Further responses to attacks on Helen Zille
David Everatt
“Let’s assume the bad bits were mine and the good bits were
from Zubeida.”
I didn’t describe bits and pieces of either article as good
and bad. I just think that both amount
to little more than ad hominem, politically-motivated attacks. Cardinal Richelieu said, “Give me six lines
of his writing and I’ll find reason to hang a man”, making him as ‘good’ as you
and Zubieda. Calling Zille a lover or colonialism
is just wrong, although she may be a thoroughly unpleasant person. With regard to emulating Singapore, why
shouldn’t South Africa emulate the ‘good’ bits and keep Mandela’s constitution.
“want me to shut up”
No, that’s what the Fallists want of their opponents at universities. They go to great lengths (other than rational
debate) to make that want a reality.
“litany of ANC faults does not change history, nor the fact
that many white comments are singularly lacking in historical understanding”
Sure, the ANC did some great things, especially during its
first years in power and should be praised for these achievements. But, during Mbeki’s latter years and the
entire Zuma Era, the litany is unending and progressively more heinous. Just compare the history of Sharpeville with
that of Marikana. Both were horrible
abuses of power, but the connectivity between most senior ANC politicians,
colluding mega-wealthy whites and blacks, and highly trained anti-riot police
is terrifying. Where is de Klerk’s
Nkandla?
Please also define “white comments”.
Yes, South Africa needs a massive effort to discover its
history from KhoiSan early days to yesterday.
If this ever come available, no one will be able to throw stones.
Please identify the “blind and blinkered members” of the “Politicsweb
crowd”. James Myburgh publishes pieces
from people traversing the ideological spectrum. It’s those who comment (often under pseudonyms)
that I sometimes find offensive.
“The Constitution without question was driven by the ANC -
this is not in dispute anywhere.”
No, it wasn’t. A huge
(and largely successful) effort was made to involve all stakeholders. http://www.c-r.org/downloads/Accord%2013_5South%20Africa's%20multi-party%20constitutional%20negotiation%20process_2002_ENG.pdf
“Education is a mess - but you take a provincial view”
It is a mess in ALL provinces. Some are just worse than others. That’s one of the major reasons for massive
unemployment and THE major reason why there are massive failure rates at
universities. My colleagues at UCT
involved with academic support spend significant amounts of their time having
to ‘unteach’ educationally disabled kids.
Just read Jonathan Jansen’s analyses.
“The bottom line is that I do not believe that telling black
people that if they don’t like colonialism they should stop buying expensive
cars is plain, dumb brain-fart and nothing more.”
I fail to see the logic of this argument. Anyone who can afford it can buy an expensive
car. They just shouldn’t use public
funds to do this.
All conquerors, including “The Dutch, the brits, [Spanish,
Portuguese, Mongols, Huns], whites, [blacks, Asians and Amerindians] went elsewhere
to plunder” at the expense of the conquered. No one is “without sin”. The English let a million of my people starve
over four years in the mid-19th Century while then sent the results
of bountiful crops back ‘home’. http://rationalstandard.com/folk-and-race/
“Apartheid was a crime against humanity”
This should be taught in history classes and in the media
from cradle to grave. But, so should the fact that race is an insidious invention
of white supremacists, perpetuated now by “race merchants” who have everything
to lose in a non-racial South Africa.
Yes, Kathrada “was the real ANC” There are others, young and
old, black, white, brown, who share his values, including Zille. They should unite by values, not colour, to “call
Zuma [and the other crooks] out”.
“Lines” need to be “drawn’ everywhere. Intimidation, violence, vandalism, theft and
destruction cannot continue to be ‘socially justified’ on the basis of brutality
by Jimmy Kruger et al. By the way, even
the neo-Nazi Nationalists fired him soon after Biko’s murder and his son is now
a member of the ANC.
Who are the “white people pronouncing on the suffering of
blacks”? A simple read of any weekends’
papers and summary cyber-journals reveals that the most outraged are blacks
condemning other blacks who have controlled the process for >20 years and
must be held accountable.
“I am sure I am guilty of many of the sins”
No one comes out squeaky clean in SA history. Wait to see what ‘Professor’ Xolela Mangcu writes
about Mandela. As for me, when I applied
for a senior job at UCT, the first question I was asked was “Why do most people
not like you.”
“The fragrant?? leader of the W Cape” does not even qualify
to be in Zuma’s criminal and racist wake.
“You are not clearly in [my] eyes, a sucker”.
If so, you’re just one of many who have been offended by
Zille’s aggressive personality.
Tim Gregory
How many generations must a family lineage have lived in
Africa to qualify as indigenous?
There
is genetic evidence that the relatively pale-skinned San have been in southern
Africa for as long as 140000 years. http://theconversation.com/how-the-origin-of-the-khoisan-tells-us-that-race-has-no-place-in-human-ancestry-53594 The ancestral (also relatively pale) Khoi
might have arrived only several thousand years ago. Bantu-speaking, black Africans appear to have
moved into south-eastern Africa after the birth of Christ, long before the
arrival of the first European (of Dutch, French and German descent) settlers in
the KhoiSan-occupied Western Cape the 17th Century. My ‘people’ only got to the USA just over 100
years ago. Does that make me Irish? Of course, the genomes of humans from Tokyo,
Tierra del Fuego, Turin and Transkei are 99% similar. This notwithstanding, the first humans were
Africans and the rest of us are alien invasives that went and came back. For
that matter, ‘blackness’ was almost certainly lost by early Eurasian invaders
and regained in areas ‘colonized’ subsequently.
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