Makes me mad!
Connected with the racism below.... I thought I might just write about some of the things which are said here far too frequesntly and which make me mad:
1 "South Africa is going to go the same way as Zimbabwe" - what a complete nonsense... the history and social structure and political and legal sysetms in the two countries are so far apart and anyway, what hapened in Zimbabwe after many many years was a result of Mugabe trying to divert atention away from a corruption scandal which probably would have cost him the next elections.
2 "The blacks preferred life under apartheid" - oh yes, really?, like having no rights to vote, having to carry passes around, being treated as lesser human beings? I don't think so....
3 "The ANC government has done nothing since it has been in power" - again what a lot of nonsense..... they have a programme (already in good part realised to provide water, toilets and electricity to most villages in South Africa.... amongst other things.
4 "Black economic empowerment policy (whereby companies are required to have a certain number or proportion of their employees being black) is going to ruin the economy -" - I wonder..... and anyway, such a policy will only go a tiny part of the way to putting right what went on under white rule.
One hears this sort of nonsense not just from the native Afrikaners (whose own culture I can best describe as being based on beer, braai and racism, with a mix of old-style Dutch Reformed self-righteous superiority) but also tourists who have spent too much time talking to such people.
A wonderful country, South Africa certainly is, but it has been screwed up enormously by over a century of white supremacy and latterly apartheid. It is going to take a very very long time to become normal.
1 "South Africa is going to go the same way as Zimbabwe" - what a complete nonsense... the history and social structure and political and legal sysetms in the two countries are so far apart and anyway, what hapened in Zimbabwe after many many years was a result of Mugabe trying to divert atention away from a corruption scandal which probably would have cost him the next elections.
2 "The blacks preferred life under apartheid" - oh yes, really?, like having no rights to vote, having to carry passes around, being treated as lesser human beings? I don't think so....
3 "The ANC government has done nothing since it has been in power" - again what a lot of nonsense..... they have a programme (already in good part realised to provide water, toilets and electricity to most villages in South Africa.... amongst other things.
4 "Black economic empowerment policy (whereby companies are required to have a certain number or proportion of their employees being black) is going to ruin the economy -" - I wonder..... and anyway, such a policy will only go a tiny part of the way to putting right what went on under white rule.
One hears this sort of nonsense not just from the native Afrikaners (whose own culture I can best describe as being based on beer, braai and racism, with a mix of old-style Dutch Reformed self-righteous superiority) but also tourists who have spent too much time talking to such people.
A wonderful country, South Africa certainly is, but it has been screwed up enormously by over a century of white supremacy and latterly apartheid. It is going to take a very very long time to become normal.
posted by Charles Roffey and Fred O at 21:47
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