PICTURE: MIKE HUTCHINGS We were promised two decades ago that politics would cure the ills of our past — but today, politics has become a symptom of those ills.Two current news items show how much the past is still with us. Both are playing out in the ANC but say something important about the country. Both are seen by many in the mainstream as a sign that we have changed too much but are really about how little we have changed.Many in the suburbs will see them as a sign that politics has fallen into the hands of the uncivilised. But political violence simply repeats the reality before 1994. White politics may have seemed placid, but was not always so. At one time, National Party heavies used violence against their white opponents. More importantly, the entire system was built on force which kept the minority in power and triggered a violent response from some of its victims.Under apartheid, the suburbs were peaceful, townships and shack settlements were plagued by violence — suburba...
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