Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Giving credit where credit is due
DA MP, Annelie Lotriet, seems to be a brave woman, risking alienating some of those who voted for her party “merely” to take a principled but necessary stand. I see she issued the following statement. As someone who as goaded the DA for not taking a stand on issues of racism, I have to give credit where it is due. So here is the statement in full.
Hofmeyr comments: DA deplores prejudiced views
The Democratic Alliance (DA) deplores the deeply racialist comments published by musician Steve Hofmeyr.
Hofmeyr’s statement that black South Africans “suck up the propaganda of entitlement” in order to “justify their brutality” is profoundly repugnant. It demonstrates deep-seated prejudiced views that are completely inconsistent with the values that inform our constitutional state, it lowers the standard of constructive political and social debate, and it sets back efforts to build a truly nonracial, compassionate South African society.
Regrettably, this statement shows there are still South Africans who are severely detached from the values of modern South African society, and who hold prejudicial views about their fellow citizens.
Every South African who is committed to building a compassionate society should reject Hofmeyr’s comments. They are more reminiscent of a bygone era of racial domination under Apartheid than the kind of conversation one expects to hear in a multiracial democracy in 2010.
Statement issued by Annelie Lotriet, MP, Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister of Arts and Culture, December 7 2010
