Amadoda, what we can deduce form this is that all politicains will say anything to get voted again and esure more freebees and choo choo's on the gravy train at the expense of the tax payer. This is the same arround the world.

I agree, but in most democracies the civil population does not tolerate corruption when it is exposed. Not so in SA.

The question is... who do you vote for.... there is no real opposition.... everyone seems to be devided and no-one wants to get together to create a powerfull opposition. Whithout an opposition, the current govt has the license to do as they please.... no one will stop them... the masses don't care about corruption, but only about the promises made.

NO viable opposition is a real problem. DA is full of white racists, the ANC full of black racists. UDM incompetant, IFP - don't trust Bhutelezi, FF is a fossil, AZAPO scary, PAC just as scary. Oppostion politics need to mature before the ANC finds itself against any rival. After Mbekis treatment of Mugape I wouldn't be surprised if the ANC responded like Zanu-PF to a threat to its power,

Perhaps Zim is then a perview of things to come.... I hope not..... the opposition needs to build up fairly quickly so that SA doesn't create a Mugabe style psychopath that wants to stay in power till the day he dies. In fact there will probably be a law soon that worms that eat Mugabe's body after he is dead will be tried for treason.

While I agree with the general drift of Mulholland's views, I do resent the portrayal of Afrikaners as Nazi's and the implication that the entire apartheid scheme was thought up by the Afrikaners (it had a perverse life of its own which started under Shepstone (British) in Natal).

Many criticisms of the ANC are published these days "balanced" with unfair attacks on the Afrikaner as a group. This is supposed to show the neutrality of the commentator. The underlying argument is something like the following: Surely I must be unbiased if I attack both regimes with equal enthusiasm.
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"You only live once, but that is quite enough"

in situations where race and racism have been inbued into politics, whether for or against racist policies, you cant get rid of it.

in america, our political mass machines, also known as parties, arent totally built around race, but are imbued in it. the wierd thing about it is, groups that dont really get along ally for the common good in their party (because there are only two real parties here).

the republicans are the upper class and rural white party, which is now trying to include certain hispanic groups into voting for them, while at the same time doing their best to sabotage opposing minority groups voting or civil rights efforts, as im sure even you guys are aware of the shadey circumstances in which the current american president won his election (by simply tossing out jewish and black votes in the deciding state).

the democrats are the working and lower class white party, which has a solid base in the black and jewish american communities, as well as the asian and native communities. the thing aobut them is, they arent even really a single party, but a bunch of different smaller parties with alternate agendas who under any other circumstances would hate each other, but have joined for the common good. which is why democrats rarely agree on anything other than things that republicans oppose.

Come on CJM

Everybody knows that the introduction and scrapping of Apartheid co-incided with the rise and fall of the Boere Reich and that english-speaking white South Africans were faultless in their defence of human rights and non-racial beliefs...

I recommend David Welsh's book "Roots of Segregation"

Anyway,who won the Boer War and at Union did not lift a finger to assist the disenfranchised Blacks? Where were the English under Smuts' SA party when the cornerstones of the Apartheid Legislation (the 1913 Land Act and successors) were enacted?

Who now that they have "acquired" their goal of a democratic society are leaving the country in droves?

The English were only too thankful that the dumb boers were doing the dirty work and keeping the blacks in their place.

As for the Afrikaners being portrayed as Nazis: It created an unfair image which we are still trying to shake off. Millions of Rands were spent on Blacks (probably not enough) but show me how in any way whatsoever this can be compared with the extermination of Jews.

To Loonster: Interesting view of the Democrats. Perhaps that is the way forward for SA minority parties (at the moment it seems all effective opposition here has dissolved).


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"You only live once, but that is quite enough"

CJM I was only half joking.

I would never compare apartheid with the holocaust. Apartheid robbed people of their dignity, not their lives - unless they opposed it of course.

Nor does Mulholland make such a comparison, he states, "Then we had DF Malan, JG Strijdom, Hendrik Verwoerd and the other assorted social engineers of apartheid, all of them imbued with Nazism's obsession about race."

Which you must agree with. He follows this up immediately with:

"These worthies did not quite descend to the level of gas ovens in which to incinerate millions of men, women and children. "

I suppose the word "quite" is rather provactive - there is no comparison.

Do I detect the remnants of Anglo vs Boer II animosity. Surely not in this day and age. Afrikaans speaking and English speaking South Africans are leaving in equal numbers. Been to Perth or London lately? Every second person you bump into is Afrikaans.

If apartheid had been anything like what the Nazis did, South Africa would be another Australia, NZ or America. i.e. the blacks would bearly exist. Instead we must watch a country go down the tubes as their snouts sap up the gravy and culture of entitlement and victimhood prevent them from doing any work.

100 hundred years down the line they will still blame apartheid. Look at those black Americans. They're still unable to pull their fingers out their bums and contribute to science and progress. Pity blacks can't be more like the Japanese and Hong Kongese(?) who thrive immediately even after two Nuclear bombs and 150 years of British rule (hong kong that is). But then they had their own civilisation to start with. Blacks are fresh out the bush. Didn't even have the wheel before Mr van Riebeeck. I suppose being wrenched from the stone age to the modern world in a space of 350 years was a bit too traumatic. Perhaps in a thousand years time we'll have some progress.

I wondered whether you were trying to bait me!

If Mulholland is read carefully, I agree he does qualify the Nazi bit. However, the word Nazi causes such reaction in many people that I tend to get upset even if it is just remotely used in connection with Afrikaners.

Personally "some of my best friends are English speaking ;-)" and I was merely at pains to point out that they cannot be considered blameless if we are considered guilty [nice to have partners in crime ;-)]
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"You only live once, but that is quite enough"

I can understand your sensitivity, as there are many english speakers who try and absolve themselves of any responsibility and claim political impotence and blame those bloody verkrampte Afrikaners.

One of my favourite caricatures of Anglo vs Boer II is that of Queen Vic on President Krugers knee getting a spanking after black week. Pretty damn funny.

What is an Amadoda (I assume it is something)
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"You only live once, but that is quite enough"