Tag: racism

By Johann Theron.

Academics developed a modeling technique to help with managing complicated problems. A problem is translated to a model and once a solution emerges from the model, it is translated back to reality for implementation. The model therefore helps to find a solution in quick time, but the double translation between theory and reality incorporates errors that are within a certainty-uncertainty predictability relationship, much like risk-mitigation management.

Since academics are generally paid and managed by politicians, the pursuit of truth has become the “academic pursuit”, where real-world problems are simplified using model simplification in order to find solutions, but the problem comes when the translation process is bent in favor of political policy.

One example of this is the concept of safety. In South Africa Government departments have separated safety responsibilities, such as Manufacturing Health and Safety that falls under the Department of Labour and Mining Health and Safety that falls under the Department of Mineral Resources.

A more pronounced outcome is found where the safety of citizens is divided between the military and police departments. This gross simplification is motivated by focusing the police on internal-to-border activities, while focusing the military on accross-border activities. However, anyone can see the obvious differences between the two forces implying a distinct difference in their construct regarding the meaning of safety.

The International System Safety Society attempts to re-combine this deficiency in meaning through an engineering and system methodology. Systems incorporate all safety, be it human, equipment or political i.e. any risk. In other words, the general conceptualization of safety applied today, is insufficient, inaccurate, and even faulty. The actual concept of “safety”, that is what makes up this concept, was “over-simplified” In other words, the statistics ignore the various “vocabularies” i.e. legal, political, social, cultural, economic that are part of the “ingredients” of what we – in contrast to the various ‘publics’ – understand by “safety”.

Derrida (1930 -2004) is a French philosopher who introduced “deconstruction” as a method to break with Western metaphysical thinking based on binaries. Derrida demonstrated how all assumptions on human life and behaviour are grounded in our use of language. Over-simplified safety therefore has a negative effect on our actual physical safety.

Basically then a meaningful simplification of safety would be some combination of human health, system security and applied processes. The simply means that your personal safety will improve if you are stronger, if you have tools to improve security of self and assets, and lastly whether your processes allow incremental improvement in your general safety such as administrative processes (to measure is to know).

But that is not where it ends; Safety is not the only concept that has been over-simplified. Education and Health aside, let’s focus on for example Finances, where the world has different currencies and people make billions just from the differences between these currencies. This in itself promotes the idea that manufacturing (and jobs) is a waste of time. It means that the West’s financial system is not safe for the average productive citizen. So, finances have also been over-simplified.

Let’s take another look at a security. The Minister of Defense for the western world is the President of the United States. His after-hours job is to also look after the US. In principle he is also looking after Africa and specifically South Africa, historically and even now. Let’s say that North Korea or China is looking after Zimbabwe – which country would you support? If we decide that we support Zimbabwe, the West will see it as an act of aggression and they will undermine us in the same way that Zimbabwe has been undermined. Once you choose a security company, you cannot get rid of them, not easily that is.

The only Afrikaner strength is that we are a possible source of unrest should the ANC decide to join Zimbabwe. The only threat the Afrikaner faces is the West losing interest in SA.

However, an interesting aspect emerged during the 2014 elections. The Afrikaner divided itself in two groups ostensibly called the “enlightened” and the “cramped”; if a direct translation is feasible. Compared to the Jewish separation of white and black Jews, Afrikaners now differentiate between liberal and racists. The unsafe implication of this world view is that black Jews are always put on the frontline of battle and so it is that racist Afrikaners are now put on the frontline of what could be called limited genocide – which includes some English farm victims.

Not a very safe practice indeed. But Afrikaners and English citizens in South Africa supported the National Party before 1994 and both groups support the DA – after 1994. The question is not really politics, it is civil structures. We need to improve our civil cooperation drastically, but to do that we need to safely reconstruct our value system despite frantic efforts by the ANC to psychologically keep us unstable by using the racist card – which is not really important – simply ignore it.