Separate development afforded blacks their own identity

by Jacques du Toit

In yesterday’s City Press, Alistair McKay claimed that “Apartheid desensitised white South Africans to human suffering and filled most of them with an unthinking sense of superiority and fear”.

Mr. McKay, Separate Development (SD) was above all an attempt to provide black South Africans with an opportunity to develop their own identity and control over their own forms of government. Unfortunately, especially the White English-speaking population undermined this by spreading various lies about the system abroad. Today those lies have become fact. Internally your universities agitated and assisted in destabilising the country, as did your Anglican Church and your press. Many people died in the ensuing riots. Shameful!

English big business undermined the system by building hostels for black labour. This drew them away from their traditional homelands, and put them in the most disgusting accommodation. No human should live like that. The liberal English press never moaned about that! Again this lead to sociopolitical unrest and even more deaths. Shameful! English capitalists made huge pools of black labour a permanent feature of traditionally white cities – a cocktail for future conflict.

You say: “Some judge a black South African’s intelligence purely on his or her English,…” Fascinating! The English mind, measuring everybody according to the level to which they have been Anglicised. I’ve never looked at a black this way!

You then proceed: “…and completely overlook the humbling and impressive multilingualism of so many black South Africans.” This is exactly what SD tried to achieve. Today an Anglo-African dispensation is forced down our throats. Nobody is better off for it.

Afrikaner Church Rejects Apartheid, Confesses Role in Segregation – historical article

TOM COHEN , Associated Press, Nov. 9, 1990

RUSTENBURG, South Africa (AP) – The white Dutch Reformed Church joined other Christian denominations Friday in rejecting apartheid as a sin and confessed the church’s role in implementing it.

The main church of the Dutch-descended Afrikaners who dominate the government had argued for decades that the Bible supported the system of legalized segregation. The position isolated it from other denominations.

But at the end of a weeklong conference of 90 Christian churches, leaders of the white Dutch Reformed Church joined in supporting a statement – the Rustenberg Declaration – condemning church participation in apartheid.

”We confess our own sin and acknowledge our heretical part in the policy of apartheid which has led to such extreme suffering,” the joint statement said.

”We denounce apartheid in its intention, its implementation, and its consequences as an evil policy,” the statement added.

The conference in Rustenburg, 60 miles northwest of Johannesburg, was the largest ever gathering of Christian churches in South Africa.

The declaration also recommended the government remove all apartheid laws, set up a one-person, one-vote democracy, seek equitable wealth distribution, restore land to blacks and arrange an affirmative action program to advance blacks.

The Rev. Peter Potgieter, head of the Dutch Reformed Church, told an impromptu news conference during final debate on the document that his church disagreed with some elements. He said it objected specifically to the call for a one-person, one-vote electoral system and other political recommendations, but agreed with the condemnation and confession of apartheid.

Potgieter also said the document was not official church policy, which must be decided by the church’s synod.

For years, the white Dutch Reformed Church has been isolated from most other Christian churches because of its refusal to reject the apartheid system of racial segregation and white dominance.

It argued for decades that the Bible supported apartheid, citing biblical passages that referred to different people in different nations. The church also considered whites, and Afrikaners in particular, a ”chosen people” destined to rule South Africa as part of ”God’s will.”

In a major policy statement in 1960, the church said segregation could be justified. Twenty-six years later, it declared racial discrimination a sin, but withheld comment on apartheid.

The mere presence of white Dutch Reformed Church leaders at the conference marked a breakthrough in interchurch relations, organizers said.

The Rev. Frank Chikane, leader of the South African Council of Churches, praised the document but said he understood the Dutch Reformed Church’s hesitation to give it full support.

”I feel that we have started a process, and I’m just hoping the Dutch Reformed Church will be able to move ahead with us,” he said. ”I understand they’re constrained, they have to answer back to their own membership,” Chikane added.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he hoped the white church’s objections avoided critical sections of the declaration.

”Obviously, what we hear is political,” Tutu said. ”It is going to be up to them to demonstrate through action what they have said in words.”

The Rustenburg Declaration said all South African churches should have done more to resist apartheid.

”Some of us actively misused the Bible to justify apartheid, leading many to believe that it had the sanction of God,” it said.

Other churches, the document said, ignored apartheid by preaching the ”sufficiency of individual salvation without social transformation.”

”We adopted an allegedly neutral stance which in fact resulted in complicity with apartheid,” it said.

Some churches condemned apartheid but did little to resist, the statement added.

”Those of us who were the victims of apartheid acknowledge our own contribution to the failure of the church,” it said.

The white branch of the Dutch Reformed Church has about 1 million members, including President F.W. de Klerk and most of his Cabinet. There are separate branches for blacks and people of mixed-race, which have staunchly opposed apartheid.

The white branch of the Dutch Reformed Church said last month it wants to merge with its sister churches, but no action has been taken.

Second revolution against whites must come, says Zuma

Johannesburg – The ANC’s second transition is necessary to overcome the compromises it made in the fight for democracy, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.

“One of the causes of the slow pace to economic freedom is that ahead of [the first democratic election in] 1994… we went through a negotiations process,” Zuma said in Midrand.

“We had to make certain compromises in the national interest, and these were absolutely necessary to make. We had to be cautious about restructuring the economy in order to maintain economic stability and confidence at the time.”

Zuma was opening the policy conference of the ruling African National Congress.

He said the apartheid era’s economic power had remained intact.

“The ownership of the economy is still primarily in the hands of white males, in which it has always been.”

A document on the second transition was one of the ANC’s 13 policy documents which would be discussed during the four-day conference.

Zuma said the second transition would make the country a “true democratic developmental state… which has a number of instruments it can use to facilitate change”.

The first transition was still important because it had ushered in an era of democracy in South Africa.

“The time has come to do something more drastic to accelerate change towards economic transformation and freedom.”

Zuma asked delegates to discuss the notion of a second transition when dealing with the strategy and tactics document.

“It is time to ask questions about the present and future… the last 18 years was the first transition. We are calling for a dramatic shift… to deal with the triple challenge[s] of poverty, unemployment and inequality.”

– SAPA

‘Education system worse than under apartheid’ – black academic

South Africa’s education system is worse today than the “gutter education” the country had under the apartheid government, said an academic and struggle heroine Mamphela Ramphele, The Star reported on Friday.

“Maths literacy… what is that? It’s worse than the arithmetic I did under Bantu education,” Ramphele was quoted saying.

She was addressing the sixth annual Solomon Mahlangu lecture at the University of Johannesburg.

Ramphele criticised the much praised matric pass rate saying it was deceptive, consigning thousands to a life that promised neither further education nor employment.

She lashed out at the 30 percent pass benchmark, saying it degraded education standards and was used for political purposes.

“Kader Asmal [former education minister] fell for micropolitics when, under his watch, a 40 percent pass rate suddenly became 70 percent.”

Ramphele also criticised the 70.2 percent pass rate achieved by last year’s matriculants.

“There was a great razzmatazz about the ‘historic’ 70.2 percent, but this performance was deceptive – less than 500,000 people showed up to write their matric exams; 539,102 students [who were in grade 1, 12 years prior] disappeared from the system. The department of education must tell us what happened to those children.”

– Sapa

Blacks should compensate Whites for giving them South Africa

by Mike Smith

Emeritus Arch Bishop of Cape Town is at it again and in the news for asking whites to pay a reparation tax or wealth tax because they all apparently benefitted from Apartheid.

Along came his cheerleading constitutional expert and praise singer Piere de Vos from UCT and said, “The problem is, of course, that some white people – out of shame or ignorance or maybe a bit of both – do not want to admit that white South Africans almost all benefited from apartheid vis-à-vis black South Africans.”

Almost All? Who were the ones that did not benefit? Again facts sucked out of each other’s thumbs.

As I have proved in Opening Pandora’s Apartheid Box…everyone in South Africa benefitted form Apartheid, Black and White. Blacks had the highest literary standards and the highest life standard of all the blacks in Africa.

Self hating liberal idiot, De Vos reckons, “If I had been born black and poor, I almost certainly would not have gone to University and I would almost certainly never have been a Law Professor at UCT (University of Cape Town), earning quite a nice salary, thank you.”

I love the way he chooses his words. “Almost All”…”Almost Certainly”…As always both De Vos and The Arch fails to explain how it was at all possible for Tutu to study and become a teacher just like his father was.

They also fail to explain how Nelson Mandela and countless other blacks managed to become lawyers during Apartheid South Africa a lawyer just like De Vos.

They further failed to explain how the Apartheid government built ten Universities for blacks including Medunsa which is a unique medical university that turned out 200 highly qualified black doctors every year all at state costs, paid for by the white taxpayers. It also trained paramedics and nurses.

Since 1970 the budget for black education was raised by about 30% per year every year. More than any other government department.

In the period 1955 -1984 the amount of black school students increased 31 times from 35,000 to 1,096 000.

65% of black South African children were at school compared to Egypt 64%, Nigeria 57%, Ghana52%, Tanzania50% and Ethiopia 29%.

Amongst the adults of South Africa, 71% could read and write (80% between the ages 12 and 22). Compare this to Kenya 47%, Egypt 38%, Nigeria 34% and Mozambique at 26%.

In South Africa, the whites built 15 new classrooms for blacks every working day, every year. At 40 children per class it meant space for an additional 600 black students every day!!!

In 1985 there were 42,000 Blacks at 5 universities in South Africa, about the same amount at the universities of the homelands.

In an article called “Die Afrikaner” 11 Feb 1987, the quarterly magazine called “Vox Africana Nr 29 4/87 stated that,

South Africa had 4,8 million whites and 18,2 million blacks in 1987. The whites paid 77% of the taxes and the blacks only 15%…despite this…56% of the government budget was spent on blacks.

During the time of Dr. Verwoerd. the living standards of Blacks were rising at 5,4% per year against that of the whites at 3,9% per year. In 1965 the economic growth of South Africa was the second highest in the world at 7,9%. The rate of inflation was a mere 2% per annum and the prime interest rate only 3% per annum. Domestic savings were so great that South Africa needed no foreign loans for normal economic expansion.

Even Lord Deedes admitted, “White South Africa grew to become the economic giant of the continent, the other members of the Commonwealth virtually sank into poverty.”

At the hight of Apartheid in 1978 Soweto had 115 football fields, 3 Rugby fields, 4 athletic tracks, 11 Cricket fields, 2 Golf courses, 47 Tennis courts, 7 swimming pools built to Olympic standards, 5 Bowling alleys, 81 Netball fields, 39 children play parks, and countless civic halls, movie houses and clubhouses.

In addition to this, Soweto had 300 churches, 365 schools, 2 Technical Colleges, 8 clinics, 63 child day care centres, 11 Post Offices, and its own fruit and vegetable market.

There were 2300 registered companies that belonged to black businessmen, about 1000 private taxi companies. 3% of the 50,000 vehicle owners in 1978 were Mercedes Benz owners. Soweto alone had more cars, taxis, schools, churches and sport facilities than most independent countries in Africa. The Blacks of South Africa had more private vehicles than the entire white population of the USSR at the time.

Today Soweto has modern shopping malls like, Dobsonville Shopping Centre. In 2005 the Protea Gardens Mall opened. This was followed by the Baramall Shopping Centre and the Jabulani Shopping complex and the Maponya Mall. Experts say that Soweto has as much as 25% oversupply of retail space.

The Canadian Medical Doctor, Dr Kenneth Walker wrote about Soweto, (I freely translate from “Verrat an Südafrika”, Klaus Vaque, 1987,pg 41)

“In Soweto I saw many homes that costs about $100,000 (1978) and that had a BMW in the driveway. All houses are single storey. Many are recently painted. Many had flowerpots in the windows and lawn in the front. Only 2% were shacks. If I had the choice to live in Soweto or in the apartment dwellings or “Projects” of New York, Chicago, or Detroit where there is so much crime, then I would not hesitate for one moment and choose Soweto.”

The biggest hospital in the world, Baragwanath with 3200 beds and at its peak almost 8000 staff had 23 operation theatres fitted out with the most modern medical equipment that existed in the world. Blacks were treated here, operated on…at full state costs to the white-taxpayers for unlimited periods. The budget of this hospital was and is higher than the yearly budget of most small member states of the United Nations.

Next door to Baragwanath is the St. John’s Eye Clinic. The clinic is world famous for the treatment of Glaucoma, Cataracts, traumatic eye injuries and rare tropical diseases. All built and maintained by white taxpayer’s money for blacks.

Baragwanath in 1978 employed 450 medical doctors in full-time service. It treated 112 000 in-patients and 1.62 million out-patients per year. The children and infant death rate with 34.8 per 1000 was lower than Harlem in New York.

In 1982 alone, this hospital performed 898 heart operations of world quality.

Ironically…90% of the blood donors for this hospital were whites, who donated blood free of charge, totally voluntarily…to save black lives. (Quoted from The Citizen, 2 April 1987).

Whites have already given blacks their blood. What more do they want?

De Vos calls for a “ones off reconstruction tax”….did he forget that 20,000 “Victims of Apartheid” were compensated R30,000 each back in the days of the TRC?

Personally I think that Prof Pierre De Vos and Bishop Tutu should go get an education about the truth about Apartheid. Theyy can start by reading my Pandora Series.

Whites have given blacks the entire country for free. In tact. There is nothing more to give. Today blacks are destroying all the infrastructure that we paid for and built. Then still has the audacity to tell whites they should leave.

What I want to know is who are going to compensate whites for all the schools, hospitals, dams, airports, harbours, railroads, etc that they have built? It is high time for blacks to start paying whites. Nothing is for free.

Bishop Tutu and De Vos can start by selling their mansions and BMW’s and give it to the poor white fund of Solidarity “Helpende Hand”.

‘Israeli apartheid week’ in South Africa

It was reported in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post that “the Public Diplomacy Ministry [in Israel] plans to send 100 Israelis – abroad to represent and defend the state during [the upcoming] Israeli Apartheid Week.” South Africa, and Johannesburg and Cape Town in particular, have been targeted by the Israeli PR delegation.

According to the Jerusalem Post the participants of the Israeli “mission” have all “undergone several weeks of training in the Public Diplomacy Ministry” and will include settlers and “experts in national security”.

The Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy, Yuli Edelstein, said that “the answer” to initiatives such as Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) and to delegitimization is “not to just give facts and data, but to bring Israel to them.” Edelstein further accused those organizing Israeli Apartheid Week of “hatred” and having the “disease” of ignorance.

Students React

The Israeli Apartheid Week South Africa Team (IAW South Africa Team) condemned the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy’s attempts to undermine the upcoming Israeli Apartheid Week. Israel’s dispatch of propaganda is not new (the Israeli Public Diplomacy Ministry is often compared to Apartheid South Africa’s notorious Department of Information). However, the open aggression and arrogance of an official Israeli Minister, in his position as a Minister, is astonishing.

Sarah Boesak, an IAW organizer at the University of Cape Town reacted to the news: “We state unequivocally that our solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people comes not from ignorance but from our own experience of, and resistance to, Apartheid in this country.”

S’bu Mbambo, a member of the South African Students Congress (SASCO) wrote: “We as SASCO will not give in, as we are well informed of the conditions Israel puts on the Palestinians!”

“In fact, the comments by Yuli Edelstein show that Israel’s is the language of hatred,” commented Hussein Badat of Rhodes University, “we feel love and compassion for Palestinians and as South Africans we are in a privileged position to understand how important the love of freedom is”.

Also reacting to the accusation of being hateful, Durban-based IAW organizer, Iain Robinson, stated: “The defeat of Apartheid gave white South Africans their humanity back. IAW is also an attempt at assisting Israel and its citizens regain their rapidly diminishing humanity.”

The Israeli Apartheid Week Team, consists of 25 members stretching across South Africa and lists as partners: COSATU, SA Communist Party, SA Students Congress, Young Communist League of South Africa, SA Council of Churches EAPPI, the Tri-Continental Film Festival, BDS South Africa, the LGBTQ umbrella body Kaleidoscope, Kairos Southern Africa and several Palestine solidarity groups including the Coalition for a Free Palestine.

Not the first time SA has been targeted

This will not be the first time that Israel has targeted SA for such a propaganda delegation. Last year a 27 person Israeli PR delegation was sent to South African campuses to fix Israel’s “serious image problems”. At the time, a member of the Israeli delegation said: “We have to create some doubt in their [South African students’] minds.”

In a joint statement, the national representatives of the South African Union of Students (SAUS), the South African Student Congress (SASCO) and the Young Communist League (YCL) slammed the trip:

“Don’t patronize us! We lived apartheid, we suffered apartheid, we know what apartheid is, we recognise apartheid when we see it. And when we see Israel, we see a regime that practices apartheid. Israel’s image needs no changing; its policies do!”

About Israeli Apartheid Week

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events (including rallies, lectures, cultural performances and film screenings) held in cities and campuses across the globe. IAW seeks to raise awareness about Israel’s apartheid policies towards the Palestinians.

This year IAW will take place in over 100 cities, including 13 South African universities and towns. Some of the invited speakers for SA are: Minister of Education, Dr Blade Nzimande; General Secretary of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi; Rivonia trialist, Denis Goldberg; Robben Island prisoner, Ahmed Kathrada; ANC NEC member, Dr Pallo Jordan; South African struggle stalwart, Ronnie Kasrils; and public intellectual, Professor Steven Friedman.

Sunday Times editor attacks Pieter Mulder over land remark

Mondli Makhanya
Mondli Makhanya

The managing editor of the Sunday Times, Mondli Makhanya, has attacked Freedom Front leader Pieter Mulder over his remarks on South African land ownership. Makhanya entitled his weekly column,  Apartheid denialism drives a knife into belly of black SA and writes that “Mulder’s speech was the crudest form of denialism about South Africa’s evil past”.

In the column, he refers both to the Holocaust Museum in Cape Town and the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, implying that there was some sort of link between the two. He also relates Mulder’s statement that blacks never settled the whole of South Africa to a white man calling a black woman a “kaffir” in a gym.