Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 14:50:50 -0500 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: Willie Viljoen <will@unfoldings.net> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: jive (was RE: was this really necessary?) Message-ID: <20030225145050.F17048@papagena.rockefeller.edu> In-Reply-To: <200302251647.45951.will@unfoldings.net>
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Willie Viljoen wrote: > The party responsible for the most efforts made in the struggle was the > African National Congress. The ANC is today, the party in power in SA. > > What bothers me is that, even though the ANC are now in power, ANC > politicians still blaim the white middle classes for absolutely everything. > This includes the crime rate, inequities in society, anything they want to. > If the white middle classes just can't be blaimed, colonists are the next > soft target. Wow, how terrible. It's been, what, 9 long years since the transition, surely that should have been enough to heal the inequities of the previous two centuries of colonial and apartheid rule, right? Has it ever occurred to that the colonists may indeed *be* to blame for social inequalities? I agree that it's not helpful to harp on that; the country should look towards the future. But politicians are politicians, whatever their skin colour. My impression is that, on the whole, given its ghastly 20th-century history of oppression, South Africa has actually stepped above that quite well -- with Nelson Mandela, despite spending much of his life behind bars, emphasising reconciliation since the beginning of the post-apartheid era. The colonists should realize that they can't just sit back now and enjoy the fruits of 200 years of entrenched inequality, either: they need to take the lead in reforming the society (and I understand that many do, just as many whites were active in the anti-Apartheid struggle). Failure to do that will lead to a Zimbabwe-like situation -- which is a result of Britain and the local white community breaking their promises and failing to implement land reforms for 20 years after independence. I'm not trying to defend the despicable Mugabe. But we all hope South Africa will fare much better. - Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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