Don’t blame producers

SIR — One is displeased to read the penultimate opinion by Itumeleng Mahabane on his assessment of the evolution of the black population since the end of apartheid (Past injustices and present failures a toxic blend, August 15). The lack of intergenerational equity, as he puts it, is not unique — every other African country postindependence has suffered similar mortification. Placing the blame on a productive class (which now includes Indians and coloureds) is not only disingenuous but quite reprehensible.

One only has to see how the Afrikaners have liberated themselves to achieve in every endeavour from business to sports, how Indians have taken advantage of the business opportunities, and how foreign Africans have come into this country and made a good living, despite the xenophobia that they have endured.

The problems of the present inequity is mainly attributable to the collapse of an education system that had some semblance of order and structure before 1994. Added to this atrophy is a leadership that not only betrayed its own principles, but indulged in a looting spree unprecedented in states with worthy constitutions.

The ruling party has corrupted the very system that was designed to look after the majority. Mr Mahabane will be best advised to read the sentiments of our neighbours, the Europeans and, most important, the Americans, on how disillusioned they have become with our state of affairs. We are now a reprobate nation with zero influence. History will see the vandalising of the Nelson Mandela legacy not as one caused by whites, but rather how blacks failed to seize the opportunities that every other group has clutched. John Catsicas Johannesburg