As I ponder the words of our President, "we must address the inequalities of past", it was not an unfamiliar term.
"Yes, I agree" was my mental response, but then I began to think about the circumstances we now find ourselves in, I was struck by the idea, and an image, of the future.
Then of course, I was struck by the reality of the present.
I began to explore the idea of the past. How far does the past go? Does the past go 50, 60, 70, or even a 100 years.
Does it go to yesterday, or the day before. I even convinced myself that it extended only to the day in 1948, when the Nationalist Party was elected into government. I would like to know at what point the ANC define the "past". I even began to explore the past as the day when Jan van Riebeek arrived at the Cape, or a time that the Bantu (blacks) had not even crosssed the Limpopo River.
Then I began to think about inequalities. What makes people equal? Is equality the size of people? Is it their education? Is equality their gender? Is it their acumen and the ability to defraud and those who are defrauded.?
But being an informed South African, I thought, It is about the "oppressive laws" of apartheid. These laws were, indeed oppressive. They were horrific. What gave the right to one racial group to oppress another racial group? So being enlightened about what our President meant I was satisfied, but then I began to think about the "oppressive and unsustainable" laws of oppression.
This made me think about the "Affirmative Action Laws" and the "Black Empowerment" laws, and it made we wonder, "Has the oppression ended?"
Have we have replaced one oppressive system for another?
We, as ordinary South Africans, deserve to know. You decide.
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