Whites aren’t the problem

WHITES are being blamed for the “ills of incumbency” that characterise the poor governance and leadership of President Jacob Zuma.

Whites are not a monolithic group. The first non-racial party was the Communist Party of South Africa.

The victory of the National Party in 1948 helped make Africans understand not all whites were racists. While the ANC was exclusively African, a congress movement was formed with white members of the Congress of Democrats and leftwingers and radical nationalists seized power in the Transvaal and Natal Indian Congresses, thus bringing Indians closer to the ANC.

The ideological development of the ANC was manifested in the adoption of the Freedom Charter. The following white people – Trevor Huddleston, Joe Slovo, Helen Joseph, Ruth First, Ben Turok, Alexander and Roy Simons, Bram Fischer, Beyers Naude, Johnny de Lange, Derek Hanekom, Breyten Breytenbach, Barbara Hogan, Stephanie Kemp and Marion Sparg – chose suffering and alienation rather than to relish white privilege.

It was not a white person who betrayed Nelson Mandela, but Bruno Mtolo. The first person to be sentenced to death was John Harris of the Liberal Party and the African Resistance Movement, betrayed by his white comrade.

Young people in Nusas and the End Conscription Campaign played a role in our Struggle as did the Black Sash. The formation of the United Democratic Front in 1983 which Mangosuthu Buthelezi opposed, drew whites into our Struggle, for example Willie Hofmeyr, Ian Phillips, Carl Niehaus, Mike Sutcliffe and John Jeffreys. Afrikaner business and intellectuals defied PW Botha to meet ANC members as detailed in a book by Aziz Pahad. There was a role played by the Progressive Federal Party of Helen Suzman, Jan van Eck, Roy Ainslie, Alex Boraine, Ian and Pierre and Ina Cronje.

The ANC is losing support among whites, Indians and coloureds mainly because of the lack of political and civic education and the ills of incumbency epitomised by the (mis)leadership of Zuma.

We salute George Bizos, Ben Turok, Ronnie Kasrils, and Raymond Suttner for their role in the Struggle and their particularly uncompromising stance against corruption. It is not white people who are to blame for pickpocketing the Treasury of R246 million, abusing Section 36 to get contracts “by hook or by crook”, or for the “civil war” in Sars.

Many whites have embraced our national anthem, flags and national symbols.

Populist bashing of whites does not advance the Freedom Charter and is counter-revolutionary, like stealing from the public purse.