'Whites have reason to moan'

bodhi

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http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Whites-have-reason-to-moan-20100516

Marlene Malan and Anastasia de Vries

Cape Town – Writer and musician Rian Malan and writer and poet Antjie Krog were involved in a heated discussion at the Franschhoek Literary Festival over the weekend.

“I’m not disillusioned, I’m ****ing furious! All I see is darkness,” said Malan after the discussion where Krog tackled him and other whites in South Africa who sat on the sidelines and “only complain and don’t get involved in solutions.”

Malan and writers Imraan Coovadia and Mandla Langa were panel members of the discussion “Writing on the Wall” on Friday. The discussion was about SA’s future after the 2010 World Cup and was led by journalist Christi van der Westhuizen. She admitted on Sunday it was a “heated debate”.

Krog was furious after Malan said SA didn’t have the ability to solve its problems.

“I said whites had reason to complain. White people feel irrelevant, impotent. We complain, but nobody listens. And if we complain, we are called racists or we have to hear: How dare you! You are white!” Malan said.

He said he had to pay tax but got nothing in return. He also said there were many in the ANC who didn’t agree with the way the country was run but they were too scared to open their mouths.

Krog said on Saturday she had said it was problematic if a person had become so entrenched in privilege, as everyone who was sitting in beautiful Franschhoek was, telling one another how the country was going down the drain, then washing their hands of it and moving on to a nice wine tasting.

“It is the height of privilege to enjoy the benefits during apartheid and now, under the new dispensation to still enjoy all the benefits PLUS blame everything that is wrong on other people.”

“If Jacob Zuma had only four years of schooling before he went to Robben Island; whose fault is that?”

Van der Westhuizen said it was rather a debate about white identity and “about what it meant to be white. It was a constructive discussion.”

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I agree with the part marked in bold - people still enjoying privilege ..

Although I am white , I don't agree with Malan on this. Having a better life than the majority of the SA population should and still makes me grateful for what I have. But then to each their own - if you feel SA is f**ked up - then you have the right to that opinion and I should respect that opinion. I personally will always remain positive about SA.
 
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The wealthy under apartheid are still wealthy, their numbers have just been increased by the new cadre of backhands and tenders. The poor ( of all races ) are still screwed.
 
The wealthy under apartheid are still wealthy, their numbers have just been increased by the new cadre of backhands and tenders. The poor ( of all races ) are still screwed.

so true !
 
/thread closure alert on

Very actual topic, I have to agree with previous poster, both sides have valid points, it's not black and white (no racist pun intended)
 
For one thing, there are a lot of poor people in this country, not all of them are of one particular colour either. I'm getting a little sick and tired of some people saying that whites are privileged, rich and with out cause to moan. Yes, there are sa lot of rich whites in this country, but there are also a lot of poor whites too. It amounts to racial steriotyping, which is just as racist as some idiot AWB member calling a black man the K word. Yes, many whites are rich, privileged and can B!tch better then my mother-in-law but does not detract from many important issues razed such as failure of many para-statals such as, hell, all of them, failure of service delivery in, um, just about everywhere and wide spread corruption from, well, almost everyone. These are legitimate gripes even if it comes from a rich bastard with a sports car and a mansion.
 
For one thing, there are a lot of poor people in this country, not all of them are of one particular colour either. I'm getting a little sick and tired of some people saying that whites are privileged, rich and with out cause to moan. Yes, there are sa lot of rich whites in this country, but there are also a lot of poor whites too. It amounts to racial steriotyping, which is just as racist as some idiot AWB member calling a black man the K word. Yes, many whites are rich, privileged and can B!tch better then my mother-in-law but does not detract from many important issues razed such as failure of many para-statals such as, hell, all of them, failure of service delivery in, um, just about everywhere and wide spread corruption from, well, almost everyone. These are legitimate gripes even if it comes from a rich bastard with a sports car and a mansion.

Agreed. But can we admit that of people in the world, White South Africans are high up there with probably the ones with the least legit reasons to be poor. We did have a system that gave any white person with a std 8 a decent paying job. You really had to be some kind of f-up to not sustain a decent living during that time. And only the most expendible , unskilled , uneducated are the ones that have fallen off the Apartheid gravy train (with exceptions due to bad luck etc as happens anywhere). I'm not saying they deserve it. I'm simply saying that if you can't make it here as a white, you can't make it anywhere. So they can moan, but seriously they can't expect to jump the que. They did sort of well have 50 years to get their **** together.

But I do admit that when I encounter a poor white, car guard perhaps, I'm a little shocked. But I'm mildly suspicious there is a lot of money being made at my and other whities expense by tugging at my guilt. I always overtip and sometimes wonder if the joke isn't on me.

The wealthy I'm less tolerant of the moaning. Just from an irritation level. There's moaning because you have problems and then there's moaning for the sake of it.
 
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Usually the wealthy ones are the ones with skills and the ones quickest to leave SA. Do we need those skills?
 
Sorry for going a little of topic here but didn't the ANC put a few new laws in place to help black people kick start their live after apartheid?
If there aren't any then my bad but if there are would someone please name them.
 
Sorry for going a little of topic here but didn't the ANC put a few new laws in place to help black people kick start their live after apartheid?
If there aren't any then my bad but if there are would someone please name them.

:wtf: - Google is your friend
 
But you can't ask your friend a question when he will not have a fully acurate answer.
 
Sorry for going a little of topic here but didn't the ANC put a few new laws in place to help black people kick start their live after apartheid?
If there aren't any then my bad but if there are would someone please name them.

AA and BEE.

Let the thread explosion commence!
 
Im coloured, and just like any other person of a different race i would say i am screwed over the most. Its debatable which race classification holds that title, but there has to be discontent permeating thru all sectors of society for the question to come up in anycase.

In the advent of any democratic revolution that had the possibility of taking place ie depending on which party took over, i as a person of darker skin would be able to walk on any beach or stay out late in any suburb of my choice without any legal implications. Granted i'd have to understand some reparations would have to take place, but i'd expect those reparations would include me. Sadly thats not the case. Those that claim foul on my assertion, please inform me why a white woman is rated above me in BEE procedures.

So now after i've had a job where the white owner was conceited enough to think he did me a favour (due to my classification) by giving me a job and expected me to kiss the ground he walked, im now back to studying where in my postgrad year im overlooked for bursaries from NRF yet im the best student in class with yearmarks above 80. But i digress, all i do is take it squarely on the chin, get up and do what i have to do to be successful. I expect this treatment for years to come, and i'd be right to moan, but how will moaning change anything?

The govt has failed me, just like it has failed us all by raising a black elite who amass obscene wealth (while the working class black population still live in shacks) due to corruption of the highest order.

Hence, instead of 'whites have the right to moan', i say the whole country has the right to moan. As we have a democratically elected govt, we have a system in place to deal with this problem. Only thing to do now is to be inclusive of everyone instead of this 'apartheid' whereby races only see things from their own perspective. So get out there and start constructive debates, start on varsities since our students are our trendsetters and are ideally placed to weigh the arguments.
 
Agreed. But can we admit that of people in the world, White South Africans are high up there with probably the ones with the least legit reasons to be poor. We did have a system that gave any white person with a std 8 a decent paying job. You really had to be some kind of f-up to not sustain a decent living during that time. And only the most expendible , unskilled , uneducated are the ones that have fallen off the Apartheid gravy train (with exceptions due to bad luck etc as happens anywhere). I'm not saying they deserve it. I'm simply saying that if you can't make it here as a white, you can't make it anywhere. So they can moan, but seriously they can't expect to jump the que. They did sort of well have 50 years to get their **** together.

But I do admit that when I encounter a poor white, car guard perhaps, I'm a little shocked. But I'm mildly suspicious there is a lot of money being made at my and other whities expense by tugging at my guilt. I always overtip and sometimes wonder if the joke isn't on me.

The wealthy I'm less tolerant of the moaning. Just from an irritation level. There's moaning because you have problems and then there's moaning for the sake of it.

Yes, but where have you been? Apartheid ended 15 years ago last I checked. When will Apartheid stop being the cause of the countries problems? When will just plain poor governance and corruption (the real cause of poverty now) begin to be considered as the cause?

Let me perfectly clear, I think apartheid has a lot to do with the countries problems now, but until SA stops looking back instead of forward, stops harking on the past instead of looking to the future, we are always going to be in the same boat. Apartheid has caused many issues but those issues can be fixed, if we stop going around in circles. If the Gov stopped there current trend of corruption and blame and actually did somethig, then those issues of Apartheid from the past could become non-issues now,
 
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Sorry for going a little of topic here but didn't the ANC put a few new laws in place to help black people kick start their live after apartheid?
If there aren't any then my bad but if there are would someone please name them.

Pretty pisss poor that they can't make it these days in spite of the jump start, BEE; AA; .......... affords them.

Other countries, such as South Korea, realise that the road to success is through good education and hard work, but what do they do here, they lower the standards of education and delivery such poorly educated twatts that have the opinion that they must be employed in the top job because of some event in the past, and they think the worthless piece of paper they got from a learning institute indicates that they're "educated".
 
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