This article is a response to the published piece by Lukhona-Mnguni, on 14 August 2012, with the title: “Dear White people in South Africa”.
During the elections in 1994, I was watching the television coverage of the event and various interviews that were done with the new black voters. One black lady made the following comment: “I am so glad that we can vote. Now we can also get all these things that the white people get so easily like televisions and houses and cars and all that stuff”. Today 18 years later the majority of the black population has not reached the point where they can get these things easily – but here’s the reality check: neither has the white people.
Through the various laws and regulations employed by the BEE disenfranchise campaign the white people are now struggling to get jobs and don’t get promoted and have an absolutely zero chance to successfully tender for any business accept in situations where they allow black people to come along for a free ride. So what has in effect happened is that the few jobs previously occupied by white people are now occupied by black people and the masses are still hungry and suffering. The difference is that the white people can’t complain so they just shut up and try to survive while the black people keep on blaming it on apartheid and on the white people.
The average white man has no control over the resources of this country and never had any control. The resources have always been controlled by a small elite and still is, with a few exceptions of black free riders that had to be taken onboard to make it look legitimate on the surface. By directing your anger at the average white man or the “white people of South Africa”, you are revealing your absolute ignorance about the matter and you are playing directly into the hand of the small elite and your own black leadership that sold you out on day one.
After the Afrikaner Boer people lost the war against the British, it took them almost 60 years to become a republic and gain the right to rule themselves independently and even then it gave them the political power only and not the resources – the resources always belonged to the “English”. By 1994 the entire mining industry was still controlled by the “English” and it was rare to see an Afrikaner in senior management positions or ownership situations in the mining industry. The black people were able to force the white people to give up political control of the country and in so doing the Afrikaner Boer had to give up control – but control of political position only – the resources are still owned by the small elite and dressed up on the face of it to look more black.
The so called black fight for freedom was aimed at the Afrikaner Boer political power and not at obtaining the economic resources. If the goal was the economic empowerment of the black people then they should have gone after the economic resources with cunning skill, economic expertise and intelligent business acumen. Their problem was that this would mean that they actually had to work to get somewhere and earn their way to a secure position like the Afrikaner Boer did in the early part of the century. History tells us that they opted for the other easier route – they settled for political power and as a result that is what they got – and now, 18 years later the next generation of black people is really frustrated because they still haven’t got their free TV’s houses and cars. They don’t understand what happened and don’t comprehend how their parents could have cheated them out of economic empowerment and now its time to blame the white people again. Maybe your parents would have understood these basic principles if they bothered to go to school in stead of burning them all down.
The Afrikaner Boer obtained political power through decades of meticulous planning and organisation, through legal and legitimate routes and nationalist campaigns and endeavors that finally got them their independent republic. The black people however was not going to do it the honourable way. They had already sold out their children by their inability to go after the economic resources and now all that remained was to force the white political elite, by means of violence, intimidation and rebellion to hand over the power in an illegitimate way.
When the 1994 election took place, the old constitution had not been amended to allow black people to vote. The intelligent, legal and civil way to do it would have been to convince the majority of parliament to vote in favour of an amendment to the constitution that would allow black people the legal right to vote. Due to the lack of skills and inability of the black people, this did not happen and so an illegitimate election was held to bring into power the black people and grant them their so called freedom by what was technically a coup d'état. This the black people are very proud of – the day they stole their freedom from the Afrikaner Boer – their freedom to drag all white people down with them to their level of suffering under the small economic elite that control the resources – and to then just blame its failure on the white people again.
You can foolishly choose to ignore the failures of your black leaders and their inability to actually secure a sustainable strong economic future for their people and you can ignorantly choose to continue to blame the white people for the mess you are in – these white people now share the mess created by the black people and the majority of them are just as unable to make a difference as you are – in fact white people have no political power any more, so why would you look to them for cooperation and solutions? I find it really amusing how black people just want ownership without accepting responsibility – it must be quite a shocker to discover that white people actually worked for what they have – to discover that the country wont run itself and the economy wont grow by itself and white people never got cars and TV’s for free – let alone RDP housing. White people had to, and still have to, work for what they want and pay for what they get.
Why would you want to further aggravate your only productive source of products, services, food and taxes? The white people have already been reduced to a state of taxation without representation – to a place where they are the only minority in the world that is legally discriminated against by the majority – yet they keep on funding the majority, the black people. They grow your food – yet you kill their farmers. They fund your corrupt government and your free housing, yet you want to remove their capacity to keep on doing so?
It would be much wiser at this point in history for the black people to find and vote for black leaders that actually care more for their people than their own pockets - leaders that actually finished high school and have some sense of business and basic economic principles. Or you can continue to demand free hand outs from the white people like your ancestors did, and never learn to walk, grow and build.
The white people are tired of funding RDP houses and black economic empowerment, they are tired of paying the price for feeding the demanding black masses that are not able or willing to look after themselves and they are tired of watching how your leaders suck this country dry for their own personal gain. There is a young white generation that carry no guilt for what happened in the past. They were not responsible for it and they hurt no one and they don’t see why the mistakes of others have to influence their rights and privileges as individuals and as a group. They are willing to work and grow and think for themselves. They are willing and able to go out there and get what they want – yet the black people are standing in their way with ghost stories of a horrible past that entitle them to come and demand, discriminate and abuse.
Isn’t it funny how the wheel turned in just 18 years. The difference is that the oppressed white people are willing to work for what they want and the children of oppressed white people go to school and don’t burn buildings and tires. You don’t see them marching, fighting, burning and throwing stones. You don’t hear them demanding things they never worked for. You don’t see them striking and demanding and making noise. They silently watch the news as the very symbolic “white people version” of the Rivonia Trial plays itself out in court. They are silently and patiently waiting for history to repeat itself. While you are trying to figure out ways to gain control over the resources of the country they are lobbying foreign governments and lodging complaints with bodies such as the International Criminal Court, The Commonwealth, the United nations and the European Union. Doesn’t it sound familiar?
So you see, Mr. Lukhona-Mnguni, your threat that the country will burn is not a threat to the white people – it is their only hope. 60 000 Boer Soldiers lasted two and a half years against 600 000 British soldiers – do the math – we’ve done it before – we can do it again.
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