Must overcome racism scourge now
THE abhorrent apartheid years deprived generations of black South African citizens of an education, keeping them in a state of ignorance. They were forced into servile occupations to feed the obscene, white opulence.
Depriving people of all social and cultural values, and thus their identity, will forever rank in the world’s history pages as one of the worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man!
And spawned in this festering and boiling cauldron of 300 years of dispossession is an all-embracing inferiority complex which chokes every facet of our lives in South Africa, depriving everyone from both sides of the racial divide, of normality.
In 1994, under the wonderful leadership of Nelson Mandela, the future for South Africa looked so incredibly bright.
But never before had a nation taken over the running of a government and its administration with such a lack of educated or capable people.
It was a recipe for failure and this fact is borne out some 23 years later.
South Africa is in an almost irredeemable mess, no matter where one looks.
The lack of political and commercial leadership has been brutally exposed.
In a state of denial our ANC regime refuses to take responsibility. It is still bleeding from the apartheid wounds, and apartheid is certainly a wonderful scapegoat to rationalise its inadequacies, lack of leadership and accountability.
The majority of our people say it is the fault of the whites, white capital, white land ownership, colonial influences in schools and universities, etc.
This begs the question as to why a majority of our population do not just do what they so blatantly want to do: nationalise all white-owned enterprises; fire all white managers; replace all university lecturers with black educators; break down all vestiges of colonial buildings, traditions, etc; repossess the land without compensation; enforce an all-black Springbok rugby side and so on.
And once the catharsis of destroying the country has been completed, perhaps like a phoenix, a new Azania will arise?
The foregoing is certainly facetious, but, nevertheless, sadly, it could be a reality.
One finds it difficult to understand that despite the atrocities of Robert Mugabe, he is still venerated by his own people.
Under his command in 1983 the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade began a crackdown on people in Matabeleland.
The consensus of the “International Association of Genocide Scholars” is that more than 20 000 men, women and children were murdered.
Since then, Zimbabwe’s economy has been destroyed, its people left to starve.
Yet Mugabe, the architect of this and many other human rights violations, is a hero in the eyes of his people.
Back in South Africa parallels can be drawn with our own ANC regime.
South Africa is now at junk status, a banana state. One only has to follow the daily commissions of inquiry to understand why.
The incredible lack of skills in our top parastatals and government are being brutally exposed.
Our president does as he wants, flouting the constitution, and giggles at the disastrous consequences of his actions and the plight of his compatriots.
Ministers Lynne Brown, Bathabile Dlamini, Faith Muthambi and others are quite frankly an embarrassment! One cringes at their incompetence. The present inquiries into Eskom, state capture, social grants, the Esidimeni tragedy and many more all have a common factor: denial! Role-players refuse, despite overwhelming evidence, to take any responsibility or to hold themselves accountable.
Stranger still, the majority of ANC adherents seem to condone what is happening.
Despite the corruption, the flagrant malfeasance of their ANC compatriots the electorate continues its support.
When one questions why, one can only conclude that the hatred for the white man and colonialism (whatever that means!) overrides rational thought.
Hence Mugabe, Jacob Zuma and their sycophants are seen to be heroes of the struggle against the hated whites and this factor supercedes anything else.
Ironically, if one takes into account all the black lives lost in the Matabele genocide, Marikana, starvation, the Esidimeni tragedy and other atrocities one must assume that in the twisted rationale of many, a black life is less important than that of a white as long as whites are rubbished!
The Bible says, “The sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation.”
The tragedy is that we do not have the time. The scourge of racism has to be overcome now if we as a nation, whites and blacks working together in a spirit of mutual respect, wish to create the prosperous, peaceful society we all so passionately want.
Talbot Cox, Schoenmakerskop, Port Elizabeth