A Simple Example Of Communal Decline
A Letter From South Africa by Jim Peron (September 1998)
When a country begins sliding into oblivion it really is the little
things that get to you. You wake up in the morning and turn to see
what time it is. The clock is off. The electricity is off again.
Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, but it seems
to happen more regularly than before.
You pick up the phone at work to make a call. Nothing. Your
neighborhood is without telephone service again. You breathe a sigh of
relief—at least if all the phones are out, they'll do something
relatively soon to fix it. If it's just your own line, it can take
days before they'll do anything.
After the power comes on, you turn on the television to watch a
favorite program, and hope you get the right sound with the right
picture. Sometimes you get the sound of one show with the picture of
another. Sometimes it's just the one or the other. Or a radio station
instead of the soundtrack. You've read the papers—a large number of
the "old" employees have walked out of the broadcasting studios. They
couldn't take it anymore. And since television is an arm of the
government, their replacements are appointed politically, not because
of their experience or ability.
You drive home after going out for dinner. Entire neighborhoods are
without street lights. Well, to be more accurate they are without
lights that work. And the lights have been out for months. The city
has said it won't fix them.
These are the little things in South Africa today. These are the
things that annoy. The big things are too frightening even to
consider.
Kafkaburg
For two years I couldn't get a water/electricity/tax bill from the
city of Johannesburg. Water and electricity are socialist enterprises
here. I didn't have an account number, nor did I know how much to pay.
I tried calling the bureaucrats, but no help there: they said they'd
get back to me, but they didn't.
On September 25th, they showed up to turn off my electricity for
failure to pay. The city workers refused to show identification,
wouldn't say whose account they were turning off, and wouldn't show
any legal authorization to do so. In fact, they told me they didn't
have to speak a language I understood (English). I called the police.
I have a videotape of these civil servants telling me they aren't
obligated to identify themselves, and that if I refused to allow them
on the property they had the right to tear down my gate. When I asked
one of them for anything that would show them to be city workers, he
replied, "This isn't America you know." I know! I know!
I told him, "It's not Nazi Germany, either." He later chastised me for
running down "Nazi Germany." "I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't realize
you were a Nazi."
I went to the city hall and waited hours for someone to see me. I was
finally told to make a plan to pay the account. I was willing. I had
R7,000 (7,000 rand) cash on me. But the bureaucrats wouldn't let me
pay or make a plan. They had forgotten to transfer the account to my
name, you see; it was still in the old owner's name and the bill was
going to the wrong address. I was ordered to wait until they changed
it over and sent me a statement.
I pay a R700 deposit and go. Two days later they turn on the
electricity. Two months later, and still no statement has arrived. I
call and call. "I'll call you back," they say. They don't. I keep
calling. Finally I get a sour bureaucrat who tells me I'll have to pay
R9,000 immediately and the rest over six months. I asked about the
year payment plan. That was discontinued in November. "But I wanted to
pay in October and you people wouldn't let me," I protest. "That's
your problem," she says.
Back at city hall, I see another woman who spends the entire time
screaming at everyone who comes near her. She screams in the phone.
She screams at the switchboard for "bothering" her with phone calls.
She informs me that it's my obligation to pay my account whether or
not the city sends me a statement. It doesn't matter if I don't know
the amount owed. It doesn't matter if I don't have an account number
to which the money is to be credited. My obligation is to pay an
unknown sum into an unknown account, and if I don't get it right
they'll turn off my electricity.
I got off relatively easy, though. Today's newspaper told of one man
who received an account for R500,000 in water use. The man owns a well
and doesn't even use city water. When he went in to talk to the
bureaucrats, they were very sympathetic. They told him to pay 50
percent now or have his electricity cut off.
The Rise of Violence
Recently, I went into a print shop to get some flyers printed. The
woman there was quite pleasant and we talked about the short blackout
that day. She asked what I was doing in South Africa and told me that
she and her family want to flee. Her family originally immigrated from
India; like some Indians she was quite dark. Clearly she was not a
member of the class "privileged" by apartheid. But what she said
surprised me.
"My husband and I decided we were better off under apartheid. Sure now
we can live next to white people and ride the same bus. But those
things aren't important."
What is important? Not being afraid.
Today, the murder rate is ten times greater in South Africa than in
the United States. One world atlas reports: "South Africa is the
world's most dangerous country (beside war zones), with 40,000 murders
a year." It wasn't this way four years ago, before the ANC took power.
But the government says the murders are a "legacy of apartheid."
That's part of the problem. Everything that goes wrong is "a legacy of
apartheid." The violence in the rest of Africa is a "legacy of
colonialism." It's a legacy that has gone on for almost 40 years.
Every time something goes wrong (and that happens constantly), the
same litany of excuses are recited. "We inherited this problem from
the corrupt apartheid regime."
I lived for thirty-some years in the U.S. and never met anyone who had
been shot. I was never near a bank robbery. Never heard of a friend's
car being hijacked. Only one person I knew suffered a burglary.
In the last two years many people I know have been burglarized. In
fact, burglary is so common that people have stopped talking about it.
One of my friends was hit six times in one year. The last time I saw
him I asked what he had done that day. "I got a new TV," he said. "Oh,
how generous of you," I replied. He has since left for England.
White farmers in particular are being targeted. Some, like Werner
Weber, president of the Agricultural Employers Organization, believe
there is an orchestrated campaign to force whites off the land so it
can be redistributed. Farm attacks rise almost every year: 92 killed
in 1994, 121 in 1995, 109 in 1996 and 140 last year. In some attacks
people are murdered but nothing is stolen, indicating that robbery
isn't the motive. Farmer Dudley Leitch told an AEO meeting that while
the murder rate among South Africans in general is 13 per 100,000, it
is 120 per 100,000 for farmers.
A major cellular phone company placed an anti-crime ad in a newspaper
saying, "President Mandela—you were in prison. Now we all are." A top
official of the bureaucracy that regulates telephones called the
company and the ad was withdrawn. I guess it was too rude to state the
obvious.
In America, you don't see what's happening. I know; I watch CNN. It
doesn't even come close to telling the truth about the decline and
death of South Africa. The American media can't tell the truth
now—they have invested too much in telling everyone what a saint
Mandela is.
Meanwhile, we live in prisons. My house has a set of bars on the
outside of the windows and another set inside. I have a Rhodesian
ridgeback dog patrolling the yard. I had a big, spiked,
remote-controlled gate put in the drive. I can't afford the
precautions that others are taking. You now see individual homes with
security guards. Walls over eight feet tall are common, with barbed
wire or spikes on top. Across the street, my neighbors put an electric
fence on the wall—now a commonplace sight. People are armed and have
hired private security companies. In the U.S. following all these
precautions would be considered paranoid. Here it's average.
Police Story
On the street where my bookstore is located, a grocery has been robbed
a couple of times. So were the post office and bank.
In the last few months, four of my customers have been hijacked by
armed gangs, one of them in my parking lot. One was shot through the
leg, another was shot at but missed. Another was beaten and spent
weeks in the hospital. Well over 3,000 hijackings are reported each
year. A family driving to Durban for holiday pulled to the side of the
road so the two little boys could get out and take care of business.
Several hours later the police found the two children sitting against
the bodies of their dead parents; murdered for a car.
The new president of the ANC, Terror Lekota, told the press that the
hijackings are the fault of apartheid. He claims the "apartheid
regime" gave immunity from prosecution to hijackers in exchange for
"intelligence" gathering on the ANC. Last year, another top government
official blamed the spate of hijackings on whites. He said there was
no crime wave at all, and that whites were inventing crimes just to
collect insurance.
The acting head of the Licensing Department for the Johannesburg area,
Gerrie Gerneke, issued a report in July 1997 confirming that the
department was in the control of criminal syndicates. He said that
half of all cars stolen in the Johannesburg area are "legalized" with
new official documents within 30 days of being stolen. He said that
cooperation between criminal gangs and union members has made it
impossible for senior staff members or security staff to take any
action. After Gerneke's report to the government was made, two
anonymous letters accused him of being a racist. As a result of these
anonymous complaints, Gerneke was suspended for five months. A year
later Gerneke says the government has not acted on any of his
recommendations to deal with corruption. When a car theft ring was
recently exposed, five of the 16 individuals arrested were policemen.
The chief investigator said, "We found that policemen were receiving
stolen cars and then selling them to their clients."
In 1997 corruption reached such a level that Mandela appointed a
Special Investigating Unit to look into the matter. According to Judge
Willem Heath, head of the unit, there are currently more than 90,000
cases under investigation. If Heath and his crew manage to resolve one
case of corruption per day, including weekends and holidays, it will
take about 247 years to clear the current backlog. This doesn't
include any new cases that will arise. Heath thinks the cases involve
a sum of around 6 billion rand.
In 1997 approximately 2,300 police officers were charged with
corruption —just about one every three hours. Almost 500 police
officers have appeared in court on charges of working with criminal
gangs. In the Johannesburg area alone 700 police officers are facing
trials for committing crimes ranging from murder to burglary. And
everyone assumes this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Over the last two years, there have been dozens of major highway
robberies. In broad daylight gangs of a dozen men armed with AK-47s
and other "military" weapons attack security trucks carrying large
amounts of cash. These robberies have netted millions for the gangs.
Government officials blame security companies, banks, and anyone else
they can think of. But some arrests have finally been made, the
ringleaders have turned out to be ANC activists. The leaders who were
arrested were officials in the so-called "armed wing" of the ANC,
Umkhonto weSizwe. One gang leader had been Youth League secretary for
the Johannesburg area. A close associate of his, also a gang leader,
was arrested but "escaped" from jail. Both were recent guests at the
birthday party of Peter Mokaba, Deputy Minister of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism. There is evidence that Umkhonto weSizwe activists
are not only behind some of the robberies, but that they are working
with other armed cadres associated with so-called liberation movements
from bordering countries.
In 1997 alone, there were 465 bank robberies. In all about $40 million
was taken. Banks are raising their fees substantially to compensate
for the losses.
Crime seems to be the only thing that works in South Africa—the risk
of being arrested, tried and convicted is minuscule. In 1997, only
14.6 percent of murders led to arrest and conviction. Of 52,110 rapes
there were only 2,532 convictions—about 6.7 percent. For the 330,093
burglaries there were 15,710 convictions, about 4.8 percent.
Experienced prosecutors have quit their jobs, replaced by novices who
owe their positions to affirmative action.
During the 1997 Christmas season, the police and prisons "lost" almost
300 prisoners. In one instance a policeman took two prisoners to a bar
for drinks. One of them borrowed his keys and returned to the jail to
release 23 other prisoners. At another jail nine prisoners walked out,
leaving behind a note: "We are out for Christmas and will be back on
January 3." (They didn't come back.) Several prisoners left a police
van when guards didn't bother locking it.
In 1995, Sylvester Mofokeng was taken out of his cell for a soccer
game. When he was returning to prison, he simply jumped out of the
truck and ran through gates that were left unlocked. He was rearrested
three months later, but in August 1996 he escaped again. Somehow he
obtained a gun from a visitor and used it to force guards to release
him.
Josiah Rabotapi is believed to be the leader of an armed robbery
syndicate involved in the theft of up to $14 million in 30 armed
robberies. He is also wanted for 16 murders. So far he has been
arrested three times and escaped every time. Jan van der Westhuizen, a
convicted murderer, has escaped from prison or police custody seven
times.
When the police aren't "losing" criminals, they are killing them. A
recent government report showed that one person dies every twelve
hours either while in police custody or as a result of police action.
Two-thirds of these deaths take place during apprehension. According
to one report, "an overview of 100 shooting incidents between police
and civilians" showed a heavy "imbalance in casualties." David Bruce,
a researcher for the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation said, "In only five of the cases was a policeman hurt,
and in one case a policeman was killed."
In the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, citizens are fighting back.
In some areas they have put security guards at the entrance to a
subdivision. Entrances are closed off with gates to control who comes
in and who goes out. Criminals can no longer simply load their cars
with stolen goods and speed out when security guards stop them at the
gate. These areas have seen dramatic reductions in crime. But the ANC
has ordered the gates removed. It claims these efforts force crime
away from white areas and are therefore racist.
This is life in South Africa today.
I've lived in South Africa for six years and I've seen a lot of
changes. Even a few for the good. But the standard of living has
declined. And people's attitudes have changed: hope is gone, replaced
by fear, anxiety, even horror. There is a joke going around: Americans
have Bill Clinton, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. South Africans have
Nelson Mandela, no cash and no hope.
The Return of Apartheid
Another popular joke is that Mickey Mouse has a watch with the picture
of our Ministers of Finance. In the six years that I have lived here
the South African rand has depreciated by 50 percent. In just the last
year it has dropped 30 percent.
The government has conducted a massive "jobs" program. But since the
ANC has taken power the number of jobs has declined, despite sanctions
being lifted and increased trade with the rest of the world. The only
job increases are in government departments.
South African workers are not particularly productive. But the
government has been pushing new labor legislation that continues to
drive up the cost of South African labor. No wonder that fewer and
fewer South Africans are employed.
The ANC is pushing a new "Equity Employment" bill through Parliament.
This bill will force all employers to reserve a number of jobs for
blacks. Businesses that don't comply with the mandatory racial quotas
face heavy fines. And so apartheid is back—the old laws in new
packaging.
Recently, ANC members of Parliament have announced that they intend to
introduce legislation applying racial quotas to sports. Specifically,
the government wants to control rugby, a sport played traditionally by
whites (unlike soccer, which is dominated by blacks). Mandela ordered
a commission to investigate racism in the South African Rugby Football
Union. SARFU took the issue to court and the court ruled against the
commission. ANC officials then proclaimed the judge an unpatriotic
racist for requiring Mandela to testify on why the commission was
created.
ANC MPs, unable to get control of rugby legally, resorted to
intimidation. They announced on the floor of Parliament that unless
the leadership of SARFU resigns, ANC members will forcibly close
airports to prevent other rugby teams from entering South Africa.
Major corporations, all fearful of the ANC, threatened to remove
financial support from SARFU unless the ANC got its way. Rugby head
Louis Luyt, who had defeated an ANC partisan for the job, was forced
out by the threats. After Luyt resigned, SARFU apologized to Mandela
for making him go to court.
Communists in Government
The government of South Africa is actually a coalition of three
groups. The ruling triple alliance is made up of the Congress of South
African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party
(SACP), and the African National Congress (ANC), which leads the
coalition. The SACP has a lot of influence in COSATU and together they
exercise a great deal of control over the ANC. Thabo Mbeki, who just
replaced Mandela as leader of the ANC, and is pegged to be president
of South Africa when Mandela steps down, was trained in Moscow. His
father, Govan, is an old line Marxist and SACP activist. At a recent
ANC conference the hard left solidified its control over the ANC by
capturing nine of its eleven top positions. Of the ANC's 240 MPs in
Parliament, 80 were appointed by the SACP. The ANC and COSATU also
used some of their quotas to appoint SACP members to Parliament.
When Chris Hani was assassinated by Janus Waluz, a Polish immigrant,
CNN called Hani, "a top ANC official" or "anti-apartheid activist."
But CNN didn't mention that Hani was the head of the Communist Party
and that Waluz was a refugee from communism. Instead, the impression
was given that Hani was another Martin Luther King.
In the same way, many facts about Mandela and the ANC are never
reported by the media. For example, Mandela awarded South Africa's
equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom to Libya's
Muammar al-Qaddafi. Mandela has publicly said that Cuba is a model for
a free, democratic society that is, in fact, more democratic than the
United States. Castro has been here for friendly visits. When U.S.
officials complained about Mandela's cozy relationship with dictators,
Mandela said that no other nation has the right to interfere in South
African affairs—this from the man who supported sanctions against the
old government. Curiously, Mandela dropped recognition of Taiwan at
the demand of Communist China.
The ANC's Bill of Wrongs
Gay rights are now enshrined in South Africa's Bill of Rights. Gay
publications around the world have praised the ANC for this. But in
fact gay sex remains illegal. The government has taken no practical
steps to legalize homosexuality. When a gay rights group took the
sodomy laws to the Constitutional Court, the government opposed its
effort. After a world-wide outcry, the government backed down. It
appears the ANC is hoping the courts throw out the law, thereby taking
credit for being pro-gay while not being responsible for the change.
Yet the South African government continues to deny foreign gay
partners of South Africans the right to stay in the country legally.
The issue is in court, but the government is opposed to changes in the
policy.
The ruling ideology is that "there are no absolute rights," so the ANC
put "weasel" clauses into the Bill of Rights. Any right guaranteed by
the Constitution can be ignored. For instance, the right to engage in
enterprise is absolute—unless infringed "by law." Thus the government
can do what it wants since it passes the laws. Other constitutional
clauses say rights can be limited by government consistent with the
operation of an "open" and "democratic" society. And remember, Mandela
considers Cuba democratic.
The bill of rights negotiated by various political parties guaranteed
freedom of speech. Repressive censorship laws were relegated to the
dustbin. But the ANC has been pulling them back out and wiping them
off.
A bill to repeal censorship was introduced in Parliament. I even
testified in favor of it. The bill was mediocre but livable. Later,
the ANC rewrote it in secret and passed it without making a written
version available. The new bill actually creates a censorship body.
All videos and films must be approved by the censorship board before
they can be distributed. So-called "x-rated" material can be sold only
in licensed adult shops. Anything deemed "hate speech" is illegal. The
new "obscenity" standard is that anything "degrading" is illegal.
Another victory for clear, concise legal concepts.
Lindiwe Sisulu, deputy minister of home affairs, said the government
"tries" to balance free speech with the rights of "society, in
reality, however, there can never be an absolute balance." This means
"not all speech can be equally protected." Sisulu interprets the new
censorship legislation much more strictly than in the past. She claims
that "anyone who downloads pornography from the Internet will commit
an offense." Note that she has broadened this beyond the act which
banned "degrading" pornography, bestiality, child porn, and hate
speech. Now she says that any downloaded porn is illegal. Expanding
the prior censorship of films and videos, Sisulu says all photos must
be classified by the government before distribution. "No person may
screen a film or photograph, including on a computer screen, which has
not been classified by the Publications Board. This means that anyone
placing material on the Internet must have a classification
certificate for that material." In other words the government now
claims the right to classify—and ban—all photographs before they are
distributed to anyone.
Yet the ANC stills finds the bill of rights too restrictive of
government. Peter Mokaba recently gave a speech in a black area
demanding that all blacks vote for the ANC so it can get two-thirds
control of Parliament. He said this would allow it to rewrite the
constitution and end all restrictions on government power. ANC
secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said that if the ANC won
two-thirds control in the next election, it could govern "unfettered
by constraints."
Supine and Pusillanimous
In the last four years, the nation's largest string of newspapers has
lost its independence from the government after being taken over by
Irish press baron Tony O'Reilly. O'Reilly's Independent group is cozy
with the ANC. An article in The Times of London says O'Reilly has been
criticized for "his unhealthily close relationship with the ANC
government. He began by appointing an advisory board stacked with ANC
supporters and has been vocal in his support for all manner of ANC
causes and watchwords." Journalists have been unhappy that O'Reilly
brought in his biographer, Ivan Fallon, to run the newspapers because
Fallon "is disliked for his refusal to stand up to Government attempts
to bully the press into uncritical support."
According to The Times O'Reilly's newspapers have downplayed scandals
within the ANC government. In the Virodene scandal, ANC politicians
promoted—and still promote—the so-called AIDS drug. Documents show
that the company producing the drug was planning to offer a six
percent share of the profits to the ANC. O'Reilly's papers "have
played down the whole matter, neglecting to cover key press
conferences."
Other newspapers, however, still manage to criticize the government,
and the ANC and Mandela don't like it. Mandela constantly attacks the
press for being "opposed" to the "transformation." In fact the press,
on the whole, was staunchly critical of apartheid. Still, Mandela says
the media, with the exception of television, are racist. In the next
few years, legislation directed against the newspapers is almost
certain. Mandela's hero, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, wiped out
recalcitrant newspapers by simply turning them over to the government.
Television is exempt from Mandela's criticisms because the three main
television stations are already controlled by the government. ANC
officials run the stations and they are often deathly silent about the
problems in South Africa. But they do have time for endless
documentaries on Mandela and the ANC, with titles like "Our Heroes."
One new news director is a long-time ANC supporter with no
broadcasting experience.
Two new mini-series have been produced for the coming season: one is a
glowing film about the life of communist Helen Joseph and her fight
for the ANC, and the other is about ANC partisan Bishop Tutu. A new
television series, funded by the Labour Ministry, is called "Let's
Talk." A recent episode showed the workers, all of whom are called
"comrades," on strike. The owner of the factory, who for some reason
had an American accent, locked out the strikers. But the company
management didn't know how to build their own product, houses, and
built them upside down! The government and the trade unions seem to
believe that entrepreneurs and management are useless, and that all
productivity comes from labor.
The South African Broadcasting System's political allegiances are no
secret: one station's promotional commercial shows its on-air talent
in "rainbow" clothing and marching with colorful flags to triumphant
music. Several flags feature the face of Mandela. In another Stalinoid
presentation, the television producers' award show included a musical
number with the chorus, "Oh, Mandela, we sing praise to you." Not long
ago, the son of the former president of the ANC, Oliver Tambo, who
hosts an SABC talk show, ran an hour-long special praising media mogul
Tony O'Reilly. No doubt the fact that O'Reilly has cuddled up to the
ANC had nothing to do with the praise heaped upon him.
Fascism, South African Style
Civil society is being politicized. Everything must be solidified in
the hands of the State and the State must be in the hands of the ANC.
Last year the government nationalized all water resources in South
Africa. Under new legislation it will be illegal to dig a well without
prior approval from the central government. The ANC attacked critics
of the legislation as "racist whites" who want to protect their luxury
swimming pools. Meanwhile the new rulers admit they can't find 45
percent of all the water shipped to Johannesburg. Only 55 percent of
the water is metered out—the rest simply disappears. But considering
that meters are found almost exclusively in white areas, while black
areas have unmetered taps, this should be no surprise.
But water is only the camel's nose in the tent. The ANC Minister of
Mineral Affairs, Penuell Maduna, called for the nationalization of all
minerals, saying that "private ownership of mineral rights is
unacceptable to the government." Government spokesmen call private
ownership "racist" because not everyone owns mineral rights in a
private system. Maduna previously floated the idea that the government
should also control all oil companies. Under the current system, price
competition in petrol is forbidden and all prices are set by the
government.
The hospitals in South Africa have become nightmares. Two years ago
Mandela announced free medical care for children. The hospitals are
now filled with unemployed women and their children. They sit there
for hours to have a cough or a runny nose checked.
Dr. Zuma, Minister of Health, seems determined to make health care in
South Africa equally bad everywhere. She has conscripted all medical
students to be servants. They are to give two years of their lives to
the State, to do what the State orders, anywhere the State orders. The
legislation doesn't even specify that the service has to be in South
Africa. Speculation is that at least some will be assigned to Cuba.
When it was pointed out to Zuma that huge numbers of doctors and
medical students are now emigrating, she called them "traitors," and
attributed their fleeing to "racism." Wits School of Medicine reported
that 45 percent of all students who graduated in the last 35 years
have already left the country. A recent survey of the top doctors in
South Africa revealed the almost unanimous opinion that Zuma is
destroying the nation's health-care system. The Independent wrote,
"Many doctors said that Zuma's apparent intention to introduce a
communist or socialist national health system was stifling private
practice and initiative. This, coupled with excessive control and
interference, has left doctors despondent." A spokesman for Zuma
responded by saying that if the proposals are "seen as socialist, then
we will continue to do so and offer no apologies."
The destruction of health care has even affected the food supply.
Vaccines that are urgently needed to protect livestock have run out.
The only legal source for purchasing the vaccines in South Africa is
through the government, and the government labs are empty. Farmers who
send in their checks to buy the vaccines have the money returned. The
top veterinary scientists are also leaving the country. At the
Onderstepoort Research Centre only one of the original six specialists
is still there. Onderstepoort, once considered one of the best
research centers in the world, is now limping along. Scientists say
there is a good chance that mutated viruses will decimate the beef,
pork, and lamb industries before new vaccines can be developed. They
warn that the public should expect a shortage of meat and milk as a
result.
Under the old apartheid regime, government schools in black areas were
woefully deficient. When the ANC took over the education system things
changed. Now all the schools are woefully deficient.—equality has been
achieved. But the number of students graduating from high school has
declined under the ANC. Those who do well in school prosper only if
they are the right color. The student who passed more courses with
distinction than any other student in South Africa can't even get a
scholarship. Each application he has made has been rejected because
he's the wrong color. He has the best scholastic record in the country
but no one cares. It isn't wise to give money to anyone not approved
by the ANC.
In the Eastern Cape, near Port Elizabeth, is the impoverished Khwezi
Lomso Comprehensive School. The principal is Cecilia Behrent. During
her tenure the school has achieved a pass rate of 84 percent, well
above the national rate of 47 percent and double that of the
provincial pass rate of 42 percent. The teachers' union, in
cooperation with the government, has been trying to have a union
official replace Behrent, who is white. Her ouster is opposed by
almost every one of her 1,100 students, almost all the teachers, and
over 700 parents who have signed a petition on her behalf. The
government refused to accept the petition.
Johannesburg Besieged
Johannesburg was a relatively safe and clean city when I moved here. I
moved into a racially mixed area in the city center. I left a year
later. Today, I won't drive there in broad daylight. The streets are
controlled by criminals. Some gangs sit at street corners and rob
passing motorists. They break the car window, take what they want,
pile it on the curb, and then wait for another car. They don't even
run with the stolen goods. They don't need to; no one will arrest
them.
Residents of my old neighborhood, Hillbrow, have discovered a new
game: take cans of trash and throw them from 15th floor windows at
pedestrians. The streets are filthy and reek of urine. Businesses are
moving out. The luxury Carleton Hotel held on for awhile but finally
gave up the ghost. No one would stay there, so the hotel closed its
200-plus rooms, and now sits empty.
Mayhem reigned on New Year's Eve. In the Hillbrow section of the city,
nearly 200 police officers patrolled an area of just a few square
blocks —to no apparent effect. Three people were murdered on the
streets that evening. Police who tried to stop looters were pelted
from the high-rise apartment buildings. Paramedics were attacked when
they tried to aid the injured.
So the ANC took action. Johannesburg is a massive city, and the ANC
promised to break its management into several regions. "Local control"
would then be achieved with four gerrymandered districts. Each
district was drawn in the most convoluted way possible, ensuring that
each had enough blacks. The ANC knows where its voters live.
The city hired thousands and thousands of new bureaucrats. In many
cases two people did the same job—one black worker with the title and
one white worker to do the work. Money was redistributed to the
"previously disadvantaged." While black townships haven't improved,
white areas have declined. Now Johannesburg, once the wealthiest city
in Africa, can't pay its bills, and can't get bank loans. It went from
budget surplus to bankruptcy in just two years. More ANC magic.
This black magic is being worked throughout South Africa. The
British-based Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy
recently said that 281 municipalities in South Africa are now
technically bankrupt. That's one out of every three cities in the
country.
Public parks are now squatter camps. Broken water mains gush for days
before they're fixed. Pot holes remain unrepaired. The city budget
allocates less than $100,000 for street repairs for the entire city!
Inefficiency reigns. Under questioning in Parliament, ANC officials
admitted that roads in Gauteng have deteriorated under their
management. Transport Minister Mac Maharaj admitted that only 37
percent of the roads were in good or very good condition in 1997 where
this was true of 80 percent of the roads in 1985.
The Political Struggle
In Johannesburg the opposition party to the ANC is the Democratic
Party DP). Once a leading anti-apartheid party, it is now the only
real opposition to the ANC left, and it has become increasingly
libertarian. It supports the rights of gay people and free enterprise.
It opposes affirmative action and censorship.
The northern suburbs are now staunch DP territory. And they are in a
tax revolt. The government responds by sending in armed goons to
terrorize elderly couples. The ANC isn't happy. My area is the one
area where the ANC doesn't have a clear majority. It can't institute
one party rule here, so it intimidates, punishes, and withdraws basic
city services.
To counter the opposition, the ANC now plans to make the entire
Johannesburg area a "mega city." No more regions. The DP areas will be
swamped "democratically" by ANC supporters, allowing the ANC to
continue to steal from DP voters and give to ANC bureaucrats.
Critics of the mega city were, of course, branded "racists". (Today,
that term has lost all meaning in South Africa. In fact, if you're not
labeled a "racist" one time or another, you're simply not a decent
human being.) Various community groups asked for a referendum. The ANC
said that was undemocratic, and wouldn't have it.
Local DP politician Frances Kendall called for a private referendum.
Hundreds of voting booths were established throughout the city. The
ANC ordered its supporters not to vote. In black areas voting booths
were harassed and intimidated into closing. Then the ANC said the vote
didn't count because there weren't enough voting booths in black
areas. Just under 100,000 people voted. The vote was overwhelmingly
against the "mega city". The ANC said it didn't care and would ignore
it. After all the poll only expressed the views of racists.
When the ANC won power, the election was declared "free and fair" by
European Community observers. One observer admitted to a Federal Party
official that the election would be declared corrupt if judged by
European standards, "but this is Africa." For instance, more voters
voted than existed. A recent census showed the population at under 39
million, not 44 million as previously claimed. Since more than half
the population consists of children, there can't be more than 19
million voters in the country. Yet more than 19 million cast ballots.
No one seems to care that the ANC was elected with millions of
fraudulent votes.
I was receiving hourly vote tallies by fax from the Independent
Electoral Commission. I remember my amazement when I noticed that the
vote total for the Federal Party was higher at 6 p.m. than at 7 p.m.
Votes were disappearing. Vote counting went on for days when suddenly
it stopped. For two days no results were released. IEC officials met
with political party officials behind closed doors before the final
results were negotiated and announced.
For the last several years the ANC has done everything possible to
manipulate the voting system to increase its totals. First, it
proposed that the voting age be reduced to 14 years since the
overwhelming majority of youths are black. Public ridicule has quashed
this proposal for the time being. Next, the ANC tried to change the
laws so that non-citizens could vote provided they were from
"neighboring," i.e. black, countries. Because most white non-citizens
are from England, Canada, the United States, etc. the white vote
wouldn't have increased. Opposition parties managed to kill this
proposal as well.
Instead, the ANC achieved the same goal through the back door. The
vast majority of "illegal" immigrants in South Africa are blacks from
neighboring countries. The ANC granted them immediate citizenship.
Meanwhile, "legal" immigrants, who are mainly whites from Western
countries, find it increasingly difficult to stay in South Africa.
Permanent residency for "legal" immigrants has become more difficult
to receive, and the cost of simply applying has increased from less
than $100 to over $1,400.
The National Party (NP), once South Africa's dominant party, is fast
losing support. It has never really opposed the ANC on anything, and
it has made numerous backroom deals with the ANC to retain privileges
for its leaders. The job of standing up to the ANC is filled by the
"liberal" Democratic Party.
The DP has contested by-elections recently in several NP strongholds.
In each case the DP handily beat the NP candidate. White voters no
longer trust the NP, and with good reason. In the most recent local
election the DP garnered 90 percent of the votes. Just before the
election a top NP official said this seat was the NP's "safest" in the
country. But the ANC is launching a counter-offensive.
DP activists, many of whom were arrested for denouncing apartheid, are
now branded racists by the ANC. ANC media mouthpieces refer to the
"liberal racists" of the DP. ANC officials call liberals "bigots" and
use the term "conservative liberals" to denegrate ANC critics. Party
officials regularly give speeches denouncing critics as being
"unpatriotic." And recently they have started claiming that whites are
preventing its programs from succeeding.
Mandela openly denounces the DP as racist. His objective is to
sideline the DP. Of all the opposition parties—outside the Inkatha
Freedom Party, which is strictly Zulu-based—only the DP has a hope of
attracting black support. It must be destroyed if a one-party ANC
state is to be constructed.
What happens depends largely on how the rest of the world views South
Africa. If there is sufficient criticism and publicity, the would-be
ANC dictators will back down. They have before and will again. But the
ANC is whittling away at the rule of law and the world isn't saying
very much. The ANC won't ban its opposition outright—at least not in
the immediate future. Total government control of all the media isn't
in the cards yet either—but the newspapers will be attacked in the
guise of promoting "diversity." But there is a hope. International
pressure and continued support for the DP may at least hold things
off.
But the odds are against it. South Africa will most likely walk the
road to misery, corruption, despair and destruction. Give it time. It
won't be any different here than in the rest of Africa.
Source:ourcivilisation.com
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/die.htm
Why the title "Die, The Beloved Country"
Fifty years ago (1948) Alan Paton wrote a book " Cry, The Beloved
Country" about the horrors of apartheid in South Africa. It was an
overnight best seller, which was eventually translated into more than
20 languages and became a set book in schools all over the world. To
date it has sold more than 15 million copies and still sells 100,000
copies a year.
The sentiments in the prose which proved so popular have now been
embraced with the abandonment of apartheid, with predictable and
unpleasant results. So by altering one word of this famous title, the
true effects of the change are described.
Death has prevented the author witnessing the achievement of his
dreams, but his widow is still alive and has written a letter to the
London Times explaining why she is now fleeing the country her husband
loved.
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