My last, flippant post on the death of Eugene Terre Blanche brought an interesting comment thread, in which not only did we attract some new South African commentators, we started up interesting disagreements along unusual fault lines between regular commentators. So I thought I might probe further with something less flippant.
I am not actually in favour of hacking people to death as a form of political action. But I am unrepentant at failing to be moved by the death of an out and out Nazi, who thrived in apartheid times in a system in which he was able to put his ideas of racial dominance into practice over his staff and black neighbours.
The apartheid regime killed many thousands, and dispossessed, disenfranchised and enslaved millions. Almost all white South Africans were implicated in it and enjoyed its benefits. Never forget that.
Through colonialism, apartheid and neo-colonialism, white people took control of Africa’s best farming land – in areas where white men could survive the climate – and its amazing mineral resources. Throughout Africa white people still reap the great majority of the economic benefit from African oil, gold, diamonds, rutile, bauxite, uranium etc. The backbreaking labour falls to black people and so does the pollution. That benefit that does come to Africans largely falls to tiny corrupt white-educated post-colonial elites.
In South Africa it is still the case that the large majority of the wealth of the nation. the controlling interest in the gold and other mineral resources and much of the best farmland still lies with white people.
There are some white South Africans who had a genuine moral abhorrence of apartheid and yet become unfortunate victims of violence whose root cause lies in massive disparity of wealth. There are however not many white South Africans lining up to shed their wealth meaningfully to black South Africans.
White dominance over African resources has been maintained brutally and often with the use of mercenaries – officered by the British upper classes and with South Africans doing the actual killing.
That is not to excuse corrupt African elites and misgovernment by the Mugabes of this world. But Mugabe being a dreadful old tyrant does not justify the continued white ownership of land stolen by force from the indigenous peoples. Indeed some of the worst white farmers are close to Mugabe, like Prince Harry’s appalling girlfriend’s family.
Even in a country like Kenya, the recent ethnic conflicts can be traced back to colonial land grabs by white farmers dispossessing one tribe into another tribes’ lands.
I cover all of this with vastly more depth and subtlety in The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. I do hope those commenting will read it.
“Can I conquer Sussex, please? ”
I live in hopes of meeting a Glaswegian called Euan Husami.
I know I am off topic here Craig….but let’s hear you on this one – general election fever in the air:-
http://tcijournal.com/index.php?idsub=2482&id=8
‘For the first time in my life I will NOT be voting.’
Mary I’ll be doing the same. Voting means taking part/supporting a political system which is a sham. The more people who don’t vote, the better.
The Establishment/hard state want as to vote to maintain the semblance of democracy.
” go to huffinton post and check out the wikileaks release of US forces in an Apache helicopter murdering people….
shame on us and them
please someone…what the fuck is going on, on this fucking planet” – question …
Answer: same sad shit that has been going on for eons – different day!
Anno,
Were not Muslims prominent in the African slave trade?
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Obama’s Muslim ancestors were most likely slave owners or traders.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_slavery.html
Arsalan,
You say, “But when it comes to the settlers, I believe the people fighting them are the ones defending themselves.”
Absolutely. Everyone has the right to self defense. That is why King Alfred was the only English monarch designated “the Great”: he put a stop to the Viking invasion and occupation which could, had it continued, have resulted in the extinction of the British race.
You say, “The reason why we judge the likes of settlers is we want to decide who is in the right or wrong in conflicts to decide who we support.”
What I was suggesting is that the question may sometimes be unanswerable on the basis of either Judeo-Christian theology, or the calculation of rational self-interest, because in either case, the answer depends on which side your on.
Some may think that the new world order is the solution to the moral dilemma: abolish the nations of the world, open up the resources of Africa, Central Asia and the rest of the world to multi-national exploitation, let people move where they will, let us all be of one nation.
But for those who wish to retain their identity, their racial distinctness, their culture, their natural resources, there will be, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, only a carpet of bombs. For those who wish to retain their government autonomy, there will be only a remote and impersonal bureaucracy such as in Brussels.
Is that what most folks want? If not, what if any, is the alternative other than the continual strife of nations for survival and advantage in accordance with a two-face moral code?
Clark,
If you think the number of Brits is irrelevant, why raise the question?
“For the first time in my life I will not be voting”
So fucking what?
“I seem to recall reading somewhere that Obama’s Muslim ancestors …”
I definitely read somewhere, just a couple of days ago, that his grandparents very probably went through the ‘Mau Mau’ camps.
Good for the AWB, though.
Alfred,
I didn’t. My question “Reproductive failure?” was rhetorical. Those genes are reproducing themselves quite successfully; they don’t care that they’re not labeled “British”.
You seem to care a lot about “race”. Relax. Nature will always ensure diversity. Each new generation will have its sense of identity.
Why wouldn’t Obama’s anscestors have been for the Mau Mau? Britain was attempting to do in Kenya what the whites were doing in South Africa, which was to treat the majority African population as a subordinate race, and using the most grotesque and murderous methods in the process:
http://www.markcurtis.info/articles.html
That is why Clark is incorrect in assuming that numbers do not matter. Had the British outnumbered the native people in the African colonies where they settled, the indigenous people could have been assimilated and a decent society providing prosperity for all established.
As it was the alien elite, to avoid expulsion by the indigenous people, set up what proved to be fundamentally unviable, odious, racist political structures. The same mistake was made in the Southern U.S. where a white settler elite created a slave society, in which the whites were greatly outnumbered by slaves. Had it not been for the civil war, which ended slavery and resulted in the mass migration of former slaves to the northern states, the Confederacy would undoubtedly be a black republic today.
This blog is fucking 20th Century central.
Get with the millennium, folks.
“For the first time in my life I will NOT be voting.”
Hooray!
Thanks for sharing!
Angrysoba,
Are you about ready to move to the States? 🙂
“Are you about ready to move to the States?”
Nope. I like it fine here in Japan, thanks.
Richard,
My logic may not be invincible, but it seems to me that it is virtually impossible for a privileged settler minority to integrate a poor indigenous majority (i.e., granting them full political equality) without losing their privileged status eventually — an outcome the settlers would presumably consider intolerable.
In South Africa, there are still many whites and according to Craig they still control most of the wealth. However, their days seem numbered. Some have been murdered, many others have seen the writing on the wall and left.
It is not so difficult, however, to see a settler majority granting equality to an indigenous or slave minority. This seems to be happening in Canada, although some first nations people apparently want separate development. And it has happened in the US, as is evident from the election of Obama as President.
It seems to me there is a difference between displacement by one tribe for the benefit of another and displacement for colonialisation, where the land is used for sending the benefit away. The genocide in Sudan is colonial because Muslim nomads occupy land which others wish to exploit.
There is also a difference between inter-tribal displacement and what the Israelis have done to Gaza and the US have done to Iraq. Both places have considerable potential, but they have been made unworkable and filled with deadly depleted uranium from bombs. This form of displacement is sheer Old Testament despoilment. However, the purpose of Old Testament genocide was to remove and obliterate idol-worship and animism. A cause which is legitimised in the Qur’an. The purpose of Israeli and US genocide is to foster idol-worship and animism. Okay the idols are different. Today’s idols are the power of WMD which USUK and Israel possess in huge quantities, and which they believe to be invincible. Their animism is not the worship of spirits, but the worship of themselves as superior beings to the other humans around them.
Muslim slave traders. I was thinking about this last night. How do you tell if someone is an Arab in Africa? They are light-skinned and speak Arabic. I have seen black Jews, but by and large whey are light skinned. So can anyone prove to me that the Arabs who black Africans detest so much today and who they previously accused of masterminding the slave trade, were in fact Arabs and not Jews? If they are Arab, are they Muslim?
Slavery is not forbidden in Islam, because in a Holy War against polytheists, but not people of the Book, captives could be taken and enslaved. Many Arabs in the Middle East seem to think that it is legitimate for them to enslave anyone they like, even if they are Muslim. but they did not lift a finger to fight anyone, and instead they used their oil wealth to pamper the enemies of Islam and themselves and to transgress all the limits of their religion. Those who assist the enemies of Islam to cause conflict against the Muslims are not called Muslims, but hypocrites. The hypocrites made a confederacy with the Jews against Islam and I suspect it is this type of “Arabs” who are/were engaged in exploitation in Africa.
“Suhayl: Agreed. However, they did not win back “their” country (a protest in Sharpeville is hardly a freedom struggle worthy of the attention it receives), they received it back. A sign that the times are changing…or are they? Apparently they are not, it’s war as always.”
Yes, Ben, perhaps, but through decades of struggle – of which Sharpeville,
Soweto, Robben Island, etc. were merely the most visible manifestations internationally and through the threat of complete and absolute chaos and destruction if De Klerk had not begun to deal with the ANC when he did. No-one ever willingly gives away power – that is a lesson history has taught us again and again. As I said earlier, the ANC did a deal with international capitalism (which included the White S. African rulers); the current problems are a function of that ongoing economic compromise and many decades of the mass brutalisation that was apartheid and the enormously damaging (British) economic and political colonialism which preceded and facilitated both of the aforementioned dynamics.
Euan Husami – a piper, I see – interesting, Richard, as always!
The larries are so f-in C17th! Fundo capitalists, the lot of them! Get with it, Larry! Blackbeard’s been dead for 350 years, man!
Thanks Ruth for concurring on that. Alan Campbell and Angrysoba can sneer as much as they like. I was expresing my total disillusionment with what is laughingly called a ‘democracy’.
And aren’t the trolls on this site getting cross? Perhaps they know that the system they support is on the slide.
Some of the whiteys from ZA are beyond belief too. Doomed and living in the past.
One Scots king (can’t remember which) awarded lands to a subject for services rendered. He asked how he should take possession (they already belonged to someone else). ‘Walk alang the dyke and lowp it whaur it’s low’ said the king. (Walk along the wall and jump over where it’s low). Most land was acquired that way.
“I live in hopes of meeting a Glaswegian called Euan Husami.”
Glaswegians of my acquaintance: Harry Keery, Hugh Deeney (truly).
Look, people, the basic fact that needs to be understood is that transnational corporate capitalism is colour-blind.
The local military-economic elites in Africa and much of western and southern Asia are corrupt brown and black international capitalist elites who maintain the dominant hegemony. A switch of ruling cadre – from white to black in S. Africa; from French to West African; from British to Idi Amin/ Milton Obote in Uganda; from British to the Army and feudal landowners in Pakistan (and on…) serves only to perpetuate the gross injustics of the world economy and the often engineered, or at least exacerbated, tribalisms that keep people divided and deluded.
As I’ve said before, and as others on this platform have made clear, the problems in S. Africa/ Pakistan/ Iraq/ Colombia stem from an agglomeration of historical and contemporary economic dynamics which, while develving into local variants, essentially derive from one root cause: the economic colonialism that underpins and defines cartel capitalism.
Suhayl: exactly, thanks.
“a piper, I see” – you know, I’ve had that name on my mind for years, but it never occured to me to try a quick google & see whether anyone had done it. So, thanks for that, it provoked me to. A tune. Pipe Major, even, as is only right and proper. I *need* to play this.
I shall have to Institute Enquiries, see if I can dig up some dots from somewhere, I’m not feeling up to buying many CDs just now …
Also “Harry Keery, Hugh Deeney”, splendid.
I tend to take that view that it is best not to talk ill of the newly dead as it is in bad taste and will only be used by any of their supporters to further their cause. Far better to focus your fire on the noxious and odious views of the living such as Alfred, and even better if you go out and dilute your British genes with a little bit of interracial breeding as both Craig and I have done.
On a more serious level I do agree with Charles Crawford about the importance of seeking reconciliation between opposing communities. History shows that allowing revenge to drive policy has not been entirely sucessful – look at the consequence of WW1 reparations if you want a good example. Turning back the clock to the status quo ante is hardly ever a realistic option – and perhaps rather than focusing on the likes of Terre Blanche a little more attention should be paid to those such as Mandela (and many White South Africans) who have recognised the need for reconciliation. I don’t remember as much attention being paid to the death of the late great Helen Suzman as there was to Terreblanche.
Cue loads of garbage from the usual quarters.
“Alan Campbell and Angrysoba can sneer as much as they like. I was expresing my total disillusionment with what is laughingly called a ‘democracy’.”
Very kind of you Mary, I think I will. But wasn’t it you who posted a link to some website saying, “Give your vote to someone in another country”?
Not much of a gift if you think voting is a sham in the first place and completely worthless. It’s like giving someone a Woolworths voucher.
Those who sneer at democracy tend to be those who know that their own views will never be accepted by a majority. They are also too ignorant to recognise the sacrifices made by many in order to obtain the right to vote – which they will gladly throwaway.
Even though Craig never got many votes – he was able to get his point across.
Ah, Smart Mary! So you are the ‘other’ Mary, I presume. Does this pseudonym infer that the previous Mary is ‘not smart’? Or are all Marys smart by definition? What about ‘Proud Mary’?
“Ah see a bad moon risin’…”
“But for those who wish to retain their identity, their racial distinctness, their culture, their natural resources, there will be, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, only a carpet of bombs. For those who wish to retain their government autonomy, there will be only a remote and impersonal bureaucracy such as in Brussels.”
What on Earth is “racial distinctness”? And do you mean suggesting there is anything desirable in “preserving” it?
“Or are all Marys smart by definition?”
Shirley, you can’t be serious. If that were the case then “smart Mary” would be redundant!
And if all Marys are redundant, that’s a pretty good reason to vote.
Alfred – “My logic may not be invincible, but it seems to me that it is virtually impossible for a privileged settler minority to integrate a poor indigenous majority (i.e., granting them full political equality) without losing their privileged status”
That’s the bit that baffles me; the assumption that a minority of immigrants automatically has “full political equality” in its gift, to give or withold for the people who live there, according to how they feel.
Or, given the way they actually behaved, the idea that lots more of them would have behaved any way differently, except more so.
But symmetrical, possibly, with the people who run around telling us in the UK to be terrified of the Muslim Steamroller forcing us into burqas. Where that projection comes from, maybe ? “After all, that’s what ‘we’ did”. So, should that threat be averted by importing so many “Muslims” that they’d feel all nice and secure and unthreatened ? (I had to re-type that, having mis-spelled it as ‘unheated’. Hmm).
Was thinking about this last night.
“Almost all white South Africans were implicated in it and enjoyed its benefits. Never forget that.”
Even if we forget about the people who fought apartheid (they weren’t all celebrity names), what about the people born at the end of apartheid? What about the children born since? What about the people who moved back?
Arsalan, stephen and writerman are right, I think. This history visits the sins of the fathers on the next generation. It divides, where South Africa sounds like it needs unity. And what are individuals supposed to do about it? Hand over their wealth? To whom?
Craig writes movingly about the poorest people slaving in appalling conditions in the mining industries. Then collectivise the mines, or shut them down. But the government cannot do either unless they renationalise, and they cannot renationalise because they’re sewn into the IMF and being forced to do the opposite. So what’s being suggested here? Replacing slaves of one colour with slaves of a different colour? Or just improving the old slaves’ conditions a bit?
The ‘they’re immigrants and they stole all our wealth’ line is historically true of South Africa, but true or not it’s still the same argument used by the powerful against vulnerable minorities everywhere. Meanwhile the multinational corporations are taking over.
My godmother worked alongside Tutu, before he was a bishop. I think he would have been shocked & moved by an old man being hacked to death. Not just because of the nature of the death, but because of the inevitable effect on the perpetrators (one of whom was only a boy).
Fascinating as it has been to learn more about the humanity on this board,
I don’t get this thread at all, really.