Me too, but there are over 5 million whites in SA, I'm sure you don't know them all!
Well that's not my experience of SA, but I guess we've all experienced different things, racism is wrong either way.
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"Respect will make SA safer"
- Thread starter Vox Populi Vox Dei
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TheHiveMind
Banned
While the majority of blacks keep voting for racism as opposed to reconciliation.. Turning the other cheek, and apologising for something I didn't do gets a bit old.
No, sorry. I will not kiss @rse on the off chance they will not be racist when they become president. That is their job and responsiblity from the beginning and its not up for debate. This guy talks about a minority in the country holding all the responsibility. We apparently have more responsibilities than the majority?? Than the government? I think not. We do have responsibilities, but being overly nice is probably going to look fake and racist.
I can see why he feels he needs to make this effort towards blacks. Cause he was brought up to want to exterminate them. I however was not brought up that way, and feel no guilt about anything.
His solution is racist by default because its based on treating people differently based on colour. But to each his own.
What happened to the responsibility of the blacks now that they have what they wanted? What happened to forgive and forget? I would like to point out, that forgive and forget was most definitely expected by the international community. They wanted to balance things, not tip them the other way for payback.
ATM they are feeding the "I told you so" squad by not living up to that.
Kloofvreter
Honorary Master
At least he won't be making a killing...
Kloofvreter
Honorary Master
So basically this guy is saying "Respect the blacks or else..." 
Apologies, I was just responding to your statement that 'The whites have sacrifice everything (street names, job opportunities, etc).' and mistakenly thought you were including yourself in that statement.
There is more to it than that. During apartheid there was a systematic campaign to teach black people that they were inferior, there never was and never will be a black person worth respecting, any knowledge of black leaders was suppressed and history was written as if black people were for the most part inconsequential and irrelevant - history belonged to the white man. I just think people need role models - they need to learn the names of people they can respect and look up to. They need a history they too can be proud of. We take it for granted maybe, I don't know, but OR Tambo should not be seen as a 'political name' - he was a great man who risked life and limb for the betterment of people and the freedom of the oppressed. We should all be grateful and proud to have one like him in our history books. I personally don't have a problem naming the airport after him, but I don't think it really is that big a deal.
No there is no measurement. just day to day interactions and conversations
supersunbird
Honorary Master
It was changed from Jan Smuts to nice and neutral Joburg International, then changed from nice and neutral JHB Int to OR Tambo.
Race relations were worse in my opinion during Apartheid.
There are currently incidences of racial tensions whereas during apartheid it was a way of life.
On the NP's change of heart explanation, I beg to differ.
The demise of apartheid was due to enormous pressures rather than a change of heart.
PW had already abolished petty apartheid laws like mixed marriages and introduced a tri-cameral parliament system. The cracks were already showing then hence the formation of the Conservative Party.
The reforms had already started when FW de Klerk became president. In the 70s and 80s there was so much violence such that the country was at the brink of a civil war. All of this was costing the gvt dearly. If you add the sanctions, which led to massive debt, inflation, disinvestment to this equation and there was only one alternative - negotiation.
The decade long stagnation and lack of growth of the economy became the major source of social unrest.
Another thing to be considered was the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Since the Apartheid GVT viewed communism as a threat and communist regimes had been the funders of the ANC's arms struggle, there was in my opinion a favourable platform for both sides to seek a negotiated settlement,
So to say it was a change of heart by the NP gvt would not be accurate.
When faced with
1. continued violence,
2. increased global pressure,
3. continued economic decline,
4. risk of civil war, etc,
What choice did they have?
It was changed from Jan Smuts to nice and neutral Joburg International, then changed from nice and neutral JHB Int to OR Tambo.
It could not be JHB Int when it was no longer in JHB
I'm not sure where you get this "forgive and forget" nonsense from, or what international community expected it or why the their expectations even matter.
I guess the problem is generalizations - not all whites are racist bastards - but a lot of them still are. Not all blacks are racist bastards - but a lot (understandably) are.
Whites still hold a lot of economic power and clout in this country and with increased power comes increased responsibility.
what happened to forgive and forget is that broad and massive inequalities still exist as a direct legacy of apartheid. In wealth, health, literacy and opportunity. While we have political rights and political freedom, we still live in a form of 'economic apartheid', though I know I'm being unduly extreme in that metaphor.
Of course I'm not saying it's your fault, it is a legacy of apartheid for the most part, though the inability of the current government has to shoulder much of the blame too.
But since the wealth of the country today is still mostly in the hands of white people (again a legacy of apartheid) it is our responsibility to try and make amends for the past by using our wealth today to create a better future.
I agree that we need to balance things, not tip them the other way for payback, but perhaps, like pendulum it has to swing the other way before resting in the middle. Or something.
By erasing ours?
TheHiveMind
Banned
Without a doubt, it is a pendulum. Everything you say is true. I just think that alot of people expect so much from whites in this country. We are just normal people, we too have problems. and revisiting the racism issue every single day can get to me now and then.
Forgive and forget (or atleast stopping talking about it) is a pre-requisite to moving on and building a rainbow nation. Now, I KNOW all of that rainbow nation stuff is propoganda, but that is what they said.. That is how they want the international community to view this country.
I personally don't need to be forgiven for anything, cause I did nothing. But atleast they can stop blaming apartheid for everything, they are in a position to make changes, atleast they can stop the seperation campaign they are on etc. Atleast they can stop the racist slurs and get on with building a future. Im talking about the ANC primarily. They seem to have escalated all of these in the last few years, which makes little logical sense. but ofcourse they have their own goals.
But right now, apartheid seems to be some kind of a magical excuse that can be used to validate everything. We have never been this stuck in the past, and less focussed on a goal.
One of the American indian tribes has a wonderful way of dealing with things like this.
If you have been wronged, you can talk about it, and everyone will listen and sympathise. You can do that 3 times. After the third time you bring it up you are just whining and they will turn their back on you.
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Divestar
Senior Member
I second that!
Maybe you need to be forgiven because you continue to do nothing.
(OK, that was a low blow, I know, and I don't mean it as a personal attack on you, just the principle of the thing, what are we (me included) doing today to make a better country)
But I think blame where blame is due. Apartheid is responsible for everything:
Many white people complain they are being discriminated against by things like affirmative action. The number of times I've heard I'm going overseas because there is no future here - all the jobs are going to blacks, the government is racist against whites etc but consider:
*The unemployment rate of the black population aged 15-65 is 28.1%
The unemployment rate of the white population aged 15-65 is 4.1%.
*The median annual income of black working adults aged 15-65 is R12,073.
The median annual income of white working adults aged 15-65 is R65,405.
(black males have a median annual income of R14162 vs R8903 for black females)
(white males have a median annual income of R81701 vs R52392 for white females)
There are many other stats regarding housing, access to services, land ownership etc which show the same trend. In the light of such stats it's hard to say we're being discriminated against.
If you don't blame Apartheid for that, who do you blame?
Arthur
Honorary Master
That so sweeping a statement it's hardly true, though seldom challenged for fear of being branded a racist.
Here goes:
Whites have wealth not only because of unjust priviledge reserved to them by apartheid but because their historical social, economic and political system encouraged and rewarded work. Remember, they came to this country and it had zero infrastructure. Zilch. They came from very far away, in little boats.
Ditto in Australia. or New Zealand. Or America. Or wherever the Europeans settled in any numbers.
These countries were built up mostly by dint of hard work, and emphatically not because they stole their wealth from the natives, as the oh-so-tedious conventional narrative has it. Yes, these Eueopeans practised slavery, but on a very much smaller scale than the muslim world. That is a human atrocity of course, but it is also not a hugely significant economic fact.
Let me say at once that this is not because whites are superior. To conclude thus (as the weak-minded might be tempted to do) is racist and it is wrong. It is a nevertheless a simple plain irrefutable and undeniable fact of history, and we need to (a) recognise it, and (b) give an accounting for it.
For me the answer lies in culture, that hard-to-pin amalgam of values, beliefs, practices, habits, traditions, activities, and whatnot, variously subtly and powerully expressed in the features and institutions that comprise social life. Culture also has political and economic cognates. And it is a fact that the peoples of Europe and their ilk, through a vast and complex interplay of factors, some centuries ago arrived at a cultural mode which since then has achieved near total technological, political and economic preeminence. Western technology, culture, political thought, philosophy, music, diet, economic systems, etc are utterly dominant and pervasive. With the exception of radical Jihadism, there is not even the remotest speck of a challenge to this dominance.
Let me reiterate that I do not for one second believe this has anything to do with race in any crude biological or psychographical manner. (For the record, both my wife and I have been in prison for opposing the apartheid regime, and I execrate any form of racism).
No, the reason why the majority of the wealth is in the hands of the whites is not only or even mainly because of apartheid, or colonialsim, or the other usual villains trotted out by crypto-socialists, collectivists and obscurantists.
The cultural drivers that made this incredible development possible are human and emphatically NOT racial, ethnic or tribal. Don't forget, European tribes were for millennia mired in cultural systems that arrested development and enrenched backwardness. We're all people, and equally people. But cultures are not equal.
In another forum and on another day I can make the case that the key cultural breakthrough came with the abandonment of collectivist proprietal schemes. It did not start in Europe, but it was adopted there, and widely profilerated. It was a cultural revolution rooted in a cultic renaissance. And it has absolutely nothing to do with race or class or sex or age or any other irrelevant human variable.
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Well, they say that history belongs to the victors
but seriously, if by 'our history' you mean the bullsh*t I was fed at school, then yes.
I don't know how old you are, apparently the history syllabus changed a lot after 1994 so to be honest I can't say.
Best I can do here is offer a quote by Tom Robbins:
"Hardly a pure science, history is closer to animal husbandry than it is to mathematics, in that it involves selective breeding. The principal difference between the husbandryman and the historian is that the former breeds sheep or cows or such, and the latter breeds (assumed) facts. The husbandryman uses his skills to enrich the future; the historian uses his to enrich the past. Both are usually up to their ankles in bull****."
Divestar
Senior Member
Let me assure you that I have what I have because I worked for it. Not because apartheid gave it to me.
Let's be fair. I was 13 when the black government took over. I had no say in aparheid or the results of it. Why should I, as a white male, working for what I have, still be punnished?
There were blacks in my school the year following the 1994 election. They had the same oppurtunities and education. He, being a black male, got a job that we both applied for (because he was black). Does it seem fair to ask me to embrace "reconciliation" or even "forgive and forget"? I don't think so. The whole "white's-are-racists" thing is because we (young white males) are being put at a disadvantage for something we had nothing to do with.
You can call me anything you like (even a racist) but just know this: The blacks force us to feel this way!
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TheHiveMind
Banned
You see, after 14 years, if you still don't have a house, you need to start shifting the blame from one government to the other. Otherwise they will continue to use this excuse forever and noone will be uplifted. The more people in trouble, the more they can use the excuse, and the more they can get away with. They have power and resources, but if they leave things as they are and blame apartheid, does the blame not shift to them??????
I struggle to see how mentioning apartheid along with every problem, can be constructive, so long after the fact.
What am I NOT doing that black people are?
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stoke
Honorary Master
Actually, I agree, treat EVERYONE with respect, and only disrespect them that deserve disrespect.
Kinda obvious that.
Kinda obvious that.
Well, mentioning apartheid by itself is not constructive, but recognizing the massive scope of the problems created by apartheid, recognizing that 14 years is NOT a long time to address the problems of entrenched racism and slavery that spanned over 300 years. Aside from the psychological impact apartheid had on black people (which is perhaps another discussion altogether) I think you underestimate the scope of the problem our post apartheid government has to tackle. They have the power and resources but the time is another story, 14 years is nothing. Consider that between 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008 our government built 248,850 houses for people and that this hasn't made a dent. Go look at all the squatter camps today and then consider that since 1994, the state has built 1.4 million houses, providing more than 5 million people with homes. Realize how big this problem actually is. 1.4 million houses over 14 years - you can't say they've done nothing, just not enough. Consider that only 51.7% of black South Africans have running water on their property (17.9% actually have running water inside their dwelling). If we estimate the population of black south africans to be about 35 million that means that the government needs to supply water to about 17 million people. Over 14 years that's 1.2million properties needing pipes and water infrastructure a year!!! Over 3000 a day!!! And that's just water....
Struggling, probably
TheHiveMind
Banned
I have struggled in the past.. ^_~
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