How hypocritical was the activities of the last week for South Afrika. We have recently been grappling with issues of race with some saying racism will be dead when the Democratic Alliance finally condemns all whites who put dogs in front seats while the darkie farmworker catches flu in the base. We can't assume that white means DA and darkie means ANC since I'm darkie but not ANC. Some saying racism will be gone once they have white aunties cleaning their floors. It’s interesting times for South Afrika because finally people are talking about these things that Nelson Mandela was comfortable with them being swept under the carpet. The native son Thabo Mbeki sparked this discourse with his stories of two nations, one rich, one poor, one white and one black.However I personally think it shouldn’t take the DA to condemn white farmers to make strides towards national reconciliation; why can’t the ANC which is in power clamp down on those farmers? Why can’t councilors legislate against such barbaric behavior? Waiting for the DA to be the one raising such issues is further polarising this country’s body politik. And instead of wanting white aunties let the darkie professional who affords an auntie pay that auntie a living wage instead of exploiting them like whites are doing. Teach the white person how to treat you better by treating your kind better instead of expecting the white person to treat a darkie better while you treat your own like shit. Whites learned all this bad treatment from darkies.
Okay, I didn’t intend to be political but to raise an issue that left me cold – literally. It was the appointment of Gill Marcus as the new Reserve Bank governor from November 9, 2009.
Just recently the ANC was blowing hot and cold that Anglo-Gold decided to appoint a white male chairperson after the ANC’s own Cyril Ramaphosa turned down the offer. The ANC and its Sancho Panzas argued that there were many qualified darkies in the country to assist Anglo-Gold to fulfill its transformation mandate. It was a valid case even though we know what happened to Lazarus Zim and Peter Moyo when they were appointed to similar positions at formerly exclusively white-managed companies. We also know that some of those so-called qualified darkies are reluctant to work in the private sector as they are comfortable with plying their trade in the public sector where they can mess up SETAs, SASSA, NDA, IDC, SABC, SAA and Coega without any fear of repercussions as they answer to their own comrades at board level. We have these dodgy CEOs with no comprehension of King III or rules applied in Corporate Governance. They will not go to Anglo-Gold even if they were promised ten times what they are getting at government – for a simple reason that they can be corrupt at will and loot the Treasury and rest assured they will be deployed somewhere once unmasked.
I was left wondering this weekend where were those darkies that Black Management Forum and the Three Musketeers (ANC, SACP, COSATU) when President Jacob Zuma appointed a white woman to head the Reserve Bank? Marcus is as white as they come and no cosmetic interpretation of race will change her.
Outgoing governor Tito Mboweni had three darkie deputies who according to Zuma do not cut it as potential governors. If it was Anglo-Gold or Alexander Forbes that made such a statement you would have had the musketeers blowing hot and cold, but because it’s homegrown felony – fine.
Tito was hounded a few years ago for allegedly saying that white women should not be excluded from benefitting from Affirmative Action since they were not given opportunities as well in the past. BMF called on him to apologise for such a statement because white women have always been benefitted from patronage dished to their husbands, fathers and brothers.
Then Tito ruffled further feathers when he allegedly said that it was not easy working with darkie executives because they have a tendency to job-hop and can’t be relied upon to build a sustainable organization. He said that they were all about more money and not building careers and organizations.
Now to chuck him out and replace him with a white woman is an endorsement of his ideas which were deemed reactionary and more in line with the thinking of his employer, the native son Mbeki.
Coming to Marcus, the truth is that a white person is a white person and her political affiliation does not change the fact that her appointment is the saddest day for Affirmative Action and transformation. My argument is not that people should be appointed because they are darkies but that there needs to be consistence on the part of the ANC.
Are we saying all whites become darkies by joining the ANC? If that is the case then the race issue in South Afrika is so thinly defined that we need to reopen the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and talk about who did what to whom and when.
PS. I’m stacking the Tito Mboweni banknotes to boycott the Gill Marcus ones for at least a year – hahaha, joking.
Whites learned all this bad treatment from darkies.
ReplyDelete--------hmmm...good thinking..
my other question...why can't those in "charge" not accept the whites to do the job and always wanting "darkies" to be there... if there isn't a "suitable" candidate...accept it, everything goes for the COUNTRY...not for white or for black..it's ONE country...and people should stop speaking about Darkies and Whities! For heaven sake!! Let things move on in this country and don't let things detoriate as it is already doing! I can just shout..."my beloved country" if I read the news etc.
It's an informative comment you are making Nikita. I mean it when I say immediately darkies start treating their staff better whities will do so as well. Darkies sometimes we treat their own like dogs and expect whites to treat them better, hypocrites. As you might have gathered in the post I'm all against AA, while I believe that apartheid couldn't have lasted this long if whites denounced it in 1948, i however feel that nothing is being done to redress the matter. so AA out, let skills prevail. However I'll like to differ with you on the fact that we must forget the Darkie/Whitie thing. It's useful, the same way you would want a black blouse and not a white one, pink pants and not purple ones, colour is diversity as long as none thinks it's more intelligent, more blessed than the next. I want whites to be proud of being whites and love their race but embrace the other races. I love blacks to love other blacks and embrace other races. And not think they are all that because they are black and in political power. But like I said, I love how you think, hope you can post more comments and let's start building 'OUR COUNTRY - TOGETHER. Thank you
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous
ReplyDeleteYes, I do agree with you too, about the colour and to embrace the others too, it should be like that..that is acceptance! no matter what. but, you will get racism in any part of the world, in every little corner, it's just blown up so much in SA for the fact that we got rid of the Apartheid system...so every little "thingy" points to "racism" which is absurd. I'm in London, I experience it here too..in schools, you do get it, it's sort of "natural" - not that I say it's right...not at all! but it's a universal thing and people should stop highlighting it or highlighting incidents linking to it...the more you talk/pay attention, the less it will go away...if you ignore it more and more, people will stop paying attention to it and it will "disappear" like nothing..like here in the UK...they do have it..but no big issue is made of it when it happens..just a small newspaper article and that's it..not big, bold letters just if one child said something to another...that's they way it should be..and where it happens, you still address it..and act accordingly ...the thing in our country is...too many (white and black) sit and watch each other and wait for the moment to shout...RACIST! that's racism...and run to the newspapers...that's my view and people get angry about little things too easy. Nice talking to you too.
you know one of my friends says that South Africa is not really a racist country but it's only that we talk a lot about race. he says the the fact that we don't want to sweep things under the carpet also means that we identify things as racism even when they are not. for example i understand that Londoners don't complain about the increasing number of West African labourers and immigrants filling their streets the same way one of my Yiddish friends was condemning teh Kibburtz system in Israel saying that 'you can't put your food security strategy in the hands of expatriate volunteer workers'. now you see, the moment she voices that fact in the open it becomes racism because those expatriate workers in the Kibburtz are mostly non-Jewish. So, I think the problem with the Londoners is that they don't talk about it and it remains bottled until the day you have what happened in Paris with the North African-native French youth conflicts with one group blaming the other of stealing opportunities. Almost the same battle for scarce resources tha ended up being labelled xenophobic attacks here. i guess people need to talk about these issues; Barack Obama was right to talk about 'the incident' because it helped spark debate in the US, he Schwarzenegger would do a bigger service for the hundreds of Hispanics (Mexicans who work in California is he opened a debate about them and their role in building his State). In short I think we need to talk about race and try to find out what makes our inherent prejudices tick. what makes a young Afrikaner boy to find it difficult to admit that he is not superiour to the black child by virtue of being white. why does he need to study and be informed to contest the black guy who went to UCT, Wits or whatever Ivy League institution? whites (some) need to understand that they are intelligence is not a birthright but something you work on. Darkies (especially young girls) need to understand that nobody will take them seriously while they keep on having babies and putting them on social grants. they need to understand that it's not about black and white that they can't access jobs without matric but about that lack of comprehension that the world is a contestation of ideas and not babyboomers. i'm just trying to be real because today the Star leads with the story of a rugby-playing boy who was bashed and called a hotnot and kaffir. like you say we are similar and it's so unfortunate that our minor differences are highlighted. and in most cases it's just the complexion, something to do with melanin than anything else. sometimes it's just the accent. sometimes it's just the nose, lips or the bum. but overall we are the same, i might not be the same size as Victor Mattfield but there's some white guy who is not even my size but far smaller, and that doesn't make him less human or less intelligent.
ReplyDeletei often talk a lot as you might have figured from my posts but i love a good conversation, something us South Africans are known for. It's just bad when people without information (read;politicians) try to influence the direction of our discourse. Race is good to talk about, otherwise our perceptio of each other might end up as distorted as those of the Palestinians and Israelis
Hi Nikita
ReplyDeleteyou know one of my friends says that South Africa is not really a racist country but it's only that we talk a lot about race. he says the the fact that we don't want to sweep things under the carpet also means that we identify things as racism even when they are not. for example i understand that Londoners don't complain about the increasing number of West African labourers and immigrants filling their streets the same way one of my Yiddish friends was condemning teh Kibburtz system in Israel saying that 'you can't put your food security strategy in the hands of expatriate volunteer workers'. now you see, the moment she voices that fact in the open it becomes racism because those expatriate workers in the Kibburtz are mostly non-Jewish. So, I think the problem with the Londoners is that they don't talk about it and it remains bottled until the day you have what happened in Paris with the North African-native French youth conflicts with one group blaming the other of stealing opportunities. Almost the same battle for scarce resources tha ended up being labelled xenophobic attacks here. i guess people need to talk about these issues; Barack Obama was right to talk about 'the incident' because it helped spark debate in the US, he Schwarzenegger would do a bigger service for the hundreds of Hispanics (Mexicans who work in California is he opened a debate about them and their role in building his State). In short I think we need to talk about race and try to find out what makes our inherent prejudices tick. what makes a young Afrikaner boy to find it difficult to admit that he is not superiour to the black child by virtue of being white. why does he need to study and be informed to contest the black guy who went to UCT, Wits or whatever Ivy League institution? whites (some) need to understand that they are intelligence is not a birthright but something you work on. Darkies (especially young girls) need to understand that nobody will take them seriously while they keep on having babies and putting them on social grants. they need to understand that it's not about black and white that they can't access jobs without matric but about that lack of comprehension that the world is a contestation of ideas and not babyboomers. i'm just trying to be real because today the Star leads with the story of a rugby-playing boy who was bashed and called a hotnot and kaffir. like you say we are similar and it's so unfortunate that our minor differences are highlighted. and in most cases it's just the complexion, something to do with melanin than anything else. sometimes it's just the accent. sometimes it's just the nose, lips or the bum. but overall we are the same, i might not be the same size as Victor Mattfield but there's some white guy who is not even my size but far smaller, and that doesn't make him less human or less intelligent.
i often talk a lot as you might have figured from my posts but i love a good conversation, something us South Africans are known for. It's just bad when people without information (read;politicians) try to influence the direction of our discourse. Race is good to talk about, otherwise our perceptio of each other might end up as distorted as those of the Palestinians and Israelis
You are so informed, it's refreshing talking to you
I have already started hoarding my Tito notes for the coming winter season.
ReplyDeleteWay to go, let's boycott the new notes, hahahahahaha, (just joking)
ReplyDelete