerly outside the modern economy, were drawn into it first on the mines, then in the developing urban areas. Throughout this period the colonial, and later White authorities, regarded all Africans as a conquered and subject people.
More importantly, conquest drew African, Coloured, White and the most recent immigrant population, the Indians , into a common society dominated by the Randlords of British extraction. The Africans’ shared status as colonised people conspired with the economic evolution of the country to create the material conditions for the birth to a national consciousness. This emergent national consciousness was articulated first by the African intelligentsia – clergymen, professionals – during the first decade of this century.
Urbanisation had a homogenising effect on the whole society and expanded the area of shared values among Africans, Coloureds, Indians and Whites. The Black leadership that grew within these circumstances accepted the modern world because they recognised its liberatory potential for opening up new vistas for themselves and their people. They were modernists.
Thus by the time the Act of Union was passed in 1909, Africans drawn from varying ethnic stocks belonged to the same church, worked at the same jobs, played the same games, read the same newspapers, belonged to the same sports clubs and shared the same political ideals. Thus a person of Zulu birth, could be a member of the Congregational Church, work as a clerk on the mines, be a star soccer player, a reader of The Star, and a member of the Native Voters Association, like a neighbour who was born Venda, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho, etc. Such urban Africans shared many of these affiliations with Whites, Coloureds and Indians.
The modernist African intelligentsia consequently evolved an inclusive vision of South Africa, embodied in Rev. Z. R Mahabane’s invocation of: “The common fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man”. From its inception African nationalism in South Africa eschewed ethnicity, racism and tribal particularism in favour of a non-racial national agenda expressed in the preamble of the Freedom Charter as “South Africa belongs to all who live in it….”
The first Whites to embrace the concept of a common society were the left-wing of the then pre-dominantly White labour movement, the South African Communist Party, in 1924. A handful of White liberals within the dominant capitalist classes began to see it as the inevitable result of the changes wrought by World War II. White liberalism made its last ambivalent attempt to force this recognition on the rest of White South Africa through the Commission on Native Laws of 1946 (Fagan Commission).Otherwise the majority of White South Africans rejected the notion of a single society, and insisted on excluding Blacks from common citizenship. By the cunning of reason CST carried within it two contradictory tendencies – the one, segregationist ; the other, its counter-vailing trend, an integrating impulse.
Racial domination – in its various guises of “white supremacy with justice” ala Smuts’ United Party, or the “apartheid” of the National Party – was also the means of domination employed in the pursuance of particular class interests. By legislative fiat and administrative measures, the White autocracy steadily destroyed the property-owning classes among blacks. Beginning with the Natives Land Act of 1913, these measures were followed up by the Natives Land and Trust Act of 1935, the Asiatic Land Tenure Act of 1946, The Group Areas Act of 1951, the Bantu Authorities Act of the same year and a host of others that bankrupted the Black property-owning classes by restricting their rights to own property and engage in commerce. Policies such as the White labour policy instituted by the Nat-Labour Pact government after 1924, then further elaborated in the Job Reservation Act of 1954 also made certain forms of skilled work the exclusive preserve of Whites. State policy thus created a racial hierarchy graded by skin colour, with Whites at the top and Africans at the bottom.
An intricate dialectic of race and class was thus devised, resulting in a class stratification coinciding in large measure with a racial hierarchy, so that in general terms the overwhelming majority of Blacks were propertyless working people, while the propertied classes were virtually lily White. The ANC’s policy thrust of tilting in favour of the working class and its mass organisations is grounded in this reality. Historical experience is also the basis of the alliance with the Communist Party and COSATU.
The revival of African ethnicity was a deliberate act of state policy to fragment the potential opposition to White domination. Beginning with the 1927 Natives Administration Act up to and including the “independence” of Venda, its purpose was to divert African aspirations into harmless ethnic channels. It should not be associated with nostalgia for past greatness on the part of the Africans. Ethnicity, specifically that associated with the “homelands” and “bantustan” politics, quite clearly has nothing to do with “blood”, “the ancestors, “the soil” and other attributes which ethnicists invariably invoke. Nor is it the articulation of a “psychological urge” (as the theorists of ethnicity claim) to cohere as members of a unique ethnic community.
The question arises: Is there a national question in post Apartheid South Africa? The easy answer is: not in the form in which it is conventionally understood! Racism is no longer institutionalised; all South Africans now have the franchise; racial restrictions on property rights and on access to the professions, trades, forms of work have been abolished; the instruments of labour coercion have been done away with; and a democratic constitution has put an end to legal repression.
Yet no one can pretend that South Africans share a common patriotism let alone a common vision of the future. Ours is still a highly racialised society and, since the 1970s, racism has been amplified with a sharpening of ethnic attitudes.
Both racism – attitudinal as well as institutional – and ethnicity are functions of the development of South African capitalism in a colonial milieu. Ethnicity, we have argued, was artificially fostered by the Afrikaner nationalist intellectuals and the White minority state. In the one instance as an instrument of ideological domination over the Afrikaner working people; and in the other, to create an opposing centre of authority to the political leadership coming from the modernist Black intelligentsia and the labour movement.
Though rooted in these material realities, both forms of ethnicity have produced resonances within the society.
More elusive and erratic, is the ethnic consciousness presently found among sections of the Coloured and Indian communities. As Black national minorities both these communities suffered under the apartheid regime, though the extent was marginally better than that endured by Africans. What is peculiar about what is referred to as ethnicity among both is that neither is an assertive identity of “selfhood”. Where it exists it appears to assume the form of a dependent identification with their former White masters who are now regarded, at best, as “the devil we know”, and at worst, as a bulwark against a perceived “black peril” – the African majority – which supposedly will take away their jobs, housing and welfare opportunities.
The driving force behind this ‘ethnic’ consciousness is competition with fellow Blacks over scarce resources. The perception of Africans as a clear and present threat is reinforced by a powerful mood of contingency – a fear of change – which would much prefer the known world to remain as it is, rather than risk the uncertainties of change. To the sections of these communities who embraced this outlook, the NP represented the continuity they craved. The electoral behaviour of Coloured and Indian working people is unlikely to change until visible delivery on the part of the democratic government demonstrates that there could be sufficient resources for all the disadvantaged.
Non-Racialism and Democracy.
The ANC has always held that democracy, national liberation and non-racialism are inseparable. But, we have equally forcefully said that for democracy to advance national liberation it must entail the empowerment of the oppressed and most exploited – the Africans, Coloureds and Indians. The Freedom Charter remains the seminal statement of our movement’s vision and it envisages the radical restructuring of key aspects of the economy as the means to destroy the material basis of the White racist power structure.
No serious person, even from among our opponents, could pretend that South Africa today is not a country of far greater opportunity than it was ten years ago. The opening up of new opportunities for many who never had a chance to pursue their own ambitions, aims and individual aspirations before has created an environment conducive to the emergence of a class of Black capitalists, a stratum of very senior Black managers and business executives, a stratum of senior Black civil servants and bureaucrats, a stratum of Black professionals, as well as a Black lower middle class. And, Sandile Dikeni’s tastes notwithstanding, there is nothing wrong with this.
The struggle for democracy was also a struggle to create opportunities for men and women of colour to rise in accordance with their talents. Obviously, the ANC cannot bar Blacks from becoming and being capitalists, any more than it could debar them from becoming lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, skilled workers,etc.The high visibility of these strata should not deceive us. In absolute terms they number far, far fewer than their equivalents among Whites.
The vast majority of Blacks, however, remain workers and other working people.
The movement adopted the conscious and deliberate de-racialisation of South Africa by undertaking a host of measures, among which are affirmative action, to ensure that the results of decades of systematic discrimination and denial of job opportunities are reversed. In other words, as policy the purpose of affirmative action is to create circumstances in which affirmative action will no longer be necessary.
The practical implementation of these policies, outside the public sector, has however been problematic. In both the Western Cape and KZN, the impression has quite deliberately been fostered that affirmative action entails the laying off of Coloured and Indian workers or denying opportunity to Coloured and Indian workers to create opportunities for Africans. The mischievous intent of these practices is obvious and it has already produced handsome returns for the NP in both constituencies.
Racial and ethnic flashpoints over what are seen as diminishing job opportunities are thus being created to compound the existing tensions encouraged by the racial hierarchy in jobs and skills of the past.
The questions we have to pose are, do we see it as one of our tasks, among others, to legislate and lay down strict guidelines for the implementation of this aspect of policy? Should such guidelines apply to all categories of jobs or only to certain ones? Would the most effective means of implementation require the setting of targets by government and the private sector? To what extent should government hold the public sector corporations to account for their implementation of affirmative action?
Beyond the sphere of employment, systematic exclusion from opportunity and property rights has also left a legacy of unrepresentativity in every sector of the economy. Captains of industry in South Africa are invariably White males. The same category of persons dominate the boardrooms of every major corporation in mining, industry, banking and commerce. Commercial farming is virtually by definition the preserve of Whites.
In the de-racialisation of society, is the fostering and encouragement of these emergent Black middle classes one of the ANC tasks ?
The ANC itself is a multi-class movement, yet historically our movement has received far more support from certain classes than from others. Since the 1940s, it is specifically the African working class of town and country who have been the movement’s main base of support. Historically the movement has employed the classic weapon of working class struggle – the general strike – as its principal method of peaceful struggle. Because of the relative weight of the working class and other working people among the oppressed the ANC has also tilted unambiguously in favour of their cause and aspirations.
I would suggest that this implies that the ANC’s engagement with the emergent Black bourgeoisie should involve the elaboration of certain standards of conduct and a business ethic that will speed the realization of the ‘postponed goals’ of the national liberation movement. In the immediate time-frame this must include job creation, the fostering of skills development, the empowerment of women, the strengthening of the popular organs of civil society, and active involvement in the fight to end poverty.
The ANC should also encourage this Black bourgeoisie to cultivate within their own enterprises and in those where they hold executive positions, the creative management of the conflict potential of industrial relations. In other words, the ANC must influence the Black bourgeoisie to assume certain RDP related responsibilities and to give the lead to the business community with respect to responsible corporate behaviour.
The Struggles Within the Struggle.
The movement’s own non-racialism and non-ethnic ethos is not merely a matter of high moral principle. The endurance and sustenance of these norms which many today take for granted, has not been unproblematic. The racism pervasive in South African society and the ethnic and tribal segmentation encouraged by the White minority state were powerful currents against which our movement has had to contend.
Consequently the movement itself has been the site of intense politico-ideological struggles around the issues of ethnicity, race, class and gender. During the 1930s, for example, conservatives among the ANC’s founding fathers led a campaign to expel Communists from the movement. At around the same time Dr John L. Dube, led the bulk of the ANC branches in Natal out of the mother body to set up his own regional organisation in opposition to the ANC. At the height of the struggles of the 1950s a group of dissidents, led by Potlako Leballo, tried to manipulate the justifiable anger of Africans against their oppressors on an “Africanist” platform, a large component of which was also opposition to Communism.
The majority of ANC members resisted these siren songs despite the evident emotional appeal of the “Africanist” slogans. The dissidents walked out of the ANC to constitute themselves as the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959.
There have been repeated attempts through the years by others to whip up residual ethnic loyalties and sectional inclinations as a means of mobilising support around platforms of dubious credibility. To the credit of the ANC’s membership, none of these attempts have been successful.
Which raises the question: Is the ANC leaving those of our people who identify ethnically to the political wolves of ethnic entrepreneurship by continuing to discourage ethnicity and favouring an inclusive nationalism?
Perhaps that question is best answered by posing others. What honour would accrue to the ANC if it were to compete with the PAC on the issue of “Africanism”? Or better yet, can the ANC ever hope to outdo the IFP in the promotion of a Zulu ethnicity and chauvinism? And, if it did try to compete on such terrain, what price would the movement have to pay in order to do so? And, what price will it have to pay for having done so? A third question: Would the ANC profit by trying to pander to the baser instincts of the Coloured and Indian working people?
Towards Solutions.
The ANC’s vision of empowerment of the mass of our people requires a highly critical attitude towards ethnicity and sectional claims. This does not imply insensitivity to the sense of grievance felt by many African communities and language groups about the relegation and corruption of their languages and cultural practices. I would however argue that the redress of these does not require recognition of special ethnic claims or the politicisation of the issue of language. More specifically,with regard to the claims of the pro-apartheid Afrikaners and Afrikaans speakers, the democratic traditions offering constitutional and other special protection to ethnic and linguistic minorities were designed to secure the rights of oppressed groups whose rights would otherwise be threatened by dominant oppressor groups. Latter-day attempts to appeal to the authority of that tradition as a means of sheltering the privileges of racist and oppressive minorities do violence to that tradition and are patently fraudulent.
It’s proper that we remind ourselves of our strategic goal – creating a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist society. The radical transformation of the quality of life of the Black majority is central to these objectives. Putting an end to poverty, hunger, insecurity, and economic exploitation should therefore be at the top of the ANC’s agenda.
As in all instances, the national question in South Africa is undergirded by the material realities the development of capitalism in a colonial setting and the institutions created to sustain those productive relations. The democratic breakthrough of 1994 created conditions which enable the ANC and its allies to steadily eradicate the material base of racism in our society.If we accept that the racialisation of South African politics was rooted in specific historical and material conditions, there is no reason why radical transformation of those conditions cannot result in an end to racism and provide a solution to the national question.
We cannot hope to address these problems by uncritically embracing some of the temporary expedients the movement had to adopt in the context of a negotiated settlement.
This will probably require the ANC to pursue de-racialisation with the same determination and tenacity as the racists pursued racism and division.This must be done as a matter of conscious policy by giving no quarter to any form of racial discrimination in schooling, employment, housing and recreation; and we must positively reinforce all efforts at de-racialisation. This will not prevent a person who places some value in being identified as Venda /Sotho/Tswana /Zulu/ Xhosa/Coloured/ Indian, etc from doing so, but it will not require another, who sets no store by that, being compelled to do so. It does however require us to reject the insistence of ethnicists and racists that ethnic origin or race defines an individual’s identity or should take precedence over everything else in defining it.
Acknowledging the un-finished character of our national democratic revolution is not to detract from the significance of the gains our movement has made. It should rather spur us to press even harder for the commencement of the next phase of an unfolding democratic revolution. Now more than ever the slogan of the day should be “A lutta continua” – the struggle continues!
Z. Pallo Jordan.
Cape Town.
August 1997
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/discussion/natquest.html
Samantha says:
April 13, 2010 at 16:17 pm
“Sorry, one correction: Zuma’s defandants should be Zuma’s defenders!!! Freudian slip, methinks!!!”
In the light of his paternal history, one could also inadvertently have spoken about “Zuma’s descendants” – but that is not what you wanted to say?!
Sorry – “paternal” should read “paternalistic” (or should that rather be “siring”?)
@ Anonymouse,
LOL!! An easy mistake to make.
It is interesting that, whenever discussions on this blog turn to fact, statistics, specifics, rather than inane one-line repartee, there is a deathly silence. Either misdirection follows, or irrelevant (off-topic, Maggs) far-too-long opinion pieces like that of the ANC’s great intellectual. The Minister who was at the museum raid where the curator lost his eye.
Can anyone disprove that, since 1994, 1% of the white population of South Africa has been murdered, 4% of white women raped and 20% of our friends and family displaced to other countries?
I asked a few very specific answers of those who advocate reverting to the ANC’s default position of redistributing poverty – because the ANC has made such a balls-up of the alternatives:
Nationalise everything. How much cash does that actually translate to for redistribution? Who coughs up the cash-value for redistribution? How much does every person get? You have just destroyed the tax base; what pays for next month’s pensions and child grants? Those going concerns stand empty. Who coughs up the salaries of the people who used to work there? Juju?
I think we are owed some answers.
Brett, please give the source of your figures.
Also, if your source indeed shows that 1% of whites have been murdered, what % of blacks have suffered the same fate?
Finally, what do you have to say about the theory that Mbeki’s HIV/AIDS policy was deliberate genocide of blacks?
Michael Osborne says:
April 15, 2010 at 20:55 pm
Good luck on the source of the stats.
What makes you suggest the possibility of a “theory Mbeki’s HIV/AIDS policy was deliberate genocide of blacks”?
Mbeki was seriously flawed, but “deliberate genocide” is stretching reality beyond the rational.
Maggs, when have I not given the best source I have for an assertion I have made?
Bustard! You bloody agent!
Brett Nortje says:
April 16, 2010 at 8:17 am
“Bustard! You bloody agent!”
Hey Brett,
The increase of your IQ is noted – approaching that of the future President is good progress.
Taking a correspondence course in IQ studies are you?
@ Michael
If I were to develop an Arican scorecard with a cut off point with only two outcomes namely 1. African 2. Not African then that cannot be achieved on this blog and will take such resources that you will have to pay me. I have indicated the requirements of being an African including compulsory ones. I have posted papers and referred you to Muendane for further details. One of the postings said, “If you are an African, you just feel it.” My intention was to highlight that just being born in Africa is not enough to make you an African or dark skin & kinky hair is also not sufficient.
I will not reduce Africa to just borders and African to being born in Africa or dark skin & kinky hair.
Maggs, I don’t accept the conspiracy theory.
But since our friend Brett has a special talent for discerning racial motivations behind foolish govt policies, I thought he might be interested. It also puzzles me a little that he shows little interest in a govt policy (HIV-AIDS) that has caused a number of deaths that dwarfs the crime figure.
@ Gwebecimele
“If you are an African, you just feel it.”
In my next job application, I am going to check the box “African.”
When the interviewers ask why I consider myself an “African,” I am going to tell them: “I just feel it.”
Michael Osborne says:
April 16, 2010 at 9:40 am
“But since our friend Brett has a special talent for discerning racial motivations behind foolish govt policies”
Remember the wisdom of the Oracle (aka Sne) – “Engage Brett at your own peril”.
Or maybe it was “Only speak with Brett about guns”.
Well thereabouts, sort of.
Maggs, with respect, you are wrong.
While it is true that Brett has a specialised knowledge in firearms, he is also an acute politico-cultural theorist and taxonomist.
Thanks.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 16, 2010 at 10:09 am
“While it is true that Brett has a specialised knowledge in firearms, he is also an acute politico-cultural theorist and taxonomist.”
That comes through :
Brett : “Can anyone disprove that, since 1994, 1% of the white population of South Africa has been murdered, 4% of white women raped and 20% of our friends and family displaced to other countries?”
Micheal : “Brett, please give the source of your figures. Also, if your source indeed shows that 1% of whites have been murdered, what % of blacks have suffered the same fate?”
Brett : “Maggs, when have I not given the best source I have for an assertion I have made? Bustard! You bloody agent!”
It always amazes me how little people (even those who should know better) appreciate the Constitution and the tools it has given us to solve the most dire challenges this country is confronted with!
A quick detour to reply to the witty repartee this blog is so famous for:
Or not.
MichAEL (Really, Maggs!) I do not believe Mbeki is part of a conspiracy to cull part of the black population. I believe he either has sociopathic tendencies or suffers from something like Aspergers which disinclined him to empathise with the loose-moralled victims of his AIDS policy who he probably regarded as an economic burden and an embarrassment to black South Africa. It is up to us, his countrymen to decide whether his neglect extends to genocide. What does the UN-accepted definition say? But this is all irrelevant to the current topic.
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who do and those who talk.
JZ took a week to slap down Juju without mentioning his name after he embarrassed his country before that world. Mthethwa and Cele were on the spot consoling ET’s family almost before his body was cold.
You guys have to decide. Do you do or do you say you do?
Want accurate murder statistics? Act 2 of 2000 is the perfect tool. Apply for insight into every murder docket opened since 1994. Crime scene photos do not lie. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of dockets. You would have hundreds of thousands of volunteers to audit them. In a country where there are so many unsolved murders with a detection service virtually destroyed by politics this is a perfect way to audit every single murder investigation. The technology available now would help a lot. Fingerprint scanning will tie many of the dockets to the same perpetrators. In the US it has been amply demonstrated that many murders are committed by the same people. There is marvellous profiling software available that would tie even more perpetrators in the same areas to serial crimes. (Remember Rudolph Zinn’s study that showed house robbers had committed 100 crimes before they got caught?)
This is an opportunity for constitutional lawyers to make a massive contribution towards living in a safer country using their particular expertise. Think of the families (ten to every family that did) who had no closure, no consolation of seeing their murdered loved one get some measure of justice in the Courts, that you could help.
Michael, if you want accurate murder statistics, uncontrovertable statistics, approach the Courts. Apathy. What is lacking is the will. The Constitution provides the tools.
Required reading!
http://www.nuus24.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Regter-se-huis-kos-R18-miljoen-20100416
http://www.nuus24.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Agterstand-met-huise-trek-al-by-400-000-20100416
http://www.beeld.com/In-Diepte/Die-aanvaarbare-teikens-20100415
http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/As-jy-wit-is-sal-jy-loskom-%E2%80%93-vervolger-20100415
European standards that we still have to attain.
Priests, Politicians, Lawyers, THE LEADING LIGHTS OF SOCIEYT.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article406279.ece/Cardinal-hailed-bishop-for-hiding-predator-priest
@ Gwebicimele,
You really don’t want to go down that road, do you? There are local “African” stories that make the “Europeans” look like saints. For every one of these European stories, there are hundreds of diabolical human rights atrocities committed in Africa on an unimaginable scale.
And don’t forget, the Catholic Church is in Africa too. But, I suppose religion is also a European construct and Afro-pessimistic.
Brett, you are being naughtily evasive. You throw out a stat claiming that 1% of whites have been murdered since 1994. When we challenge this, you essentially admit you sucked the stat from your thumb.
(You are right, though, that the govt cover up of crime stats is outrageous; and someone should be seeking a court order rquiring disclosure.)
But one stat we both agree on is that blacks are much more likely to be victims of violent crime than whites. Does this not undermine your thesis somewhat? I assume you are no racist. But it sounds suspiciously as though you deem white lives more valuable than black ones.
Somebody anybody nobody. You could do it.
Pierre most definitely could, and then the whole world would stand closer to watch.
Not intentionally thumbsuck, Michael. I hate lies. 1% of whites murdered, ,5% of blacks. I.o.w, the murder rate of whites is double that of blacks. I found the stats on a Flemish website looking for Belgian pigeon racing sites. My intention is to challenge not evade.
This country has left its mark on everyone and no-one can claim immunity from racism. A lot of what some people decree as racism are just the observations of people we would label as stupid if they did not observe, and, if it was not PC to avoid those observations.
I try to see other people as created in the image of the Lord.
I am white, my family members are white. Of course I value them more than the abstract notion of ‘everyone’s lives are equally valuable.
Brett, you wrote on April 6 at 10h40:
“The homicide rate last year was about 38/100 000, the rate at which whites were murdered probably 2/3 of that. ”
Have you changed your mind?
Michael, like I said before, that ’2/3′ is the figure Antony Altbeker gave E-TV news. It is not inconsistent with 45 000 white South Africans murdered since 1994 or 90 000 white women raped?
I would like unambiguous, incontestible murder stats.
Brett, but you just said (at 13h22), that the murder rate for whites was double that of blacks? Are you now withdrawing that claim?
No, I am not withdrawing that claim. It is supporting evidence, not an inconsistency.
The reason I say that:
The global homicide rate last year was about 38/100 000. If Altbeker’s thesis holds true, and I see no reason to downscale from when he made the claim 4 years ago, the rate at which whites are murdered is 2/3 the global rate. That is: about 25/100 000! 2,8/100 000 Intimate femicides in the white community, husbands and boy-friends, most probably white as well. Who is killing the other 23 whites/100 000?
Michael, you know the reason epidemiologists use the rates/100 000 tool. Exactly to be able to compare populations of different sizes or heterogeneous societies.
The intimate femicide rate according to the MRC intimate femicide study is roughly 10/100 000 in the black community – i.e. 3,8 murders for every intimate black femicide. 2,8/100 000 Intimate femicides in the white community, which would be the most common manifestation of white-on-white murder, or 8:1 as a proportion of white-on-white murders to murders with other motives. One in 8.
8 homicides (where the victim is white and the perpetrator probably black) for every intimate femicide, where both victim and perpetrator are probably white.
An undeniable picture emerges, Michael. 8:3,8. Roughly double.
I can hear everyone thinking that, if there are 10 black South Africans for every white South African and the homicide rate is 38/100 000 34 out of 38/100 000 bodies should be black 3 white and one ‘other’.
‘If there are 18 000 murders a year only 1800 of those bodies should be white.’
Not so easy.
Brett – Are you spelling GENOCIDE?
Maggs Naidu says:
April 16, 2010 at 9:08 am
LOL!
I will forgive you and not say anything bro… By the way, what happened to our (Thembu) secession from the Republic of South Africa?
Sine says:
April 16, 2010 at 17:27 pm
Hey Sne,
The Thembuland lawyer is now Emperor!
I read somewhere that large streams of funds were promised after the King and the Emperor had visited businesspersons in Cape Town.
The post of Royal Treasurer may still be vacant, if you hurry it will be yours.
Mouse, may I answer a question with a question? Was it a CNN or CBS reporter who asked that idiot Maddy Allbright at what point one could begin to speak of a genocide in Rwanda?
We simply do not have enough information available to decide anything about anything. Look at that idiot FW de Klerk. The girl he grew up with is murdered. Our former First Lady. He ponces about as Nobel-prize-winning-head of a think tank. Can he tell you how many friends and family of the minorities he represented at the historic agreement reached – that was supposed to constitute a modus vivendi – between black and white, have been wiped out?
He promised us we would have no dishonourable peace. That is one promise by a politician that was kept – we now have neither peace nor honour.
Getting this thing off the ground would be very easy. We go to every law-school in the country and tell those kids we need help auditing every murder docket opened since 1994.
What could be more important?
But, we cannot even get our constitutional scholars to write a unit standard on the use of force to effect an arrest.
Brett is right.
Last November: glittered shards in my driveway. Car window smashed. I thought one thing: Kristallnacht!
Soon, Bloemfontein will be Belsen; Durban will be Dachau.
Not so very funny. It supports my argument not whatever esoteric point you are trying to score. How many Jews saw the writing on the wall and got out of Nazi Germany the day after? How many left it too late?
Brett, you say you base your figures on Altbeker.
But, at least according to the summary of his findings in The Star (26 Seot 2008), he undermines more than he supports your conclusions that whites are twice as likely to be murdered.
“The per capita rate for blacks was about the national average, the risk for whites and Indians was slightly lower, and coloureds were at a slightly higher risk.”
http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=133&fArticleId=vn20080926055320846C959534
Brett, having cited Altbeker as an authority, do you also go along with his finding that the murder rate in the past few years shows a downward trend?
“There could be a number of reasons for this decline. One is that there are more police, who are also better trained, and as a society we are also mellowing.
“If you look back 20 years ago, violence was at its peak. This sort of thing is cyclic,” said Altbeker, adding that improvements in social grants had also alleviated financial stress among the poor.
http://www.iol.co.za/general/news/newsprint.php?art_id=vn20060328005417284C673738&sf=
Michael, I have used that article as proof of the inverse relationship between rates of gunownership and homicide rates – i.e. that the homide rate dropped so noticeably while 1m black South Africans got registered handguns between 1994 and 2000 – so it is not the first time I have seen it. I’m glad you’re doing the homework, though!
“Altbeker’s study found race was an “inconclusive” predictor of murder; the per capita rate for blacks was about the national average, the risk for whites and Indians was slightly lower, and coloureds were at a slightly higher risk.”
Even without accounting for the interpretation of the journalist and a possible loss of nuances I do not agree that the quoted section is inconsistent with what he told E-TV News – that the rate at which whites are murdered is 2/3 of the rate at which blacks are murdered.
Damn. Typos again. ‘Homicide’ not ‘homide’!
Michael, you know I have been consistent in my argument that homicide rates have dropped so sharply since 1994 because 1m black South Africans have acquired registered handguns. I have also argued that violent crime might be displaced to white suburbs as black targets become harder targets.
Have we any proof that the rate at which white South Africans are the victims of homicide has declined as sharply as the rate at which black South Africans have become the victims of homicide?
Brett: Let us get this straight: Altbeker — whom you cited as your source — says that whites are less likely to be victims of of murder than blacks. Just a yes or no answer please. No more if and buts.
Whether this is because blacks or whites have more guns, and differential rates of decline in crime, is a different matter, as to which I may or may not agree with you.
(Regarding guns specifically, I will not take you on; we all now acknowledge you as The Master on the universally salutary effect of the widest firearm distribution.)
Michael Osborne says:
April 17, 2010 at 5:22 am
It seemed that Brett was headed in the direction of asserting or creating the basis for the assertion that Whites are murdered as part of some ethnic cleansing, even genocidal, agenda (the opportunity to get a direct response to Mouse’s question being evaded “Brett – Are you spelling GENOCIDE?)”.
The attempt to use stats to support that muddied it. In any event the “epidemiological” ratios neither establish nor dispute that fundamental premise and, in my view, is irrelevant to the assertion.
Several attempts have been made to create impression that Whites are under some kind of racial attack in South Africa, by implication that there is a coordinated plan somewhere.
That is blatant lies, it’s destructive, it’s damaging, even evil – all for self serving reasons.
If there’s any evidence to support the notion of coordinated racially based attacks by Black people on White people it should be exposed, at the very least put out for proper consideration in public forums.
@ Maggs
“The post of Royal Treasurer may still be vacant, if you hurry it will be yours.”
Thanks for the info bro. However, as a lawyer, my accounting skills are not necessarily top notch. Therefore, I would rather you suggest another vacant post. Unless of course, just like in the SA govt, qualifications and competency are over-ridden by loyalty and a strong sense of belonging.
(smiling to himself) Dwork will be on my case…
Maggs, yes. Even if Brett could show a higher relative murder rate for whites (which he apparently cannot), that would not serve his genocide thesis. After all, it would not be too surprising if, with respect to property crime, those who are overwhelmingly richer are more often killed during robbery. But that would be a racially skew distribution where the independent variable was actually class, not race.
To demonstrate his genocide thesis, Brett would need to show some kind of causation between a broad plan to eliminate whites and actual acts of killing. No doubt, some killings of whites by black and blacks by whites are indeed racially motivated; but the genocide thesis would need to show that a substantial amount of killings were entirely, or partly, racially motivated.
Perhaps the best approach, from his perspective, would be to show that Africanist propaganda, Malema’s stirring lyrics, and writings that blame whites for every evil ever suffered in Africa, helps foster a climate in which the murder of whites is more likely — even if direct causation cannot be shown.
Two contemporary examples are available. First, radical feminists claim that pornography helps encourage rape, even if there is no demonstrable causal nexus. Second, the claim that anti-Zionist rantings in the media create a climate where anti-Semitic attacks on individual Jews become more likely.
Brett, do you think either of these models are applicable?
Sine says:
April 17, 2010 at 11:30 am
“Therefore, I would rather you suggest another vacant post.”
Now that you mention it, the post of lawyer is vacant since the lawyer became the emperor.
Michael Osborne says:
April 17, 2010 at 13:33 pm
What do you make of this?
“homicide rates have dropped so sharply since 1994 because 1m black South Africans have acquired registered handguns”
“I have also argued that violent crime might be displaced to white suburbs as black targets become harder targets”
This then introduces elements which makes a mockery of the assertion that Whites are murdered as part of some nasty Black agenda.
I am not able to make any sense of this. Anyone able to interpret?
“Have we any proof that the rate at which white South Africans are the victims of homicide has declined as sharply as the rate at which black South Africans have become the victims of homicide?”
@ Maggs
“I am not able to make any sense of this. Anyone able to interpret?”
Take the time to read accounts of the fate of Jewish communities in Stuttgart in the winter spanning 1937/39. Yes, attacks dropped off — but only because the Jews were well-armed (early-model Uzzi’s), causing Nazi attacks to be diverted to the Gypsies outside town.
Do I need to define ‘zeitgeist’ for everyone?
Move on, Michael. That has been asked and answered.
Then, Michael said: “Even if Brett could show a higher relative murder rate for whites (which he apparently cannot), that would not serve his genocide thesis. After all, it would not be too surprising if, with respect to property crime, those who are overwhelmingly richer are more often killed during robbery.”
Have I not demonstrated adequately that the rate at which black perpetrators murder white victims is twice the rate at which they murder black victims?
Lastly, may I quote your Altbeker article back at you?
“He also found no relationship between socioeconomic status and murder.”
http://www.nuus24.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Aanvallers-gebruik-glo-Malema-se-naam-20100412
Aanvallers gebruik glo Malema se naam’2010-04-12 07:20
Virginia Keppler, Beeld
“Sterf wit man! Viva, Malema!”
Só het vier gewapende rowers glo Saterdag omstreeks 05:00 tydens
‘n plaasaanval in Bynespoort, sowat 5 km van Mamelodi in die
ooste van Pretoria, geskreeu toe hulle ‘n gesin aangeval het.
Leon Johan Koekemoer (39), ‘n kaptein en instrukteur in die
Herstigte Kommandokorps, was saam met sy vrou, Annelie (37), en
hul drie minderjarige kinders en hul 56-jarige loseerder tuis op
hul plaas naby die Cullinand-pad toe die rowers toegeslaan het.
Kmdt. Franz Jooste, uitvoerende direkteur van die kommandokorps
wat as ‘n art.21-maatskappy geregistreer is, het gesê die rowers
het deur ‘n venster in die sitkamer ingebreek nadat hulle die
diefwering oopgebreek het.
Jooste het gesê toe een van die rowers die egpaar in hul kamer
wou oorval, het mev. Koekemoer opgespring en die kamerdeur
toegegooi en dit probeer toedruk.
“Die rower het die deur oopgeskop en toe met haar begin stoei.
Kapt. Koekemoer het opgespring en na sy byl, wat hy in die kamer
hou, gegryp.”
Jooste het gesê kapt. Koekemoer het aanvanklik gesukkel om ‘n hou
in te kry omdat die aanvaller en sy vrou rof gestoei het. Toe hy
‘n kans kry, het hy hard na die aanvaller gekap.
“Dié het toe dadelik uit die kamer gehardloop en deur die
sitkamervenster gevlug. Sy makker het intussen na die loseerder
se kamer gegaan en daar probeer inkom.
“Toe hy uiteindelik by die deur ingestorm het, het die loseerder
twee skote op hom gevuur en hy het in die gang dood neergeval.”
Die ander twee aanvallers het ook gevlug. Jooste het bygevoeg dat
hulle die plaasaanvalle op mnr. Julius Malema, die ANC-jeugleier,
en sy sing van die woorde “skiet die Boer” blameer.
Jooste het gesê dié aanvallers het hulle vasgeloop omdat hul
kommando’s paraat is danksy goeie opleiding wat hulle gekry het.
“Ons het baie groot suksesse met die nuwe kommando wat weer op
die been is.”
Kapt. Sipho Zulu, polisiewoordvoerder, het gesê die polisie
ondersoek ‘n klag van huisroof en poging tot moord.
“Die polisie is ook besig met ‘n geregtelike doodsondersoek na
die dood van een van die aanvallers,” het Zulu gesê.
-Beeld
@ Brett
“Have I not demonstrated adequately that the rate at which black perpetrators murder white victims is twice the rate at which they murder black victims?”
No, Brett, you have not.
Black people in South Africa are, per capita, more likely to be victims of murder than white people. Albeker, whom you cite, says that.
Michael, if you want absolute certainty – I have told you how.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Gang-attack-family-dad-killed-20100417
Gang attack family, dad killed
2010-04-17 14:08
Dalmada – A man was beaten to death while his wife was gang raped and their four-year-old daughter seriously assaulted in the early hours of Saturday morning, Limpopo police said.
“It is believed a gang of 15 men entered the family’s house on a plot at Dalmada, outside Polokwane at 03:30,” said Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe.
The gang tied up the 40-year-old man and beat him to death.
Five men raped the man’s wife before turning on the couple’s four-year-old daughter and seriously assaulting her.
Ngoepe said the motive for the attack was unknown and nothing was taken from the house.
The wife and her daughter were take to a nearby hospital after residents alerted police about the incident.
Ngoepe described the woman as being “too traumatised” to give a statement to the police.
No arrests have been made and anyone with information can contact 10111.
- SAPA
Ok Michael,
There you have it.
“Michael, if you want absolute certainty – I have told you how.”
Roughly translated = if you want the stats, fabricate it yourself.
prof de Vos,
i cant resist making it known (to anyone who cares to read this) that my feelings for whites in general, and for u personally, have altered (albeit only minimally) as a result of this article.
i work as a security guard in the same building where your office is situated. i hadn’t known much about u until your much publicized differences of opinion (to put it mildly) with Paul Ngobeni (late last year) and your well-known uncongratulatory opinion of our president, cmde JZ.
informed by your comments on newspapers, the anti-JZ post on your office door (i was only doing my job sir; patrolling the building to keep you safe), chit-chat with black students in the law faculty, the detectable absence of even a “benign smile” as u enter or exit the elevator on the 4th floor, my mind was made up: he is a racist.
however, having perused, to some length, ur article and the consequential comments, i now accord u, if you dont mind sir, a more felicitous apellation: “a racist with a conscience”
@ im black
Please remember to refer to Paul Ngobeni as “Dr” Paul Ngobeni.
Next to Hlophe JP, Dr Ngobeni is arguably the finest legal mind of our generation.
Thank you,
Maggs, I think you are being somewhat unfair to Dr Nortje.
Although he is primarily a political theorist and taxonomist, he has taken the trouble to conduct an independent statistical analysis of crime figures. For that, we are all indebted to him.
Some use statistics like a a drunk using a lamp post ( FOR SUPPORT RATHER THAN LIGHT).
What crap, Maggs! Our resident sopphist is stooping to new lows. Why are you so terrified at the thought of accurate murder statistics?
im black says:
April 18, 2010 at 19:53 pm
You figured all that by the absence of a smile.
Do you do dreams (or absence of those) too?
Brett Nortje says:
April 18, 2010 at 21:13 pm
Hey Brett.
You “accurate murder statistics” are impressive.
I sure Micheal will appreciate your sources too.
Gwebecimele says:
April 18, 2010 at 21:07 pm
Hey Gwebe,
At least the drunk has got the light pole.
Do you not mean ‘Michael’, Maggs?
I have made sure to explain how I reach those figures. Anyone who does not understand how I did is either
a) Incredibly obtuse
b) Deliberately obtuse
c) both a) and b)
How can anyone in good faith oppose an audit of murder in THIS country? Or accurate murder statistics?
Brett, by your logic, is there not also a campaign of genocide against whites in the U.S.A? I mean, one could identify a similar toxic combination of factors:
a) High rate of violent crime perpertated by blacks against whites.
b) Relentless campaign by liberals/leftists to strip whites of their right to own guns, leaving them defenseless against marauding blacks.
c) Affirmative action, preferring blacks over whites.
d) High rate of immigration dark-skinned people, also prone committing a lot of crime.
e) Black President who implicitly encourages anti-white sentiment by emphasising the historical guilt of whites, victimhood of blacks.
Brett, I have found Maggs both to be incredibly AND deliberately obtuse. So, your option (c) is right on target.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
April 19, 2010 at 9:17 am
(c) it is.
Re “(a)nyone who does not understand” – do you think that Brett understands how he, himself/herself/itself, reached “those figures”?
@ Maggs
Yes the, drunkard is still standing.
Read this below.
I like the idea of unmasking the right wing in the ANC and I suspect it might have a lot to do with Juju.
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-04-16-talk-and-more-can-be-enlightening
Culland says:
It strikes a chord: it is time to focus on the right wing of the ANC — represented so clearly by “you know who” and not the alliance. It is the conservative wing of the ANC, too often ignored, that represents the real danger.
Hey Gwebe,
This is a refreshing take.
“Carol Lazar is gatvol (fed up) of all the twak (rubbish) being talked about South Africa and the attempts by some cretins overseas to stop would-be travellers from visiting us.”
http://www.ioltravel.co.za/article/view/5433344
Maybe Carol should take note that it is not only cretins overseas who talk twak about RSA.
That was unworthy of you, Michael. Leave the intellectual dishonesty to Maggs.
You were trying to show that Altbeker’s statement to TV-news and the interpretation of the Star that “the risk for whites and Indians was slightly lower” were inconsistent?
Brett what was unworthy?
I do not understand the question in your second paragraph. Perhaps I do not know Altebeker’s work as well as you. But so far as I understand, both he and Geffen et al say that whites are at lower risk of murder than blacks.
Is there any authority on the subject that believes otherwise?
Please answer my question re the the U.S.
It is an absurd question. Enjoy the monologue.
One in 8 white murder victims was murdered by another white person. We can all connect the dots. The rate at which white perpetrators murder black victims? Just about unheard of.
Interesting, the hysterical reactions to a proposed audit of murder in SA from 1994!
@ Maggs
Judging based on rumours this morning, President Malema is ahead of us all.
Gwebecimele says:
April 20, 2010 at 9:33 am
Yep.
I have been engaging with friends around that since the media reports.
It seems that JZ (and the ANC) is now a lame duck, if the reports are true.
Let’s wait till the announcement before getting totally and utterly dejected!
SACP fight against corruption ploy to settle political scores
20 April 2010
Bolekaja! – Andile Mnxgitana
——————————————————————————–
THE idea of the SACP leading the fight against corruption is a very strange one. Firstly, as communists, aren’t they supposed to take a position that condemns the whole capitalist system as corrupt?
But since they are capitalist communists they choose to fight ants when there is the neo-liberal capitalist elephant to be confronted.
Why? Well, the SACP are co-managing the capitalist state with the ANC “nationalists”. So they choose the easy target of corruption from a narrow bourgeoisie “morality” perspective.
The SACP’s position on corruption is as hypocritical as the morality of the Catholic Church that says its priests must not get married, but defends them when they abuse small boys.
What is strange is that the SACP would fail even the easier test of the corruption such as stealing or rigging the tender process.
We haven’t forgotten the juicy story of comrade Willie Madisha and the black plastic bag full of money.
But what about Blade Nzimande’s BMW, worth more than a million rand, paid for by the government? What about the Eskom saga, in which the ANC – and by association the SACP – stands to pocket billions of rand through Hitachi ?
This is not even corruption, it is daylight robbery of the people. The ANC is making money out of the people through the high tariffs we are forced to pay for electricity.
Why does the SACP claim to be champions of the fight against corruption? What do these people think? I won’t mention how individuals connected to the ANC alliance continue to forcibly remove people from the land in platinum areas.
This so-called fight against corruption is a cynical ploy to settle political scores. It is just like the so- called “lifestyle audits”. The strategy is to discredit political opponents as corrupt “tenderpreneurs” while protecting your family and friends who do the same.
The SACP has failed dismally to mobilise the poor and working class for an alternative system of economics and democracy that would benefit the excluded.
Instead it fights NGO-like battles, like their annual so- called “Red October” campaigns. Right now global and local capitalism is in crisis. Instead of fighting to replace the system as a whole we hear empty rhetoric and monthly stunts like the so-called anti-corruption campaign.
I have also observed the cruel game played with poor municipality workers.
The government, with the assistance of the SACP and Cosatu, has cleverly placed itself as a uninterested party in the ongoing strike. Ironically, Yunus Carrim the deputy minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and a member of thr central committee of the SACP has been playing mediator roles between South African Local Government Association and the unions.
Are the unions so stupid that they cannot see that Salga is a government division and that the strike is essentially against the government?
I think it is the Cosatu link that blinds the workers from seeing that the people who are refusing to give them decent pay and improved working conditions are the people whom they have voted into government and call comrades at alliance meetings.
Gwebecimele says:
April 20, 2010 at 9:33 am
Hey Gwebe,
I take that all back.
JZ is indeed the astute politician.
I just heard that the disciplinary charges are to proceed.
@ Maggs
Lets wait and see.
When ANC spokepersons are no where to be found it is a warning sign “Blunder on its way”
Gwebecimele says:
April 20, 2010 at 11:57 am
I am very confident that this will proceed – hold me to that!
I suspect that there’s was a lot of manoeuvring.
@ Maggs
I am very confident that, if the hearing does proceed, Cmd JM will get off with a slap to the wrist – hold me to that!
More than 70 companies listed on the JSE do not have a single woman on their boards of directors and 26 have no women executives, a survey by the Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) has revealed.
According to BWA’s annual corporate leadership survey, South Africa will achieve only 50% representation on boards in 2031, while 2050 is the realistic target for parity at executive management level.
BWA surveyed all 315 companies listed on the JSE’s main board and alternate exchange (AltX) and their subsidiaries, as well as 20 state-owned enterprises. Offshore operations were excluded.
Michael Osborne says:
April 20, 2010 at 13:28 pm
Now that the process has started, it’s unlikely that it will result in a slap to the wrist.
These decisions, as you know, are not taken lightly – recall that even when Zuma was fired as Deputy President of the country he was not subjected to internal disciplinary processes.
If President Zuma and the leadership under him initiated this rather serious action and if it is not carried through then it goes to their very ability to lead the ANC.
Of course it splits the ANC into camps – those who support JZ and those who support JM. Either way one or the other camp is going to be neutralised – it’s unlikely that it will be Zuma and those who are with him on this matter.
Cabinet reviews R13bn land claim
——————————————————————————–
Image of
TAKING STAND OVER LAND: More than 200 members of the Border Rural Community picket outside the city’s Land Claims Court. Picture: ALAN EASON
2010/04/20
A MASSIVE land claim court action heard in the city’s Land Claims Court last week has made history by being sent to the Cabinet for review.
The Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs may have to dig deep in the government’s coffers to pay the Border Rural Community group close to R13billion, in what could become the biggest land claim in the country.
A Cabinet memorandum relating to the claim will be presented to the clusters of Cabinet by the end of May.
In 2003, communities in the Eastern Cape started the Vulamasango Singene (Open the doors so that we can come in) campaign, in the hope they would be compensated for land lost through the “betterment” dispossession scheme launched by the apartheid government.
There are currently more than 500 Eastern Cape communities that form part of the campaign.
The case was postponed to July 26, in order for the matter to first be heard and considered by Cabinet, in the hope that it could be settled out of court.
In court documents, Regional Land Claims Commissioner Linda Faleni says a memorandum to Cabinet has been finalised “internally” and signed off by Land Affairs Minister Gugile Nkwinti.
Members of communities who claim their families were forced to move from open plains surrounding villages in the former Transkei and Ciskei in the 1930s are demanding compensation for land lost to the tune of R40000 a household after the demolition of close to 700 households spread across more than 1000 villages, and payment for loss of crops and the culling of livestock.
They are also seeking restitution for their ancestors’ “forced” relocation to densely populated and fenced villages across the Eastern Cape, and for controls placed on methods of cultivating land and on harvesting crops.
Community members say their family homes were destroyed and they were not given materials to rebuild.
The communities – from Middledrift, King William’s Town, Hewu, Sterkspruit, Cala, Lady Frere, Cofimvaba, Tsomo, Ngqamakwe and Butterworth – say they were denied the opportunity to lodge claims in the period between 1995 and 1998 when the dispossessed were given the opportunity to request compensation.
In responding papers, Faleni admits that all who were dispossessed of land through the implementation of the “betterment” schemes should have been permitted to lodge their claims during that time.
The managing director of the Border Rural Community, advocate Lwazi Kubukeli, said: “The community want their land back and want to be put in a position to develop it. The land is spread across the Transkei and Ciskei and most of it is not occupied at the moment. We have previously tried to knock at the doors of government but were discouraged.”
The community is also requesting developmental assistance in:
l The erection of community halls;
l Provision of proper sanitation;
l Erection of proper fences;
l Repair and construction of roads;
l Provision of stock dams;
l Effective measures to combat soil erosion;
l Provision of schooling facilities; and
l The training of applicants in entrepreneurial and farming skills.
Bongani Mtati told the Dispatch that his grandfather had been forced to move his family and livestock from Qebeyi village in Transkei to a village 5km away.
According to Mtati, the family home was demolished and the family lost its cultivated land.
“The government called it ‘betterment’, but it was purely a forced removal.”
In 2003 the communities of Cata and Keiskammahoek won a R110m settlement claim. Last month the Peddie community, which took on tourism giants Sun International and Emfuleni Resorts, was awarded full ownership of Fish River Sun and 56 adjacent farmlands. – By KATHRYN PARKES
http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Huis-met-ma-kinders-in-aan-brand-gesteek-20100419
Huis met ma, kinders in aan brand gesteek
2010-04-19 21:58
Aanvallers het die naweek ’n houthuis met ’n vrou en haar kinders daarin op ’n plaas naby Carolina aan die brand gesteek nadat hulle die deur met ’n stuk draad toegebind het.
Toe haar ouers die gesin te hulp snel, is daar op hulle geskiet.
“Hulle was daarop uit om ons te vermoor. Dié het niks met diefstal te doen nie,” het me. Cornelia de Wet (32) van die plaas Kwaggafontein naby Carolina gister gesê.
Sy het Saterdagnag omstreeks 22:00 wakker geword toe sy rook ruik. Sy het gesien die muur en gordyn in haar kamer brand.
Die aanvallers het diesel op die houthuis gegooi en dit toe aan die brand gesteek.
In die slaapkamer het sy ’n brandende CD gekry.
De Wet het vergeefs probeer om twee van haar kinders, Cornelia (11) en Joey (2), wat by haar op die dubbelbed geslaap het, wakker te maak.
“Die rook het hulle blykbaar bewusteloos gemaak.”
Sy het die vlamme aan die gordyn geblus en probeer om die huisie se deur oop te maak, maar kon dit nie regkry nie omdat dit met ’n stuk draad vasgebind was.
De Wet se ouers, mev. en mnr. Nelie (62) en Jan de Wet (65), woon in ’n plaasopstal sowat 50 m van De Wet jr. se huisie. Haar ander dogter, Sarah (8), het die aand by hulle geslaap.
De Wet jr. het oor ’n tweerigtingradio, wat skaars twee weke gelede geïnstalleer is, hulp by haar ouers probeer kry.
“Toe hulle uit die huis kom, is daar vanuit die donker op hulle losgebrand.”
Die ouerpaar het met ’n haelgeweer en pistool die donker in geskiet om die aanvallers te probeer verjaag.
De Wet jr. het gesê daar is ook op haar geskiet toe sy deur die kombuisvenster geleun het om die stuk draad om die deur se slot los te woel.
Die skietery het volgens haar byna twee uur lank geduur.
Pogings om die polisie in Carolina, sowat 12km van die plaas, in die hande te kry was aanvanklik vrugteloos omdat hulle nie die telefoon geantwoord het nie.
Sy het toe haar broer, mnr. Jan de Wet jr., wat naby Belfast boer, gebel.
Hy het na die plaas gejaag. “Toe ek daar aankom, het die skote steeds geklap,” het hy gesê. “Ek het aan hulle geskree ek gaan hulle vrekskiet!”
Hy het ook in die rigting van die aanvallers begin skiet. Die skietery het toe bedaar.
Mnr. De Wet jr. raam daar was tussen tien en 15 aanvallers.
“Die aanval was fyn beplan en hulle het voorbereid gekom en met genoeg ammunisie.”
Die polisie het 9mm- en haelgeweerdoppies en enkele patrone naby die huise opgetel.
Een van die koeëls was van ’n vreemde kaliber wat selfs vir die polisie onbekend is.
Die lang gras het die soektog na nog bewysstukke bemoeilik. Mnr. De Wet jr. het gesê voetspore is ook naby die toneel gevind.
Niemand is in die aanval beseer nie.
http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Vrou-leef-nog-n%C3%A1-2-skote-in-die-kop-20100419
Vrou leef nog ná 2 skote in die kop
2010-04-19 10:58
Mev. Suna Steenberg, wat Vrydag twee keer deur misdadigers in die kop geskiet is, leef nog.
Steenberg (45) word sedert Vrydagoggend in die waakeenheid van die Montana-hospitaal in Pretoria behandel.
Haar man, Jurie, is die eienaar van die onderneming Montana Pale.
Mev. Steenberg is geskiet toe sy in haar huis op ’n hoewe in Kameelfontein, noordoos van Pretoria, op misdadigers wat haar skoonma (75) aangehou het, geskiet het.
Steenberg is ook een keer in die been getref.
Die misdadigers het sonder buit gevlug. Hulle is nog nie vasgetrek nie.
Ernst Hoon (18), ’n matriekseun, is sowat twee weke gelede op ’n aangrensende hoewegebied doodgeskiet. – Hilda Fourie
See Steven Friedman, who makes more sense on this topic than some of the contributors here: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=106784
Pierre, I hope SF is right. But I think he may be a little too optimistic about Malema’s limited support base. The notion that the thronging masses are unformly JM fans followers is, as SF says, wrong. (I suspect that many, especially in rural areas. have never heard of him.) That said, and as SF acknowledges, JM is popular among a “charmed circle” of insiders and BEE beneficiaries. And this group has power and influence well beyond its numbers.
Also, it is a mistake for the white elite to underestimate the attractiveness of Africanism among black students, professionals and some in the middle class. (Once again, the really poor are largely irrelevant.) Hence the astonishment and dismay amongst many whites at the rousing reception Mugabe got when he last came to SA. Man any Africanist attracts a following precisley because they make whites angry. I don’t think SF attaches sufficient weight to this.
Man any = Many
Mandela, Bantu and the politics
21 April 2010
Don Makatile
——————————————————————————–
KEEPING IN TOUCH: Former president Nelson Mandela chats to Bantu Holomisa, a former member of the ruling ANC and leader of the United Democratic Movement . Photo: REUTERS
A new book reveals that Madiba was very distrustful of the former Transkei leader
POLITICIANS and untruths are such compatible bedfellows it is not impolite to invariably mention the two in the same sentence.
“I’m a politician – which means I’m a cheat and a liar. When I’m not kissing babies, I steal their lollipops.”
This comes from the movie The Hunt for Red October, and spews out the mouth of a character played by Richard Jordan to his interlocutor, played by Alec Baldwin.
In his post-Robben Island political life, Nelson Mandela has always risen above the label. He’s been a statesman; a saint almost, but never a politician.
But in a new biography, penned by the editor of Time magazine, Richard Stengel, the world’s best- loved nonagenarian seemed to have stooped down to the level of politicians – the scum of the world.
The book, Mandela’s Way, Lessons on Life, weaves into it “remarkable stories of Mandela as the protege of a tribal king, of his early days as a freedom fighter, of the 27-year imprisonment that could not break him, and of his new and fulfilling marriage at the age of 80”.
The lessons Mandela imparts span such virtues as “Lead from the Front”, “Look the Part”, “Know When to Say No”, etc.
But it is in Chapter 9 – Keep Your Rivals Close – that the grandfather of modern politics engages in the back-stabbing and double-speak that is the hallmark of politicians.
Stengel quotes Madiba speaking very unflatteringly about General Bantu Holomisa, someone he’s always been seen to be close to, especially publicly.
Because of the nature of their relationship, Holomisa, who is omnipresent during functions at the Qunu homestead of the former president, understandably thinks of himself as Madiba’s son.
“I don’t think when you look at my relationship with Madiba you’d say this is a relationship based purely on politics; he is a father figure to me,” says Holomisa, who remains chuffed about overseas trips alongside the older man.
Stengel writes: “When we were in the Transkei, Mandela always wanted Holomisa around. ‘Where is Bantu?’ he would say. ‘Where is the general?’ When Holomisa entered Mandela’s living room, Mandela would pat the chair next to him and say, ‘Ah, general, come sit next to me’.”
Stengel tells how Mandela “would hold hands with Holomisa, a tradition among African men, but not one Mandela often practised. He publicly treated Holomisa as a son” .
Holomisa cannot be faulted for thinking this was the case too.
But this was a smoke screen, if the rest of the chapter is anything to go by.
Says Stengel: “In private, Mandela told me that Holomisa was a loose cannon who needed to be monitored.
“And that was precisely what Mandela did.”
According to the book, Holomisa was fooled: “Holomisa loved that.”
But “the idea was to co-opt him by making him feel important and indispensable, and indeed Holomisa seemed to expand with pleasure and pride when Mandela held his hand or put his arm around him”.
The coup de grace comes thus: “What (Chris) Hani and Holomisa had in common is not so much that they were actively disloyal, but that they were ‘immature’, that they made decisions based on ‘the blood’ rather than the head. He (Madiba) saw this immaturity as a symptom of insecurity. These men, to his mind, suffered from a lack of confidence.
“Such men were unpredictable, dangerous, hard to rely on.”
But this is the same Holomisa that Mandela, at least outwardly, had always relied on. Says a demure Holomisa: “That period (the transition to democracy) included us supplying personal security to Madiba directly after his release – up until such a time as MK could return from exile and take over those duties.”
Does this mean, if indeed Stengel quoted Madiba correctly, that the world’s most famous political prisoner entrusted his own safety to an “unpredictable, dangerous man who is hard to rely on?”
Holomisa says: “It is a privilege that I will cherish to have worked so closely with a man of Madiba’s calibre, and to be entrusted with sensitive tasks like looking after senior cadres of the ANC during negotiations with (former president FW) De Klerk’s government.
“If the author of the said book implies that Madiba was using me, then so be it, I do not regret one moment for having contributed to the freedom of my country. In fact, I am convinced that the relationship between the two of us contributed immensely to a smooth transition for Transkei to be incorporated into SA, unlike the bloodshed witnessed in other former homelands. Our relationship has developed into a father-and-son type of relationship; hence Madiba requesting me in the early 90s to be responsible for building his home in Qunu (a replica of the house he occupied during his time at Victor Verster prison).
“I continue to assist him, for instance with arranging many functions at his house in Qunu. Even after I had been expelled by the ANC my relationship with Madiba continued. I still go to his house without making appointments, and should I arrive when he has guests, he would greet me and invite me to sit with him and he would introduce me: ‘You must be careful of Bantu, he is a coup specialist’.
“It’s his reminder to me of our travels to Europe and America during the early 90s, when he’d introduce me to world leaders as ‘a dictator, whom I don’t want to leave at home, because he might coup me as leader of the ANC in my absence’.”
So, given this background, are the comments in the book simply the biographer’s sleight of hand or did the saint, in a moment of weakness, degenerate into a mere politician?
Holomisa has the last word: “The relationship between the Transkei military government, Madiba and the ANC during the lead-up to democracy was one of utmost trust and we honoured all our commitments. In fact, the only instructions from Madiba which I could not follow was when he suggested I should apologise to Stella Sigcau for my TRC testimony, and when he requested me to return to the ANC a few years ago. In all other matters I have been honoured to carry out his requests to the letter and will continue to do so in future without hesitation.”
But in this paragraph Friedman contradicts himself from last week, when he implied that to get a CC pronouncement on Malema’s songs is to impose the minority stance on the majority, which would be undemocratic!:”It is fear of Malema’s power that leads some to demand that we erode democracy — by, for example, insisting that the Constitutional Court not be given the chance to pronounce on what is hate speech — despite the lack of evidence that he has the power to get anyone to do harm to anyone else”
I like this reply in the comments under Friedman’s article:
“So let’s all leg go of our “unfounded” (sic) fears and live in la-la land like so many ivory-tower academics who are utterly out of touch with reality”!
I am sick of the ‘othering’ that Maggs and Gwebecimele have been allowed to get away with for ages. Maggs is an intellectual fraudster – challenged to tell us how many farmers have been murdered v farm-workers murdered by farmers, what does he do? One is tempted to post articles on Chauke’s dumbass accusations in Parliament or the story of the baby beaten within an inch of her life by home-invaders, but this thread is frowing huge.
How about a thread on the preconditions for genocide that are so apparent in SA?
Lastly, what a bunch of sissies! No-one got the stomach or see the benefits of an audit of murder in SA since 1994? No-one interested in uncontrovertible murder statistics? Why?
@#*%! ‘ I mean ‘this thread is growing huge’!