After Mandela: South Africa as Miracle or Mirage?
| AR Articles on South Africa |
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| Afrikaner Survival Under Black Rule (May 2004) |
| Black Empowerment (Mar. 2003) |
| South Africa, 1999 (Aug. 1999) |
| South Africa under Black Rule (Jul. 1998) |
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When Nelson Mandela took power from the white minority government in South Africa in 1994, the longtime anti-apartheid activist held out hope that this was the beginning of the end of his people’s poverty and the decades-long oppression that kept them in it.
His gestures of reconciliation toward his and their erstwhile oppressors are credited with avoiding bloody conflict in the country, leading the world to hail South Africa as a “miracle.”
Today, South Africa is at a crossroads. The heirs to Mandela’s legacy are battling among themselves, as the hope he inspired is fading under the weight of unmet needs for the black masses.
{snip}
When I first came to South Africa in 1985 on one of many assignments I would take over more than two decades, an Afrikaner told me the reason for not permitting “one person, one vote” was that South Africa was both First World and Third World.
By that, he meant the whites who controlled the economy and reaped its benefits, including a first-class education, were First World. And the blacks, who labored in the mines, the fields, the kitchens and other rooms of the privileged, and who were being deliberately undereducated so that they could remain subservient, were Third World.
But as I traveled around the country in recent weeks, reporting for the NPR series “South Africa at the Crossroads,” those words came back to me, albeit in a different context.
Even with a black-led government, the country remains two separate nations: one white and largely in control of the economy; the other, a majority of blacks still outside the economic mainstream.
{snip}
South Africa also is dealing with one of the highest crime rates in the world. AIDS continues to put an enormous strain on the nation. And then there’s another lingering legacy of apartheid: racism, still ever-present in a nation that Mandela hoped would reflect an ethnic rainbow.
{snip}
Jody Kollapen, chairman of the Human Rights Commission, argues that South Africa may indeed be at a crossroads. But he says that perhaps critics and analysts (and journalists) should be taking a longer view, recognizing that South Africa is a new democracy, undergoing growing pains common to new democracies all over the world—including America’s, during its early years of independence.
“Maybe it’s time to recognize that South Africa is not a miracle country,” Kollapen says. “Maybe we should just come down to earth and say, ‘We’re an ordinary people perhaps, having done some extraordinary stuff, but maybe the world should let us be an ordinary country.’“
(Posted on June 11, 2008)
South Africa’s ‘Rainbow Nation’ Still Only a Dream
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, NPR, June 10, 2008
When Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president after the end of apartheid 14 years ago, he called his country a “rainbow nation.” But instead of becoming the ethnically integrated society he envisioned, South Africa today continues to battle racism.
Some observers believe the social situation is worse than it was before the end of the country’s system of racial segregation. And there is a worry that gridlock between the ruling party and the government is inhibiting the leadership’s ability to deal with this issue.
Recent incidents that have drawn attention include a white youth going on a rampage and shooting four blacks, the discovery of a “whites only” toilet in a police precinct, and the publication of a disparaging column by a white writer imagining the nation before the arrival of the white man. The column included this musing: “Every so often a child goes missing from the village, eaten either by a hungry lion or a crocodile. The family mourns for a week or so and then has another child.”
Outrage over the column led to the author’s firing and his subsequent apology. However, no such apology was forthcoming from the four Afrikaner university students involved in the making of a highly publicized racist video that emerged in February.
{snip}
Jody Kollapen, chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission, a national institution tasked with promoting and protecting human rights, says the University of the Free State case is not isolated. Kollapen points to postings on an online chat room from young whites asserting their whiteness and denigrating things associated with the black majority, including the government, the ruling party, the flag and soccer, which is associated by some as a black sport.
{snip}
Fourie, the university rector, says that many still hold on to Mandela’s notion of the rainbow nation. However, he says fulfilling that vision is going to take work and time.
“Rainbow is a good vision to have for this country,” Fourie says. “I think parts of it are falling down. Parts haven’t been constructed. And I think the challenge we have is to openly face that and have this fantastic vision, but say we’ve got to construct it still and to be open and honest about it.”
Comments
Give it a hundred more years, when SA will be a complete wasteland and blacks have had power for over a century, and they’ll still be blaming it on the “lingering effects” of apartheid. Just like how the US inner-city thug culture is all Whitey’s fault because it’s a “natural consequence” of slavery from 150 years ago.
Posted by Kevin at 5:58 PM on June 11
Wow, this article is rather one sided, as we would expect from
NPR.
We’ve all heard of the white youths going crazy and shooting four
blacks, and about that video at the college, and most of us
would condemn that as being wrong. What about the genocide against white farmers, with thousands killed? I guess that doesn’t merit any attention at all, because whites deserve it.
I don’t harbor any hatred towards blacks, and I even like some
black music, but recently I’ve been thinking that segregation
is the sensible approach to the problem of some different races
living side by side. I’m rather sad to have to admit it, since I
don’t agree with what I’ve read from some posters here about
NE Asians, or high caste Indians (I think we can have them as
a minority as long as the majority white culture has self
confidence) but blacks are a problem. Afrikaners understood
this and we whites destroyed their nation.
Posted by at 5:59 PM on June 11
NPR…..HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHA!!!
Posted by at 6:08 PM on June 11
NPR sees the cracks in the edifice, but has a decidedly different perceptual spin on the etiology: that whites are holding back blacks. It is so piteous for all concerned to see that those who put up the infrastructure and continue to keep it in place, are not the indigenous peoples. The indigenous people——if they truly knew which side their bread was buttered——would applaud and continue to welcome the presence of the whites who keep things running. When they are gone, that window of opportunity, and all that will have flown out that window, will be gone.
Posted by ActionPotential at 6:14 PM on June 11
Perhaps one of our diversity educators can travel to SA and explain how, since whites are a small minority there, SA is not truly a democracy, and these young ‘racists’ are in fact race activists and should be not only listened to, but enshrined as official spokespersons for diversity, and indeed all whites there be given special status, and anyone who would be insensitive to these vibrant young voices, like the writer of this piece, should be held accountable for their ignorance and intolerance and appear before one of these human rights commissions there already set up like the truth and reconciliation commission.
Posted by Just another AmRener at 6:18 PM on June 11
“Africa is a new democracy, undergoing growing pains common to new democracies all over the world — including America’s, during its early years of independence.”
America grew from a new Independent nation in 1788 to the most powerful country in the world in a short 140 years.
Africa has grown in 40,000 years to develop—nothing.
Posted by at 6:30 PM on June 11
Another case where the devious Left has set up an argument which will damn whites no matter what happens. It’s like the recent news story about a movie that casts a white as a killer when in reality the killer was actually black. Amazingly, while having the effect of vilifying whites as criminal, at the same time it could be used as an example of whites refusing an acting job to a black! In the case of South Africa, as long as whites remain there they can be charged with “pulling the strings” to keep blacks for m sharing equally in the economy. When all whites finally leave, they will once again be charged with causing SA’s economic problems, by “abandoning” the country and taking their jobs and capital with them. I marvel at how devious the Left is!
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 7:06 PM on June 11
5,000 years from now, Apartheid, racism and whites will still be blamed for South Africas failures.
Posted by The Great Carsoni at 7:31 PM on June 11
Tim is right on. If Whites leave they will be vilified for ruining the already troubled South African economy. If they stay, all of SA’s problems will be blamed on them, despite the horrendous crimes routinely committed against them. Amren featured an article some time ago, written by a liberal White South African, saying that White people needed to stay in SA to keep the economy going. Maybe I’m wrong, but people who must stay in one place to benefit the economy, who cannot act in their own best interests, are slaves.
White SA’s are blamed for the economic troubles, but if I’m not mistaken, they are not allowed to be hired if a black applies. Can anyone tell me if this is true? I remember reading that around 1 million White South Africans were left high and dry in the name of black empowerment. They should all liquidate their assets and leave, and then the blacks can do whatever they want with the country. If they’ve been doing all the “hard work” that they claim to have been doing, they should have no problem actually operating the economy in the absence of Whites.
Posted by Teutonicus at 8:42 PM on June 11
wow, is Charlayne Gault the elderly woman who used to do the news at PBS? She is (back from google). She must have come out of retirement to do this story. I’ve met her. She came to speak at our school. After hearing her, I’d have to say there wasn’t a racist bone in her body. Well, that’s not true, they are all black. The odd thing about meeting her in person is that, on TV, she looked like one of the ugliest women I had ever seen. In person, she was quite stunningly attractive. After seeing her and hearing her talk, I would watch her on the news sometimes. When she would interview men, sometimes you could almost see it in their eyes (how attractive they found her).
Posted by Dr. Smith at 11:34 PM on June 11
“Coetzer recalls seeing protest posters put up by black students threatening to rape white women in revenge for the video.”
The ‘human rights commission’ managed to ignore SA’s affirmative action policies, violence against farmers and against whites in general, while focusing on the grievances of blacks. Suddenly, the news isn’t all that interested in minorities anymore. Or groups outside the political power. Majority grievances are laid out in detail, experienced personally by the reporter, even commented on by the very leaders of the country, but when it’s black students putting up posters threatening to rape white women (something of historical significance to listeners back home in America where 20,000 white women are raped every year by black men) suddenly, it’s something that only one white student allegedly remembers seeing, and it all fits into one sentence.
Yes, there’s still racism in ‘south africa’
Posted by at 12:03 AM on June 12
So whites have been stripped of power and wealth for over 10 years, but they’re still holding blacks back? I guess blacks need whites for money, our women, and a scapegoat when they can’t blame their failures because they’re black.
Posted by at 12:30 AM on June 12
I’m really looking forward to the soccer World Cup to be held in South Africa in 2010. The screw up (ticketing, buses, muggings etc) will be a suberb contrast to the organization one expects from the Beijing Olympics this year. Hopefully it will wake up some more people.
On a side note, it’s worth pointing out that blacks can be some of our best friends when it comes to race reality (though not necessarily WN). Some blacks have to know that they aren’t as smart as whites (and never will be). We should work with them to help them devise ways blacks can lead meaningful, dignified lives despite their inherent shortcomings. And many blacks have to have begun to realize that hispanics will never pander to them the way white America has. Colombia has a significant proportion of blacks, but the great majority of them are confined to a couple of provinces along the Pacific coast (where they are the vast majority), with another heavy concentration, though a minority one, along the northern Atlantic coast. Uplifting blacks, or even accepting them into mainstream society, is the furthest thing from Colombians’ minds. This is what American blacks can expect as America hybridizes and hispanicizes. Early signs are already apparent in LA. Let’s recruit black into helping us find ways to accomodate society to the inherent inequality of both individuals and of races.
Posted by Michael T at 12:39 AM on June 12
On a side note, it’s worth pointing out that blacks can be some of our best friends when it comes to race reality (though not necessarily WN). Some blacks have to know that they aren’t as smart as whites (and never will be). We should work with them to help them devise ways blacks can lead meaningful, dignified lives despite their inherent shortcomings. And many blacks have to have begun to realize that hispanics will never pander to them the way white America has. Colombia has a significant proportion of blacks, but the great majority of them are confined to a couple of provinces along the Pacific coast (where they are the vast majority), with another heavy concentration, though a minority one, along the northern Atlantic coast. Uplifting blacks, or even accepting them into mainstream society, is the furthest thing from Colombians’ minds. This is what American blacks can expect as America hybridizes and hispanicizes. Early signs are already apparent in LA. Let’s recruit black into helping us find ways to accomodate society to the inherent inequality of both individuals and of races
hahaha Note from Ceasar:
Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.
Posted by Skip at 2:48 AM on June 12
Pretty tacky of them, to focus on a white murderer (probably the one and only), the existence of a “white toilet” (OK, that’s petty, but is it important?!), and a “racist” video of some immature initiation ritual, that in it’s proper context isn’t racist at all.
Posted by Wichmann at 3:37 AM on June 12
Amazing to think that, in 1967, Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first successful human-to-human heart transplant in South Africa.
Posted by Iain at 5:09 AM on June 12
One of the greatest and least acknowledged tragedies of South Africa is that what now comprises that country was virtually uninhabited until Dutch and British settlers arrived to build a nation. The only people living in that vast expanse were a few roving bands of bushmen, among the most primitive people on earth.
The black African population arrived much later in response to the economic opportunities created by the European white settlers.
Yet the popular view is that whites “stole” the land from the blacks and virtually enslaved the indigenous population.
I expect that the white population, those without the good sense or means to leave, eventually will be slaughtered by the blacks as the world looks on approvingly.
Posted by john at 6:03 AM on June 12
It’s as simple as this: if you love your life, stay out of South Africa, especially if you are white - even if the WC2010 happens here. There is no hope for whites in this cuntry.
The new expropiation law has come into effect and they can take your house, car and even movable property.
Posted by eduard at 7:38 AM on June 12
There is no hope for South Africa, for american inner cities or neighborhoods or anywhere blacks run things or are the majority. Blacks can be nice, decent and intelligent on an individual basis but as a whole, they just don’t have it in them to have a clean, advanced, lawful and safe society. Anywhere on the globe, blacks as a whole are failures.
Posted by at 8:34 AM on June 12
“Recent incidents that have drawn attention include a white youth going on a rampage and shooting four blacks, the discovery of a “whites only” toilet in a police precinct, and the publication of a disparaging column by a white writer imagining the nation before the arrival of the white man.”
Whew!
4 murders, 1 toilet and a column… wow… Over how long a period of time did all these calamities transpire?
How can the Rainbow Nation be expected survive? I mean, the explosion in child-rape, necklacing and epidemic violent crime from the black community was to be expected. But who could have foreseen this?
Hopefully, once our nation becomes a full-fledged ObamaNation, we can learn from this plucky multiculty paradise.
Posted by NoObamaNation at 8:57 AM on June 12
“Wow, this article is rather one sided, as we would expect from
NPR.”
Come-on, this was just a show for the media in the first place. The don’t have a lot of experience with this. So take a nation of 43 million people, have one school there only admit students of one race, whites, integrate the ignorant school, report on some ‘racist’ whites there performing a heinous act (in this case peeing on food, serving it other races and filming the whole act). All part of a show. You can’t expect a reporter to be able to see thru that! In the end we have an objective account of reality in SA (sarcasm). It begs the question, what is it they don’t want us to see there?
Posted by at 9:28 AM on June 12
“When Nelson Mandela took power from the white minority government in South Africa in 1994…”
He didn’t take it; it was given to him. That’s why the situation is so pathetic. He should have been crushed at the start.
Posted by Franki Van Myur at 10:04 AM on June 12
Let’s see… four murders of blacks by a white and a “racist” toilet vs. how many thousands of murders of whites by blacks and how many racist programs against whites? Leave it to a propaganda mouthpiece like NPR to ignore thousands of white victims and focus on four black victims.
On a side note, one wonders what led that lone white person to shoot the four blacks. There’s a story here aching to be told. My guess? His sister and mother were raped and murdered by blacks. His house burnt down by blacks. He then lost his business due to anti-white legislation. That’s when his mind snapped and he went berserk. Then the MSM swoop in and use the incident as evidence of pervasive anti-black racism. Conjecture? You bet! But we had a similar incident in Texas a few years ago when a white man, brutalized by blacks in prison, dragged one of them to death behind his truck. The media, true to form, completely ignored the horrors the white man had been through. Instead reporting only on the truck-dragging itself, as if that crime came totally out of the blue and with no motivation.
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:17 AM on June 12
This story could have just as easily been about a journalist fired for excercising their right to free speech. I wonder if that’s what the story will be when Charlayne Hunter-Gault is fired for writing the insensitive story here? For them, I guess the term honor among thieves doesn’t apply.
Posted by at 12:44 PM on June 12
Here’s the truth, and we all know it. Massive provocations: rapes, murders, thievery, have caused a number of isolated breakdowns in traditional white discipline.
Of course, a shooting rampage and urinating in someone’s food are in-excusable behavior. Those who committed these isolated acts should, and will be, punished. Hopefully the boys behind the videotape will experience the business end of the family patriarch’s belt, in addition to the official punishments that will be meted out.
However, whites in South Africa are being seriously provoked, and these incidents pale beside the massive crime, systemic corruption, and organized attempts to destroy their language, culture, and livelihoods that the young whites of South Africa have to witness, up close, on a daily basis.
Hunter-Gault is taking a few isolated incidents and smearing an entire class of law abiding, productive, and, yes, suicidally generous people with them. That’s a crime.
Also, having wrote the above, I think my chosen handle on this board no longer describes me accurately.
Posted by Guilty Liberal at 1:26 PM on June 12
Charlayne Hunter-Gault is a former member of the McNeal/Lerner PBS News Hour team. She has been in Africa for several years now. Unfortunately, Ms. Hunter-Gault blames most of South Africa’s troubles on the legacy of racism and Apartheid. Until the black majority government of South Africa can come to terms with their own incompetence and corruption, they will never progress beyond Third World poverty. Considering the current ANC leadership in South Africa, it appears that a new Zimbabwe is on the horizon.
Posted by Sardonicus at 3:35 PM on June 12
I would guess that differing ideas of hygene between black and white police was the reason for a white only toilet.
Posted by at 3:40 PM on June 12
Now that I think about it, I realize what Hunter-Gault is doing: she’s holding whites to a higher standard…. maybe not consciously, but for some reason she seems to expect far better behavior from some, than from others. And the first, gut reaction of my liberal, caucasoid brain was ‘that’s unfair!’
But now that I think about it, I realize Hunter-Gault might be right. Maybe we are different. Maybe we SHOULD be held to tougher standards.
This might be the least liberal thought I have ever had in my life, and it disturbs me.
Posted by Guilty Liberal at 7:21 PM on June 12
In the good ole USA Whites had to drink from seperate drinking fountains. Who cares if my Mother had to sit in the front of the bus or eat in Whites-only establishments?
Posted by Lars at 8:43 PM on June 12
I wonder if Ms. C.H Gault has ever seen Mandela’s heart warming and uplifting video, “let’s kill all the whites”, I’m sure it would bring a tear to her eye
Posted by at 3:18 AM on June 13
“It begs the question, what is it they don’t want us to see there?”
It’s not that hard to figure out. They don’t want us to see whites as humans beings, only as evil oppressors. Apparently, it does not take a race relations expert to figure it out.
Posted by at 3:50 PM on June 13