The actual blog I wanted to write about is right down at the bottom – needed to get a bit of the background upfront for those that want to see how things like are happening.
In South Africa we are a mixture of various tribes thrown together in a country with a history of racial conflict going back to even before whites and blacks squared up to each other.
As the various African tribes moved down in the southern tip of Africa they had some very serious clashes with some of the smaller tribes being annihilated totally. Then we had the Dutch and British landing in Africa when they set up refreshment stations for their fleets on the way to the Far East.
One thing led to another and the whites moved out of the Cape and Natal (now KwaZulu Natal) heading inland. Of course there were marauding black tribes who saw a great opportunity to attack these whites and take their cattle as their own. All the black tribes counted their wealth by the number of cattle they owned, and this is still very relevant out in the rural areas today. It is still an accepted practice to have to pay for a bride with cattle today. But I digress. With all the battles fought between the blacks and whites it was the whites who came out victorious even though they were the minority. This was never forgiven by the black tribes. When the previous white government (National Party) tried to apply a policy of separate development, based on what had been passed down over the years by the British and Dutch, they passed some terribly draconian laws to enforce their ideas it just made matters worse for all citizens of South Africa. It united the various black tribes, and the Indians and Coloureds (when it suited the blacks), in a united opposition to the government. Hell, even the English speaking population was excluded in certain cases!
The battle for South Africa was not lost or won on the battlefields, but politically round the world.
After 1994, we were hailed as the Rainbow Nation, and a shining example of how all the tribes living here could co-exist in peaceful harmony. We had a constitution, which laid out how everybody was to be nice to each other, and what not to do to hurt each other’s feelings. We were told that if we all worked together in perfect harmony the economy will soar and we would all be good friends.
Then the rainbow started to fade….
The new black government (ANC) started enforcing new laws which forced companies to employ blacks instead of whites, companies which were run by whites were no longer considered for applying for tenders, white pupils were no longer considered for bursaries. The list goes on and on..
Then the government started expropriating land from the whites. If any black claimed their forefather had stopped on a piece of ground to bury a relative, then they could claim that it was suddenly ancestral ground and the current owner would have to give it up. Strangely enough, claims seemed to have mostly been made on very productive farms built up over the years by white farmers. This process was certainly abused by various black tribes that could not in all fairness prove that they had any legitimate claim. And where no claim could be proved they just moved onto the farm and kicked the white farmer off. The murder of white farmers in South Africa has resulted in far more deaths than in Zimbabwe, yet it has not received the same international coverage as Zimbabwe.
So taking all of the above into consideration, the undercurrent of feelings and emotions in South Africa doesn’t really reflect this rosy picture that the rest of the world keeps trying to paint. Stories of corruption abound from the lowest government employee to the highest office in the country. Theft of money allocated from our taxes to help uplift the poorest communities gets highlighted by commissions set up to investigate it, yet those responsible just don’t seem to end up in jail because they were previously part of the armed struggle against the previous government. The way the members of Umkhonto we Siswe, the ANC’s armed wing, go on about their part in the struggle, one would get the impression that they were victorious in battles against the SA Defence Force. Yet I cant find record of even one battle they won. ‘But once again I digress. Our economy has gone for a ball of chalk. The number of businesses that have closed down because of Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment, Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), and a host of other empowerment laws is horrific. Our unemployment figure now stands at nearly 73%!
An interesting fact is that BEE was instituted by the ANC government as a direct intervention for the distribution of assets and opportunities to resolve the economic disparities created by Apartheid policies which had favoured white business owners. It was supposed to transform the economy to be representative of the race demographics of the country. The implementers of BEE thought the rest of the world would be knocking at their door to do business with these black empowered companies and this in turn would be the means to create some serious economic growth in South Africa.
Guess what? It never happened.
We had some large tenders which were awarded to some overseas companies, and they all seem to be under investigation for bribery and corruption. Other major players in the business domain out there in the rest of the world don’t want to do business with us here in South Africa. Businesses previously owned and run by whites that were taken over by black partners were bled dry before closing down. Quality of items to be exported went down and many companies overseas returned container after container of sub-standards goods. So job losses due to closure or non –performance of businesses suddenly start to affect the very people BEE was supposed to empower.
The application of BEE is contrary to what is in our constitution where it is stated all people are to be treated as equals. Yet the ANC ruling party does not consider that the laws which redistribute white assets, white jobs, or opportunities being blocked for whites to be discrimination. The leaders within the ANC have noted that that their close friend, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, has managed to get away with murder while the rest of the world just stands by shaking their heads in condemnation.
All it takes is for the government to make small changes at a time. Each one is taken as an irritation, but when all lumped together it is a far worse discrimination than what was applied by the previous government in South Africa.
Todays actual blog:’
One of the directors in the department of water affairs, Patience Mangotlo, has refused to pay a farmer, P. Haasbroek of the Limpopo province, for sand which was expropriated from his farm, “because he is white”.
The file for authorising payment has apparently been lying on her table for the past few weeks. She has openly stated to fellow government employees that she refuses to authorise the payment because of his skin colour.
Strangely enough the sand is being used to build a water pipeline from a nearby dam to a black township near Louis Trichardt.
Now my musing while ducking death and destruction on the hi-way between Johannesburg and Pretoria is as follows: Here we have a black senior manager in a government department openly being racist because the recipient of funds due just happens to be a “white farmer”. Will she be removed from her well paid job due to not adhering to the constitution? Will the social media make a fuss of her racial comments? Will she make a public apology? Is this attitude indicative of what the average black feels against whites in general?
Or will it all just quietly be swept under the carpet and ignored due to the fact that it a black person being racist and not the other way round?
Have a nice day!
Some interesting reading on MK: http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol115rw.html
paulsmusing2 