As the eurozone crisis continues, anti-establishment insurgencies like the Scottish National Party, SNP’s, are surfacing all over Europe: nationalist, populist, separatist, left or right.
As the British empire was gradually dissolved after the second world war and its industrial base attacked by younger, nimbler economies, the cohesion of the British state weakened.
There was an impulse towards supra-nationalism in the shape of membership in the European Union, but Britain joined late, in 1973.
English people – steeped in Britain’s maritime, imperial traditions – felt hostile towards the EU.
At the same time, long-smothered regional nationalism was reviving on Britain’s Celtic fringes. In divided Ireland, it was violent; in Scotland, political, emboldened by newly discovered North Sea oil; in Wales, initially, cultural, based around the preservation of the Welsh language.
That was in the 70s. Forty years on, these rival strands are much stronger, and testing the concept of “Britishness” to destruction.
The Scottish national party has barely paused for breath since losing last September’s referendum on independence for Scotland – immediately declaring itself the moral victor and demanding greater powers for Edinburgh.
Since the referendum result – 55% no, 45% yes – disaffected working-class Labour voters have flocked to the SNP. Polls suggest the Scottish nationalists, now led by Scotland’s new first minister, the formidable Nicola Sturgeon, will slaughter Labour north of the border, winning dozens of Scotland’s 59 seats and perhaps holding the balance of power in London. If she finds herself in that position, Sturgeon promises to block Cameron and prop up a minority Miliband administration.
Britain’s Tory newspapers are busy denouncing Sturgeon as “the most dangerous woman” in the country. Cameron – whose Tories have only one seat in Scotland – warns of a Scottish veto from the people who want to break up Britain. Miliband is embarrassed.
Meanwhile, in England, the populist anti-European right, in the form of the UK independence party (Ukip), has evolved under the skilful leadership of Nigel Farage.
Ukip’s proven ability to win protest votes at four-yearly elections to the 28-nation European parliament is now threatening the status quo at Westminster. It has two MPs (both defectors from the Tories) and hopes to win more on 7 May.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Though Ukip portrays itself as free market and libertarian, it is also deeply nostalgic, socially conservative, and suspicious of immigrants and big-government bureaucracy, especially from the EU’s Brussels headquarters.
Racist, homophobic and authoritarian? Certainly not, says Farage. We just want to be a self-governing sovereign state again. But Ukip’s “little guy” rank-and-file is not always quite so on-message. This is disruptive Tea Party Republicanism with added potency.
Ukip’s threat to the status quo is twofold. It may take enough votes away from Cameron’s Tories to deny the prime minister his slim hopes of a Commons majority on May 7, or even to stop him being the largest party, which would make it hard for him to form another coalition.
In a tight race, with both main parties polling at around 34%, Ukip’s rise may also hurt Miliband’s prospects by peeling off Labour’s equivalent of blue-collar Democrats, working-class voters fed up with stagnant wages and gay marriage, underfunded public services and “unpatriotic” liberals.
Another perfect example of the devious behaviour of the liberal mind.
For more than a hundred years the Swiss town of St Gallen carried the name of Krügerstrasse (Kruger Street), but because President Paul Kruger was evidently a “white racist”, the name had to change.
The Tagblatt actually went so far as to state that Paul Kruger was an “Apartheid pioneer”. It’s easy to make these outrages statements when the person has been dead for more than a hundred years. Who’s going to sue them?
Paul Kruger was the consumate anti-colonialist. He was also a brilliant military strategist against British marauders. He was loved by most black tribes in Southern Africa for these qualities, but Switzerland clearly does not care for historical fact.
From Reuters:
A street in the Swiss town of St Gallen, which for more than a hundred years bore the name of former South African president Paul Kruger, was renamed by local authorities yesterday.
Theo Buff, from the town’s planning department, said the name was being changed “because of racist associations”.
Kruger, who led the Boer resistance against the British during in the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902, lived in St Gallen after fleeing Africa when the British advanced on Pretoria.
“In the context of the time, naming a street after Paul Kruger can be understood,” the St Gallen council said, “but today it can no longer be justified.”
The street will now be called Duerrenmatt Street, after Swiss author and dramatist Friedrich Duerrenmatt.
Vladimir Putin is demonized by western media according to an old humanitarian agenda. The more imperialism is cruel, the more it pretends to be moral and humanitarian. This is not a paradox; not even a mark of hypocrisy. This is just the way the West works since it began its cruel imperialistic agenda in the nineteenth century. Any kind of enemy has been since demonized on a moral ground which precedes and accompanies the chaos and plundering of an unlucky land. And anything the west does is good.
Lenin used to quote a lot from John A. Hobson, an English scientist and writer who wrote an outstanding essay in 1902 about British and European imperialism. History repeats itself since oligarchic democracy and capitalism have frozen temporality, according to the famous Russian philosopher Alexander Kojève.
But let’s read the observations of Mr Hobson, a politically incorrect leftist.
First of all, for Hobson the West is never hypocritical:
So every other European nation recognises the true outlines of British Imperialism and charges us with hypocrisy in feigning blindness. This charge is false; no nation sees its own shortcomings…
Any imperialistic nation is naïve and of good faith: there is just a genuine desire to spread Christianity among the heathen, to diminish the cruelty and other sufferings which they believe exist in countries less fortunate than their own, and to do good work about the world in the cause of humanity.
Even infamous king Leopold of Belgium who ruined and massacred the people of Congo was of good faith: he has claimed for his government of the Congo-“Our only programme is that of the moral and material regeneration of the country.”
As we know nowadays the great European monarchs rule the Bilderbergs with the banksters and the architects of the new World order. In the time of Kipling, the average imperialist pretended that England is a knight-errant, everywhere in search of a quest to deliver oppressed peoples from oppressive governments, regardless of her own interests and perils.
The victim of the humanitarian imperialism could be a Boer (a Palestinian in our times) or any people convinced of a barbarian conduct (see the pamphlets of the NYT against ‘homophobe’ Uganda these last weeks). Writes Hobson beautifully:
Aggressive Imperialism, as our investigation has shown, is virtually confined to the coercion by stronger or better-armed nations of nations which are, or seem to be, weaker and incapable of effective resistance.
Think of Libya, Syria, Iran and elsewhere. Even if tsarist Russia was already hated in his epoch for many lies and prejudices, the Russian might and military forces eventually prevented an attack. It always did except against Hitler (1914 was another history) who used the same western rhetoric to enslave and slaughter Slavic peoples. Goebbels blamed the Russians for the Holodomor as the American senates does.
Writes Hobson with irony:
The chivalrous spirit of Imperialism leads neither Great Britain nor any other Western nation to assail a powerful State however tyrannous or to assist a weak State reputed to be poor.
Hobson adds that public opinion in this time was moulded and formatted by imperialist literature (Verne, Kipling, Rider Haggard or John Buchan) and that the prejudices of the superior race were thus reinforced. He remarks that the cult of sport and the fascination for adventure and travels bolstered western biases and prejudices. The anglo-Saxon sportsman was (and still is in Nepal) always escorted by sad coolies.
The vast majority of “educated” Englishmen genuinely believe that England’s greatest gain from the Boer war is an enhancement of her “moral prestige”!
For John Hobson, the western stupidity is linked to naïve optimism and it results from the celebration of this insane moral imperialism which helped America to destroy half a dozen countries these last fifteen years, no to mention the incalculable bombings of Uncle Sam’s irascible History:
In England, and indeed throughout Anglo-Saxondom, a sort of cheery optimism has commonly usurped the seat of intelligent direction, a general belief in “national destiny,” which enables us “somehow to muddle through,” and advises us “to do the best we can and not look too far ahead.”
The cheery optimism of our business-knights adores destroying any country on earth.
Pravda.ru and other free media often mention the distortion of the facts by western madness and presstitute media. This is unluckily nothing new. Writes Hobson on the subject:
Imperialism is based upon a persistent misrepresentation of facts and forces chiefly through a most refined process of selection, exaggeration, and attenuation, directed by interested cliques and persons so as to distort the face of history.
Then Hobson concludes around the ludicrous state of mind not of Obama’s America but of imperialist Britain:
The gravest peril of Imperialism lies in the state of mind of a nation which has become habituated to this deception and which has rendered itself incapable of self-criticism.
Well, he is for once a little wrong: America is capable of self-criticism: it will confess that it has not helped its ally Israel enough, that it has not nuked Iran enough, not humiliated an alienated Europe enough and that it has not yet declared the war on Russia!
As we know, nobody plagued with such ‘moral prestige’ is perfect! And nothing is better than an atomic war to boost it.
The downgrading of South Africa by rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch is a bitter pill to swallow, which has possibly severe consequences for our country.
Admittedly, there are significant negatives retarding the country’s growth potential. The government, organised labour and the oft intransigent business community require a lot of introspection. However, I fail to understand which entity benefits from a downgrade.
The result of punitive downgrades can only have the effect of being hugely detrimental for the targeted country and the biggest losers are the poorer sections of the community.
Downgrades will result in the depreciation of an already weak rand, products and services become more expensive, and a general malaise ensues as investors look elsewhere.
Conspiracy theories can be noisome and a distraction from reality, but my scepticism gives rise to a very real perception of an all-pervasive American influence.
We have observed over the years that when the US isn’t maintaining its international dominance by military adventurism, it uses its financial muscle to manipulate the global economy to its own selfish advantage.
That’s why no western country dares rocking the boat by criticising Uncle Sam.
The only entity that will benefit from a downgrade of South Africa is the US and the wealthy Western bloc who control the purse strings of world finance, because we will then be paying a lot more to them servicing our current and future borrowings.
The three major rating agencies are, unsurprisingly, American companies, and experience has shown that such businesses are invariably hugely partisan to the American national interest.
One can appreciate the need for rating agencies to regulate personal credit worthiness as companies need to know their lending for goods or services is safe.
But loans to parastatals like Transnet are safeguarded by the government’s guarantees, so one has to query the necessity to downgrade such state enterprises.
Also, no one realistically expects the government to default on loans in the current financial climate.
The ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) and the World Bank should rather worry about the European countries in real financial distress, the ones that have shown a worrying tendency of a possible default, such as the aptly termed Pigs, namely Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
In such instances, a financial watch alert could be sent out to international investors.
And the rating agencies could pay more attention to their host country’s $16 trillion national deficit.
Could the reason for the rating agencies’ downgrading of Brand SA be American displeasure of our fraternity with our Brics partners and the intention to establish a Brics Bank to finance economic growth in that club of nations? Is this a warning shot across our bows? Think about it.
America tolerated Saddam Hussein until he threatened to demand payment for Iraq’s vast oil production in alternate currencies to the American dollar.
The Americans then invaded his country under false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction and took control of the Iraqi oil fields.
Similarly with Muammar Gaddafi who was an avid proponent of breaking the international dominance of the dollar by establishing an African financial bloc with a regional AU bank. And as the Afrikaans saying goes: “Kyk hoe lyk hy nou” (loosely translated as “Look where he is now”.)
This is the glaring lesson – you mess with America’s hegemony at your peril.
As part of the global village, we must honour our international commitments, but we need to insist on mutual respect from the major Western powers and the establishment of a Development Bank will go a long way to preserving our domestic sovereignty from the bullying of American surrogate financial agencies.
The protesters in Natal shouted against “imperialism.”
Demonstrators burned a US flag near the stadium in northern Brazil where Vice President Joe Biden planned to attend the US soccer team’s opening World Cup match Monday evening.
The protesters in Natal shouted against “imperialism.” Security officers stopped them at a barricade about 2 kilometers (a mile) from the stadium’s gates.
Anti-World Cup demonstrations also took place in the southern city of Curitiba before a match between Iran and Nigeria.
After being repelled by police near that stadium, protesters regrouped downtown and used bricks and construction debris to smash windows of at least three banks. They also sprayed anti-World Cup slogans on city buses.
Mass protests against the World Cup erupted across Brazil last year and demonstrations have continued since the tournament began Thursday.
India broke with the international community in acknowledging that Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine.
On Thursday a senior Indian official endorsed Russia’s position in Ukraine in recent days, even as Delhi urged all parties involved to seek a peaceful resolution to the diplomatic crisis.
When asked for India’s official assessment of the events in Ukraine, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon responded:
“We hope that whatever internal issues there are within Ukraine are settled peacefully, and the broader issues of reconciling various interests involved, and there are legitimate Russian and other interests involved…. We hope those are discussed, negotiated and that there is a satisfactory resolution to them.”
The statement was made on the same day that Crimea’s parliament voted to hold a referendum for secession from Ukraine.
India is the second major nation to publicly lean toward Russia after China’s public statements.
Ukraine’s puppet government reacted to India’s endorsement of Russia’s legitimate interests with hostility.
India and Russia have long-standing ties and Moscow is Delhi’s top arms provider. Moreover, Russia and the former Soviet Union has been nearly alone in the international community in continue to back India during crucial moments such as following its 1974 and 1998 nuclear tests.
Delhi believes Russia’s intervention offers the best chance of stabilizing Ukraine. India’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday also released a statement noting that there are “more than 5,000 Indian nationals, including about 4,000 students, in different parts of Ukraine.” At the same time, India’s overall interest in Ukraine is fairly negligible—certainly less than China’s, for instance—and thus Delhi might assess that it has more to gain by publicly sticking by Moscow at a time when it desperately needs support.
India also has plenty of interests in certain regions along its peripheral, and at certain times—such as during the Sri Lanka Civil War—has intervened to protect various societal groups with strong ties to India.
Indian officials have told Telegraph India that, in the newspaper’s words, Delhi is “convinced that the West’s tacit support for a series of attempted coups against democratically elected governments — in Egypt, Thailand and now Ukraine — has only weakened democratic roots in these countries.”
This rationale would be consistent with India’s long-standing, deep-seated abhorrence to anything that merely resembles Western imperialism. At the same time, India has not historically made supporting democracy abroad a central tenet of its foreign policy.
Maybe the empire thought that we would not honor our word when, during days of uncertainty in the past century, we affirmed that even if the USSR were to disappear Cuba would continue struggling.
World War II broke out on September 1, 1939 when Nazi-fascist troops invaded Poland and struck like a lightning over the heroic people of the USSR, who contributed 27 million lives to preserve mankind from that brutal massacre that ended the lives of 50 million persons.
War, on the other hand, is the only venture that the human race throughout history has failed to avoid, leading Einstein to say that he did not know how World War III would be like but most certainly the fourth would be fought with sticks and stones.
Added up, the means available to the two most powerful powers –United States and Russia— amount to 20,000 (twenty thousand) nuclear warheads. Mankind should know that three days before John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency of his country on January 20, 1961, a US B-52 bomber, in a routine flight, carrying two atomic bombs with a destructive capacity 260 times that of the bomb dropped in Hiroshima, had an accident and the aircraft crashed. For such cases sophisticated automatic equipment are in place to prevent the bombs from exploding. The first bomb landed without risks. In the case of the second, three of the four mechanisms failed, and the fourth, in very critical conditions could barely function. The bomb did not explode by mere chance.
There is no present or past event I remember or have heard of that has impacted world public opinion so much as the death of Nelson Mandela, and not because of his wealth, but for his human quality and the loftiness of his ideas and feelings.
Throughout history and barely one and a half century ago — before robots and machines took over our modest tasks with a minimum energy cost– none of the phenomena that today shake mankind and inexorably rule each and every person –men and women, children and elders, young and adult, farmers and factory workers, manual workers or intellectuals– existed. The prevailing trend is to move to the cities, where the creation of jobs, transportation, and basic living conditions demand huge investments to the detriment of food production and other more rational ways of life.
Three powers have landed in our planet’s Moon. The same day Nelson Mandela, covered with his country’s flag, was buried in the backyard of the humble house where he was born 95 years ago, a sophisticated module from the Peoples Republic of China descended upon a bright spot in our Moon. The coincidence of both events was purely by chance.
Millions of scientists are studying earth and outer-space matters and radiations. Through them we now know that Titan, one of Saturn’s rings, accumulated 40 times more oil than the existing amount in our planet when oil extraction began 125 years ago and which will last barely one more century at current consumption rates.
The fraternal feelings of profound brotherhood between the Cuban people and Nelson Mandela’s homeland were born out of an event that has never been mentioned and about which we have never said a word during all these long years; Mandela, because he was an apostle of peace and did not want to hurt anyone; Cuba, because we have never done anything for the sake of glory and prestige.
Since the very triumph of the Revolution in Cuba we extended our solidarity to the Portuguese colonies in Africa. Liberation movements in that continent had colonialism and imperialism on the rack after World War II and the liberation of the Peoples Republic of China –the most highly populated country in the world— following the glorious triumph of the Russian Socialist Revolution.
Social revolutions were shaking the pillars of the old world order. In 1960 the inhabitants of the planet amounted to three million. Along with this, the power of big transnational companies –almost all Americans– was growing and the American currency, underpinned by US gold monopoly and its intact industry so far removed from the battle fields, took control of the world economy. Richard Nixon unilaterally abolished the backing of US currency in gold and his country’s companies took control over the main resources and raw materials in the planet which they bought with paper bills.
Nothing I have said till now is new.
But why do they try to hide the fact that the Apartheid regime –that brought so much suffering onto Africa and arouse so much indignation in most nations throughout the world– was the fruit of European colonial powers and was turned into a nuclear power by the United States and Israel, something Cuba, who supported Portuguese colonies in Africa fighting for their independence openly condemned?
Our people, handed over to the United States by Spain after 30 years of heroic struggle, never reconciled with the slavery regime imposed during almost 500 years.
In 1975, racist troops supported by light tanks equipped with 90-millimeter guns set off from Namibia –then occupied by South Africa— and penetrated more than one thousand kilometers into Angolan territory up to the vicinity of Luanda, where an airborne battalion of Cuban Special Troops and several Cuban crews for Soviet tanks with no crews, succeeded in delaying their advance. This happened in November 1975, 13 years before the Cuito Cuanavale Battle.
I’ve already said that we have done nothing for the sake of prestige or seeking benefit of any kind. It is a fact that Mandela was an upright man, a profound revolutionary and a radical socialist who endured with great stoicism 27 years of solitary confinement. I could not but admire his honesty, modesty and enormous merit.
Cuba was strictly fulfilling its internationalist duties by defending key positions and training thousands of Angolans in the use of weapons every year. The USSR was providing the weapons. At the time, however, we disagreed with the idea of the main advisor of the suppliers of military equipment. Thousands of young and healthy Angolans were constantly joining the units of their then incipient army. Their main adviser, however, was not a Zhúkov, Rokossovski, Malinowvsky or any of the many men that brought so much glory to Soviet military strategy. His obsessive idea was to send Angolan brigades carrying the best weapons to the territory where the tribal government of Savimbi – a mercenary serving the United States and South Africa– was supposedly located, which was tantamount to sending the troops fighting in Stalingrad to the border with the Falangist Spain that had sent over hundred thousand troops to fight against the USSR. That year a similar operation was going on.
The enemy was advancing behind several Angolan brigades severely hitting them near the place they had been sent to, approximately 1,500 kilometers away from Luanda. They were returning from there, pursued by South African troops en route to Cuito Cuanavale, a former NATO military base, located some 100 kilometers away from where a Cuban Tank Brigade was stationed.
At such a critical point, the President of Angola requested the support of Cuban troops. The commander of our troops in the South, General Leopoldo Cintra Frías, sent us the request as usual. Our firm reply was that we would provide such support provided that all Angolan troops and equipment would be under the Cuban command in South Angola. Everybody understood that our request was a requirement to turn the former base into the ideal battle field to hit the racist South African forces.
There was a positive response from Angola in less than 24 hours.
It was decided that a Cuban Tank Brigade would be immediately sent there. Several other were in the same line towards the West. The main obstacle was the mud and humidity due to the rainy season and the fact that every stretch of land had to be checked for anti-personnel mines. The military personnel to operate the tanks and guns without crew were also sent to Cuito.
To the East, the base was separated from the territory by the large and fast- flowing Cuito River over which there was a solid bridge under the frantic attack of the racist army. A radio-controlled airplane full of explosives was hit, brought down on the bridge and put out of action. The retreating Angolan tanks still moving were crossed more to the North. Those that were not in good conditions were buried with their weapons facing East; a thick strip of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines turned the line into a mortal trap on the other side of the river. When the racist troops renewed their advance and ran into that defensive wall, the artillery and tanks of the revolutionary brigades came down on them shooting from their positions in the Cuito area.
The Mig-23 fighters had a special role to play. Flying at a speed of almost 1,000 kilometers per hour and 100 (one hundred) meters altitude they were able to distinguish if the artillery personnel was black or white and began firing relentlessly against them.
When the battered and immobilized enemy began to withdraw, the revolutionary forces began to get ready for the final combats.
Numerous Angolan and Cuban brigades began moving quickly and keeping proper distance to the West towards the only wide routes from which South Africans always began their military actions against Angola. The airport, however, was approximately 300 (three hundred) kilometers from the border with Namibia, which was totally occupied by the Apartheid army.
While troops reorganized and rearmed the urgent decision to build a runway for the Mig-23 was made. Our pilots were using the aircraft equipment provided by the USSR to Angola, whose pilots had lacked the time for a proper training. Several aircrafts were inoperative sometimes due to the action of our own artillerymen or anti-aircraft weapon operators. South Africans still occupied part of the main road going from the border of the Angolan plateau to Namibia. They began shooting from the bridges over the wide Cunene River –located between Southern Angola and Northern Namibia– with their 140-millimeter guns giving their projectiles a range of about 40 kilometers. The main problem was that the racist South Africans had, according to our estimates, 10 to 12 nuclear weapons. They had even tested them in the frozen areas or seas to the South. President Ronald Reagan had authorized such tests and the device for blasting the nuclear charge was among the equipment delivered by Israel. Our response was to organize the troops in combat groups of no more than 1,000 men, who would have to advance equipped with anti-aircraft tanks throughout an extensive territory at night.
According to reliable sources, South African nuclear weapons could not be transported by Mirage planes; heavy Canberra type bombers were required instead. In any case, our forces’ air defense had many different types of missiles that could hit and destroy air targets located dozens of kilometers away from our troops. In addition, a dam with 80 million cubic meters of water located in Angolan territory had been occupied and mined by Cuban and Angolan fighters. The explosion of that dam would have been tantamount to the explosion of several nuclear weapons.
Nonetheless, a hydroelectric plant using the strong current of the Cunene River, before reaching the Namibian border, was being used by a South African army detachment.
When the racists began shooting with their 140-millimeter guns in this new theater of operations, the detachment of white soldiers was strongly hit by the Mig-23 and the survivors fled the place leaving some posters criticizing their high command. That was the situation when Cuban and Angolan troops marched over the enemy lines.
I learned that Katiuska Blanco, the author of some historical accounts, together with other reporters and press photographers were there. It was a tense situation but everybody kept cool.
It was then that we got the news that the enemy was willing to negotiate. We had succeeded in stopping the imperialist and racist adventure in a continent where, in 30 years time, the population will exceed that of China and India together.
The role of the Cuban delegation on the occasion of the demise of our brother and friend Nelson Mandela will be unforgettable.
I congratulate comrade Raul for his brilliant performance and particularly for his strength of character and dignity when in a kind but firm gesture greeted the United States Head of Government and told him in English: “Mr. President, I’m Castro”.
When my health imposed limits to my physical capacity, I did not hesitate in expressing my criteria on who, in my view, could assume the responsibility. A life is a minute in the history of the peoples and I believe that whoever holds today that responsibility must have the experience and authority required to choose among an increasing -almost infinite— number of alternatives.
Imperialism will always have several cards up its sleeve to subdue our island even if it has to depopulate it, depriving it from young men and women to whom they offer the scraps of the goods and natural resources it ransacks from the world.
Let the spokesmen of the empire now talk about how and why Apartheid came to life.
The ceremonies and media propaganda around the death of Nelson Mandela, cost millions of rands. Those rands were to a large extent paid by taxpayers of whom the large majority are white. By means of social grants, they also have to financially support 17 million people, the vast majority of whom are black.
The propaganda wave surrounding the life and death of the then President Mandela is a blend of myth and fact. Khehla Shubane of the Centre for Policy Studies verbalized the Mandela mythology on CNN, which hasnow become the official Mandela mythology.
But Shimon Peres, a former Prime Minister of Israel, once said of the Israeli and Palestinian disputes: “Personally, I have very little patience for history. I believe that to imagine is more important than to remember.” Myths are figments of the imagination, but to remember is the recollection of facts.
Imagination is the fertile ground in which myths flourish. Imagine what Mandela was thinking as he looked through the bars of his prison window overlooking Table Mountain. The myth developed that he had had a Damascene experience and converted from a man who planned violence as the only way to achieve his political objectives, to a man who rejects all forms of violence and instead embraces reconciliation, forgiveness, tolerance and accommodating interpersonal and group differences.
Imagination became perception, which grew into mythical proportions to be finally presented as historical fact. It is true that he was a skillful politician and a worthy opponent, who never allowed side issues to influence the core issues on the table. It was a fact that during his five-year tenure as the country’s first black president, he achieved more for peace and harmony in a deeply divided South Africa than Mbeki and Zuma, who succeeded him during the fifteen years thereafter. The success of his policy of accommodating differences between cultural groups during his reign supported the growing myth of the saintly Madiba.
But the historical facts that emerged since his retirement do not support the notion of Mandela’s fundamental sense of righteousness and moral values. During the fifteen years since his retirement he never ever pronounced his displeasure at the way the ANC had converted from a liberation movement to a plundering national mafia. Did he condone what his successors were doing? Did he condone their immoral return to outdated tribal customs in the face of the need for a unified South Africa, where one race group is not superior to another? Or did he merely lack the courage to defend his moral convictions such as Archbishop Tutu so often does?
That failure on his part drew a line through the Mandela myth and has exposed him as a shrewd political strategist and not the moralist he is made out to be. The world conveniently has conveniently forgotten about the last fifteen years of Mandela’s life on earth before catapulting him as a saint into future mythology.
It is therefore fitting to review the actual historical facts of South Africa in order to gain a perspective to evaluate the pre- and post-Mandela era.
It seems that mythmaking is a fact of life in the history of countries and peoples. South Africa is no exception.
Among Afrikaners the myth is accepted as fact that the Dutch came to RSA with the godly purpose to Christianize blacks. In fact, they came to the Cape of Good Hope to open a trade mission between Europe and India.
On the other hand, blacks believe sincerely that they were indigenous to RSA and that their land was stolen by whites. The fact is that the black tribes originated in the central parts of Africa and moved to the south in three great streams. In Southern Africa different language groups occupied different geographical areas. This is still so! The constitution of SA 1996 lists the following black language communities: Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwazi, Tshivenga, Xitsonga, isiNdebele, isiXhoas and isiZulu. In the 1993/4 financial year the government spent R650 mill on 4 554 tribal leaders, which included 18 kings and queens.
The further fact is that the Dutch occupied land at the Cape which was deemed to be “no-man’s-land”. Here and there nomadic Khoi and San tribes were found but what was absent was a government over an identifiable territory with fixed borders and with its own administration.
Another severe problem is that the original history of the black peoples of Southern Africa is not a written one, but a verbal one — so that mythmaking is obviously at the order of the day. The history of the whites is a written one, of which the facts are verifiable. Some of these facts include the following:
Dutch temporary occupation was a business transaction and when the Free Burger farmers emerged and moved to the interior, the occupation of the Cape in international law obtained a permanent character.
The numbers of the Dutch were strengthened by the French Huguenots and by some Germans and later, after the first and second British occupation of the Cape, by some English and Scots.
White civilization over a period of 2 700 years grew through the following phases: organized agriculture, education, mining, technological innovations, industrialization and an electronic revolution. Differently said: through a pre-modern society to modernism and rationalism to post-modernism!
On the other hand, when the first contacts of the whites with blacks other than the Khoi and San “first peoples” took place in 1675, their agricultural tradition was not organized at all and land ownership was the collective property of the tribal king … as is still the case in many of the tribal communities today.
As a matter of fact, the land ownership at Qunu, where Nelson Mandela is buried, is owned by the Tembu King who is the trustee of land ownership. This is the case in many a Southern African country, such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and others. In RSA there are strong forces at work to abolish private ownership of land.
Ideologically speaking, the divide between white and black is just as strong. British colonialism made a huge impact on Afrikaners and the black peoples. In the case of the Afrikaners British colonialism tried to impose the British way of life on them. Those Afrikaners and black elite groups who adopted the English life-style were in a limited way integrated. Hence, the British influence in RSA actually laid the foundation for a class system; which system is now, after the demise of a policy of ethnic diversity, dominant.
The Afrikaners, on the other hand, advocated the Republican system of government. British liberalism based on the advancement of individual rights, as manifested in Chapter 2 of the Constitution of SA 1996, had a great impact on Afrikaner political thinking. As a matter of fact, a dominant group of Afrikaners now vote for the Democratic Alliance, which Alliance adopts liberal democracy as the only viable alternative to ANC collectivism and the workings of social democracy.
Black political thinking in the leadership of the so-called liberation movements was heavily influenced and supported by the philosophy of Marxism and Soviet Communism whose ideological thinking was closer to the collectivism of the traditional social organization of the various black ethnic groups.
The political development of SA since 1652 developed in various phases:
Since 1652 the Dutch forefathers of the Afrikaners established themselves in the Cape as a permanent settlement.
This was followed by two occupations by the United Kingdom, which led to the advancement of the Voortrekkers to the interior.
It was during their move to the interior that the Vootrekkers encountered the AmaXhosa.
The British introduced segregation of the races to supplement the segregation of a social class system.
The Voortrekkers established themselves in two main Republics: of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
The gold rush to the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal Republic inspired British colonialism to occupy the Transvaal Republic as well as of the Orange Free State.
The British were defeated in the First War of Liberation.
During the second War of Liberation, British colonialism became famous for its concentration camp policy whereby 27 000 Afrikaner women and children (one third of all children in the Boer Republics) died of starvation and diseases.
In 1910 the Union of SA came into being which resulted in the amalgamation of four provinces and a large number of traditional tribal authorities. However, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana, although politically part of British SA and geographically part of Southern Africa, were given the option to remain outside the Union, which they did. In so doing they created three ethnic sovereign states. The other language communities found themselves in subordinate positions as part of the Union. In 1913 their territorial bases were acknowledged by law.
The underdeveloped status of the tribal authorities and the gold rush led to an unprecedented influx of blacks to the four (European-style) provinces. To such an extent that the European-style governments in the provinces introduced extraordinary measures to protect Western standards in policies which became known as “petty apartheid”.
In 1948, when the Afrikaners took over the power of government, they tried to unscramble the egg, made by British colonialism and imperialism. “Petty apartheid” then became only the object of a broader policy of territorially based nation states. In 1960 SA became a Republic outside the British Commonwealth. The so-called TBVC states (Transkei, Botswana, Venda and Ciskei) opted for independence, but lacked recognition by the international community. The role of the Marxist-inspired liberation movements, such as the African National Congress, as a tool of communist expansionism in the cold war, cannot be emphasized enough.
Eventually apartheid and Zionism were declared racist ideologies by the UN. The propaganda onslaught against the policy of separate but equal development became notorious. In the meantime SA was plagued by terrorist acts, such as the Rivonia case, in which outcome Nelson Mandela and others were given life sentences. The fact remains that the then government of SA was never defeated by acts of violence. In his later years the Mandela groups could have been released much earlier, if only they were prepared to renounce violence.
In the end both the ruling National Party of SA and the liberation groups had to negotiate a peaceful settlement. The settlement comprised the following:
34 constitutional principles for state formation, of which principle 12 read that collective self-determination be acknowledged.
An interim Constitution of 1993.
A final Constitution of 1996.
The 1993 Constitution provided for the Afrikaners a Volkstaat Council to investigate forms or models of self-determination. It also included a non-diminution clause for the protection of the Afrikaans language.
The 1996 Constitution included the following clauses to enhance the right of self-determination of (language) communities:
Internal autonomy for organs of civil society [s.31(1)(b)].
Constitutional councils for the protection and promotion of the collective rights of (language, religious, cultural and other) communities (s.185)
Territorial self-determination for blacks on their collectively owned tribal lands (s.211 and 212)
Territorial self-determination for communities other than communities based on customary law (s.235)
A (constitutional) Commission for the Promotion and the Protection of the Rights of Language, Religious, Cultural and other Communities (s.185)
In other words, to a large extent, the ANC is party to a constitution which recognizes many of the principles now post facto discredited as apartheid measures. However, the constitution says one thing, but in practice the ANC-government governs SA as if a negotiated settlement never occurred.
Economically speaking, the development of the so-called homelands is still stunted, due to the non-cooperation of the tribes with the economic system of border industries and industries in the tribal lands on an agency basis. It is also a best-kept secret that white South Africans simply had no rights within the tribal lands, but a lot of propaganda is being made regarding “petty apartheid” measures in the then four provinces.
In conclusion: because of the resistance of the liberation movements to adopting the policies of separate but equal development, the tribal lands are still underdeveloped and their people pre-modern in their outlook. What we see in SA after the failure of so-called apartheid is new colonialism of a special kind: namely the imposition of African collectivism on inter alia the white population with their European heritage. It is an invasion of masses of Africans, and the creation of innumerable so-called informal settlements in conditions of poverty around the cities. It is estimated that about 8 million illegal immigrants from other African countries invaded the liberated South African society. At the same time what we observe is a class of super-rich Blacks with their limos and then 17 million Blacks on social welfare. The real catastrophe facing SA is when the declining economy of the country becomes incapable of paying social grants; a condition which will start a fire that will burn down SA as well as all the myths on which the present de facto government is based.
The Mandela myth would then have failed to liberate the country, as it ignored the hard realities of a developing state with the need for an economy based on sound principles of modernity, competitiveness and hard work.
Dr. Christo Landman is a former South African diplomat and currently active in Afrikaner cultural organisations. His columns in Afrikaans may be read here.
Libertarian extraordinaire John Stossel asks the right questions. He doesn’t always arrive at the right answers.The questions Mr. Stossel poses on his Fox-Business TV show, small mercies, have little to do with the mindless things that busy Big Media.
For a couple of weeks, for example, the impetus among the mindless has been to provide the priapic Anthony Wiener with the boost his worthless life and life’s work have clearly needed. The sexting antics of this engorged organism—a New-York City mayoral candidate and once a Democratic congressman—have allowed Major Media to carry out its mission: knocking down one straw man (Weiner) to conceal the catastrophes of another (Obama).
Back to Stossel. To the question of “Are We Rome?” posed on the July 18 segment of his eponymous show, Mr. Stossel replied, “Not yet.” Wrong. Mr. Stossel takes comfort in the fact that “we don’t kill people for sport. When we go to war, misguided or not, we don’t conquer or plunder. And when we win, we usually leave.”
The popular host is utterly mistaken—just as he was wrong to summarily dismiss the threat to liberty of the “National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls,” to quote his nonchalant column.
Who is Stossel kidding? American assassins hunt down and kill very many innocents abroad by drone. Unmanned aerial U.S. “drones have killed thousands, many of them civilians,” attests Gabor Rona of Human Rights First. And talk about a Roman spectacle! Targeted killing is even a bit of a sport—so much so that the New Rome has established a “new medal that honors drone pilots and computer experts” for their long-distance killing prowess. It was to be called “The Distinguished Warfare Medal.”
Rome’s rulers were not nearly as efficient as the US is at killing. Uncle Sam has industrialized and streamlined war-time slaughter. No longer do thousands of legionnaires lay siege to a city with attack catapults; one pilot flattens it with a single “daisy cutter” (and few qualms).
Compare the demographic and economic indices of countries the US has invaded—for their own good, of course, but without their consent—before and after those faith-based initiatives. You’ll get a better idea of the carnage than John Stossel’s optimism allows.
Libya is no longer. Ditto Iraq. Afghanistan is not doing much better since Rome set up camp there.
The Comitatus—”the sprawling apparatus that encompasses the ministries of government, the lawyers, the diplomats, the adjutants, the messengers, the interpreters, the intellectuals”—refused to keep count of the casualties in the Iraq war. Thus are the losses variously estimated to run from 110,600 violent deaths (Associated Press), to 601,027 (a Lancet survey), and likely even 1,033,000 (Opinion Research Business survey).
Likewise has “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, still ongoing, been the direct and indirect cause of the deaths and displacement of many thousands of Afghan civilians. (Wikipedia has tallied the “deaths caused by Coalition forces in Libya.”)
Again, contrary to Stossel’s assertion, the latter-day Rome has mechanized the warfare-state’s killing capabilities and has refined its propaganda wing to an art—so fine an art that John Stossel has bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Nobody attempting to tackle the “Are We Rome?” vexation should get away with a failure to mention Cullen Murphy’s book by that name. This question Murphy has asked and answered. Superbly so.
Murphy’s “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome” draws the unflattering parallels between the imperial rule of ancient Rome and that of modern America, down to the contemporary “musicians” [like Beyoncé and Jay-Z], “the courtesans, diviners, buffoons [clearly categories are not mutually exclusive] … the people who taste the emperor’s food before he himself does … the core groups of bureaucrats and toadies who function within the nimbus of great power.”
The domain name “USA.gov.”, if you will.
Lest you forget, the D.C. hood is also home to your favorite, oh-so gritty media personalities, who gather inside or near the Bubble to reap “the benefits of being at the center of the Imperium.” This means rocking the ship of state just enough to retain street cred with “the folks.”
Ultimately, “All life in Washington today derives … from the capital’s own version of Rome’s annona — the continuous infusion not of grain and olive oil but of tax revenue and borrowed money,” avers Murphy. “Instead of ships and barges there are banks, 10,000 of them designated for this purpose, which funnel the nation’s tax payments to the city. This ‘never-ending flow of revenue creates a broad level of affluence that has no real counterpart anywhere in America. Washington simply doesn’t look like the rest of America.” But its residents “fail to view this as bizarre.”
The rest of the country doesn’t much flinch about the fleecing. The people of the provinces are programmed to go on pilgrimages to D.C., and genuflect to their opulent oppressors. The rest exist merely to serve the masters of modern Rome. Thanks to the graft flowing into the Beltway, the average income in and around Washington D.C. is $85,189 compared to $49,777 for the hinterland, where unemployment rates are almost double.
Unless the pauperized hoi polloi are willing to do something drastic, like repeal the “annona”—the number of that beast is 16: the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—we’ll continue to live as the Beltway’s bitches.
Yet another of Mr. Stossel’s less piercing insights consists in objecting “to President Obama’s $100 million dollar [African] trip,” but consoling himself that “The Romans were worse”: “Nero traveled with 1,000 carriages.”
By Murphy’s telling, when on-the-go, “just one element of the president’s U.S. security detail [is] a thousand strong”! It entails Air Force cargo planes which bring helicopters, Secret Service SUVs, and the official presidential limousine (plus the official decoy limousine). Along for the ride are ground forces, U.S. Naval vessels, with surface-to-air missiles as backup.
When the modern-day Xerxes is on the move, he travels with more auxiliaries than Nero, bringing smaller countries to a standstill.
There’s nothing Spartan or beneficent about the latter-day Rome’s rule.
Justice Piitso says the question of the ownership of the economy is the nerve centre of the struggles of the people
A revolution will remain incomplete without the resolution of the fundamental question of land ownership.
Next week the people of Zimbabwe will have an opportunity to exercise their democratic right to elect the government of their choice when they will be going to the polls.
This will be the most historic elections paving way for the end of the power sharing unity government between the ZANU -PF under President Robert Mugabe and the MDC under Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
This complex transitional arrangement is unfolding under the auspices of the watchful eye of the international community. The recent past elections were marred by allegations of state sponsored violence and intimidation of voters that made it difficult for a conducive environment of a free and fair elections.
It will therefore be in the best interest of the people of Zimbabwe that the forthcoming elections take place within the enabling framework of a free and fair environment. The people of Zimbabwe, Southern African region, the continent and the world need peace and stability.
The elections are taking place against the background of protracted forms of struggles between the government of Zimbabwe and the former colonial power Britain, over the historic land ownership question.
The political tensions escalated when the government under the leadership of ZANU-PF, embarked on a programme of seizure of land from the hands of the few white into the hands of the vast majority of the black people of Zimbabwe.
The state led radical programme for seizure of land from the white Zimbabwean community, sparked a fierce reaction that prompted the international community to impose sanctions against the government under the leadership of President Mugabe.
The imposition of the economic sanctions by the international community was a confirmation that colonial societies are ordered by imperialism. The reason why we say the Zimbabwean revolution fiddled with the nervous system of the forces of imperialism and colonialism.
It is from this context that revolutionaries openly debate on the important question of the complexities of the post colonial transitional periods, and how they affect the struggles of our people in the former colonies and semi colonies.
Equally we need to appreciate this as a metamorphosis of how the post colonial contradictions manifest themselves in the arena of the struggles of our people, against imperialism and neo colonial domination.
In the year 1980 Zimbabwe was declared an independent state after decades of protracted forms of struggles for national liberation against British colonial domination and the racist South African apartheid regime.
The declaration of the independence of the former colonial state of Rhodesia, was a historic breakthrough in the struggles of our people for the liberation of the Southern African region.
The declaration of the independence of the former colonial state of Rhodesia was a product of a negotiated transitional political arrangement. The transitional negotiations culminated into the former colonial master Britain and the liberation movement of Zimbabwe signing the historic Lancaster Agreement.
At the heart of the watershed agreement was the unwavering commitment by the British colonial government to assist in ensuring equitable transfer of land back to the overwhelming majority of the people of Zimbabwe. It was agreed that the process should be completed within the first decade of the transitional period.
Historical records prove that the British colonial government rescinded by not expediting the process of the transfer of land as agreed at the Lancaster house. This is the fundamental problem that has aggravated the present socio economic crisis.
The Zimbabwean land ownership question is a living testimony of how complex post colonial transitional period can be in the context of the history of the struggles of our people in the former colonies and semi colonies. It also relates to the nature and the character of the struggles, between the oppressor and the oppressed nations, post colonial transitional period.
At the core of these struggles is the fundamental question of how do we involve the oppressed people in the former colonies and semi colonies into the mainstreams of our economy. The primary issue remains to be how do we resolve the fundamental question of the ownership of the economy.
The scientific historical realities have proven that the question of the ownership of the economy is the nerve centre of the struggles of our people. The basic reason why it has become the most contentious issue after every war of the independence of our people.
The pertinent question is how do we understand the interrelationship between the primary and secondary contradictions. The mistakes we must avoid is to elevate secondary contradictions at the expense of primary contradictions.
Imperialism is trying to confuse our people by elevating the superficial issues of human rights at the expense of the fundamental question of the ownership patterns of the economy.
We must therefore refuse the attempts by imperialism to reduce the role of the people in the former colonies and semi colonies into being praise singers of national anthems and hoisting of National flags.
The most fundamental question is how do we take forward the common struggles of our people to create a new world social order. Our immediate task is to implore our collective responsibility to resolve the contradictions of poverty, disease and underdevelopment inflicting the poor people of the world.
We therefore have to ask ourselves the most important question as to what are the lessons and experiences we have learned out of the contradictions of the Zimbabwean post colonial transition.
We have to ask ourselves the most important question as what is the role and influence of the phenomenon of imperialism and colonialism during the transitional period of the post colonial nation states.
The essence of any revolutionary phase is about generations of mankind making sacrifices. The people of Zimbabwe have made sacrifices during the struggles for liberation against British colonial rule, and they are still making sacrifices today as they continue with the struggles for the socio economic transformation of their country.
The struggles of the people of Zimbabwe are still consistence with the values, culture and traditions of the progressive movement of the world. Its posture is still anti colonial in form and content.
The only task confronting the collective leadership of the ZANU-PF is how to polish their understanding of the scientific revolutionary concept of the role of an individual in the making of history.
The collective leadership of the ZANU-PF will go into the annals of history, having been the first generations of the people of the former colonies and semi colonies to have fiddled with the nervous system of the forces of imperialism and colonialism.
Phatse Justice Piitso is the former Ambassador to the republic of Cuba and the former provincial secretary of the SACP.
Bolivia has accused Austria of “kidnapping” its president, Evo Morales.
After a 12-hour interruption during which the president’s plane was stopped and searched by Austrian authorities for US fugitive Edward Snowden, Morales was allowed to fly home. Bolivia’s vice-president, Alvaro Garcia Linera, described Morales as being “kidnapped by imperialism” in Europe. Authorities had suspected Morales was taking Snowden to Latin America.
The unusual treatment of the Bolivian leader touched a sensitive nerve in the region, which has a history of US-backed coups, and presidents rallied in support of Morales.
“Definitively, they’re all crazy,” Argentine President Cristina Fernandez tweeted after a phone call to Morales. Fernandez described Morales as defiant.
” ‘I’m not a thief’,” she quoted him as saying.
Nicaraguan and Cuban officials also decried the incident.
A senior Bolivian diplomat said the Austrians had acted at the bidding of the US, which has been trying to get its hands on Snowden since he revealed details of its secret surveillance programmes.
“We’re talking about the president on an official trip after an official summit being kidnapped,” Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, Sacha Llorenti Soliz, said.
The plane, which was taking Morales home from an energy conference in Moscow, was stranded at Vienna airport after Portugal and France refused to allow it to fly through their airspace.
The search found that Snowden was not on board.
Bolivia has filed a complaint at the United Nations on Wednesday over what it called the kidnapping of its president.
The country’s ambassador to the UN, Sacha Llorenti, said the enforced rerouting to Austria was an act of aggression and a violation of international law. The US admitted that it had been in contact with other nations over potential flights by Snowden.
“We will demand appropriate explanations from those countries that submitted to North American imperialism and briefly put President Morales in such a helpless situation,” Llorenti told the state radio Patria Nueva. Bolivia’s vice-president, Alvaro García Linera, said Morales was “kidnapped by imperialism”.
South American nations accused the United States of being behind the extraordinary manoeuvring, furious at what they regarded as the humiliation of Morales. In Washington, the state department would not comment on the Morales flight but conceded that it discussed the issue of flights by Snowden with other nations.
“We have been in contact with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country but I am not going to outline what those countries were or when this [contact] happened,” said spokeswoman Jan Psaki.
The diplomatic crisis may have been set off by a remark by Morales during a television interview in Russia, where he had been attending an energy conference. Morales said that he sympathised with Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport, and hinted that Bolivia might accept an asylum petition. “If there were a request, of course we would be willing to debate and consider the idea,” Morales told RT Actualidad, the Spanish-language service of the Russian broadcaster RT.
Later that day, soon after Morales was bound for La Paz, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal refused to allow the presidential jet to fly through their airspace over suspicions that Snowden was on board, according to the Bolivian government’s account.
The Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, said France and Portugal were the first to cancel air permits. “They say it was due to technical issues, but after getting explanations from some authorities we found that there appeared to be some unfounded suspicions that Mr Snowden was on the plane. We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of Evo Morales,” Choquehuanca said.
Diverted from their planned route, pilots feared they would not be able to complete their journey. The plane was eventually cleared to land in Vienna, where Morales was forced to spend 13 hours in humiliating limbo while officials worked to resolve the dispute.
It later took off after Austrian officials said Snowden was not on board. But it was unclear whether any officials in Vienna had searched the plane. Austria’s deputy chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, said Morales “agreed to a voluntary inspection”. But the Bolivian defence minister, Ruben Saavedra, later said Morales had refused entry to the inspectors, and that they had only got as far as the door of the aircraft.
In Bolivia, the treatment of the president stirred up patriotic and anti-imperialist sentiment. Several labour and indigenous organisations planned a welcome rally for the president on his arrival in La Paz on Wednesday evening.
The Argentinian president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, attacked the “vestiges of colonialism” in a speech in Buenos Aires. “We believe this constitutes not only the humiliation of a sister nation but of all South America,” she said. An emergency meeting of the Union of South American Nations was expected to be convened on Thursday.
It was widely assumed in South America that Washington was responsible for the presidential plane being refused air permissions. Earlier in the week, the state department said it hoped Snowden would be returned to the US to face charges of espionage and theft after a string of other countries said they would not accept his applications for asylum.
Speaking before the developments in Vienna, the state department rejected claims made by Snowden on Monday that the US had bullied other potential hosts, such as Ecuador, into withdrawing their offer of asylum. The US says it has only impressed upon possible host countries the seriousness of the crimes with which Snowden had been charged. – Reuters/The Guardian
For more than two hundred years the Afrikaans language has been attacked and marginalised in South Africa, either by the British colonial authorities or by the ANC regime. During the days of National Party rule, English was allowed to retain its role as sole public language and Afrikaans was subjected to censorship.
PRAAG (the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group) therefore rejects the notion that Afrikaans could ever be classified with English as a “previously advantaged language”. Commenting in Johannesburg, Dr. Dan Roodt, the leader of PRAAG said: “No language has been more subject to state repression and marginalisation than Afrikaans. The new language bill simply represents a continuation of British imperialism and colonialism, with the genocidal ANC regime intent upon killing Afrikaans and a large number of its speakers.”
Roodt has called upon the international community to “take note of the dire situation in South Africa, with the ANC regime inviting ethnic conflict through its policy of cultural and linguistic imperialism, as well as attacks upon Afrikaans schools, place names, museums and libraries.”
PRAAG will join in court applications with other Afrikaans organisations to stop the illegal and totalitarian measures being taken against Afrikaans. However, it has also called for civil disobedience to the “sushi-devouring, corrupt, Milnerist satraps whose tyrannical rule over South Africa already represents a crime against humanity. Afrikaners especially should not pay toll fees, taxes or make any contribution to sustain these Idi Amin-like clowns who are dreaming of being British lords calling us donkeys for speaking Afrikaans.”
However, the pro-Afrikaans body has welcomed the “clarity” brought by the ANC’s new language law. “If final evidence had been needed that the unitary state of South Africa was doomed, this is it,” said Roodt. “The only logical way out is self-determination for Afrikaners, as soon as possible. There is currently a reawakening of our noble Afrikaner spirit that has sustained us in the struggle against imperialism for so long. We prevailed against the British Empire and will likewise survive the Nguni Empire in its venality, ugliness and arrogance.”
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