JUSTICE MALALA: This is how SA's new race war is brewing
'This is where we are now: the problem is the whites, or the blacks, or the Indians or the coloureds'
EXTRACT
The ideological glue that has held it, largely, all together is coming undone. The ANC, the self-styled “leader of society”, is a party whose every regional or provincial meeting is characterised by the throwing of chairs, the intimidation of members, the paying of bribes and the shouting-down of leaders. There is no thinking, no reflection, at ANC conferences. There is merely the warring for positions. The ANC cannot hold itself together. It cannot, therefore, hold the rest of our society together.
We are all to blame for this sad state of affairs. After 46 years of apartheid and 300 years of colonialism, one would think there is no need to educate my fellow white compatriots about the devastating effects of apartheid on the psyche, the material conditions, the dignity, the wealth of black people. Yet, sadly, many times I listen to “perfectly ordinary” white South Africans in wonder as they seem to be totally ignorant of (or deny to acknowledge) the devastation wrought by the system of apartheid and the privilege it has given them.
So this is where we are now: the political noise is at full blast, the whites say the blacks are revolting and incapable while the blacks say the whites are revolting and selfish. If you were to listen to many so-called South African leaders, on social media and other public platforms, that is where our country is today. A country divided, our backs to each other. A mere 24 years after we seemed to cohere under the vision of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, we are swiftly disintegrating into a country of us and them, of camps and villages where we are defined by the colours of our skin. We are pointing fingers, we are shouting, we are angry. We cannot hear each other. We cannot bear each other.Meanwhile, the ideological glue that has held it, largely, all together is coming undone. The ANC, the self-styled “leader of society”, is a party whose every regional or provincial meeting is characterised by the throwing of chairs, the intimidation of members, th...
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