What 30 years of black power have done to South Africa

As Walt's friends and regular readers know, I called Zimbabwe -- known in earlier, better days as Rhodesia -- home for some years in the 1990s. Zimbabwe (aka the Land of Bambazonke) was one of the last African countries to achieve independence from their colonial masters, in this case "Great" Britain. Today, 44 years after independence, Zimbabwe is an economic basket case, an effective one-party state ruined by its government's ignorance, incompetence and kleptomania.

While I lived there, I often visited RSA, the Republiek van Suid-Afrika, or Republic of South Africa, which was on the verge of overthrowing the National Party and its apartheid régime of racial separation. The 1994 elections, held for the first time under a one-man-one-vote system, brought to power the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. The ANC has ruled South Africa ever since.

In the run-up to the handover of power to the black majority, my friends and colleagues told me, "You just watch. The blacks are incapable of running a country. In a few years, it'll be just like 'up north'." 

This weekend, the people of South Africa are celebrating -- sort of -- the 30th anniversary of freedom from the rule of the white settlers. In the week leading up to the anniversary, countless South Africans were asked what three decades of freedom from apartheid meant to them. 

The dominant response was that while 1994 was a landmark moment, it is now overshadowed by the joblessness, violent crime, corruption and near-collapse of basic services like electricity and water that plague "the new South Africa" today.

The 1994 election changed South Africa ("Republic" has been dropped from the official name) from a country where black and other non-white people were denied not just the right to vote, but many basic freedoms. Apartheid laws controlled where they lived, where they were allowed to go on any given day, and what jobs they could have. 

After the fall of the apartheid system, the country's new constitution guaranteed (supposedly) the rights of all South Africans regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual preferences. However, it doesn't give all those "marginalized" folks the white houses, white cars and white women they coveted. 

Nor has it brought about freedom from want. Quite the opposite. The black majority -- more than 80% of the population of 62 million -- are still overwhelmingly affected by severe poverty. The official unemployment rate is 32% --, the highest in the world -- and more than 60% cent for young people (aged 15 to 24).

South Africa is still the most unequal country in the world in terms of wealth distribution, according to the World Bank, with race a key factor. More than 16 million mostly black South Africans (a quarter of the country's population) rely on monthly welfare grants for survival. 

Seth Mazibuko, an anti-apartheid activist in the 1970s, sums things up, thus, "Let us agree that we messed up." So they did. Things are worse now than when the Afrikaners were in charge, and the chances of returning to those not-so-bad-after-all days are slim and none.

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Who's to blame for "mostly peaceful protests"?

You could see it coming. Here's what happens after years of crime and corruption, economic stagnation and rising unemployment, the crumbling of the state in key sectors such as electricity and transport, a growing lawlessness in many regions, and an unofficial policy of impunity for violent street mobs. 

What you see in the pix is not "reparations shopping" in Chicago, St Louis, San Francisco or Portland -- all those fine Democratic cities -- but black people rioting and looting in Johannesburg and other cities of South Africa. Happening right now, it's what the gliberals call "mostly peaceful protests" against the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma after convictions on charges of corruption and malfeasance. 

As in the Excited States of America, folks of the coloured persuasion seize on any excuse for rioting and looting. So bad is the situation that the SA government has called up 25,000 army reservists in an attempt to restore order. They will likely find themselves outnumbered, as tens of thousands continue to attack shopping malls and set factories ablaze. ("No more work! Let's go shoppin'!") 

In Durban (the largest city in Mr Zuma's KwaZulu-Natal province), some 45,000 businesses have been affected by the "unrest" (the PC term). Across the country, food and fuel shortages are worsening. At least 200 shopping centres have been ransacked by looters, and national highways have been shut down, endangering alrelady tenuous supply chains.The official death toll, as of this morning, stands at 72, but unofficial reports put the number of deaths in stampedes and shootings in the 1000s.

Who is to blame for all this? Must be whitey, right? Isn't South Africa the country where they have that apartheid system to keep the fuzzy-wuzzies down and the white on top? Errr, no. "Settler rule", as the United Nations called it, ended in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became president. 

That was 27 years ago. And -- trust me on this, I was there -- that's when the decline of what was theretofore the most developed, most prospereous country in Africa began. That's when smart Afrikaaners started leaving for places where white folks still run things, like Australia and Canada. [Those who went to Canada must be really disappointed! Ed.] 

South Africa was given back to its aboriginal peoples, and has now become just like all the other shitholes of darkest Africa. There's a lesson there somewhere, for those who are not blinded by ant-white racism and political correctness. 

Who's running the municipal governments of Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit and Baltimore? Not white Republicans! And what is happening in those and similar failing American cities? Persistent crime and corruption, years of economic stagnation and rising unemployment, etc etc. 

The difference between those cities and, say, Johannesburg, is that in the USA, it's all because of things that some white people did to some black people nearly two centuries ago. Maybe if we tear down some more statues, rename some more streets, and start teaching white kids about how rotten they are, the rioting and looting will stop. Right? LMAO!

Fruits of majority rule in South Africa: called in to quell black crime

Until 1994, voting in South Africa was restricted to whites and "honorary whites" (like Japanese), with a limited franchise for "Asians" (= South Asians) and "coloured" (= people of mixed race). If you were black -- sometimes identifiable by the measurement of your lips -- you couldn't vote at all. This was just one aspect of the apartheid (= separate development) system for which South Africa condemned as hopeless neadnderthal racists by liberals and "right-thinking people" around the world.

All that changed on 27 April 1994 when all citizens were allowed to vote, regardless of colour. The result -- a foregone conclusion -- was just what the gliberals and United Nations demanded -- "majority rule". Saint Nelson Mandela became the first black president, and blacks -- the majority in question -- were at last empowered and given their rightful place at the trough. April 27th is now a national holiday -- "Freedom Day".

Those who suggested that the majority were perhaps "not quite ready" to run their country, and that South Africa would "go back to bush, like the countries north of the Limpopo" were dismissed as sore losers, churls, racists, yada yada yada.

In 1994, the murder rate in Cape Town, seat of South Africa's parliament, was on the order of 20 per 100,000 people. Not great, but also not as bad as places like, errr, Chicago. By Y2K it had shot up to 45 per 100,000. In the first six months of this year -- the 25th year of majority rule -- nearly 2000 people were murdered in the Western Cape (Cape Town's province), according to Albert Fritz, a provincial official tasked with ensuring community safety.

Mr Fritz spoke following more than a dozen murders over one weekend in June. "Many of our most vulnerable residents in the province are living in a war zone," he told the meeja. Most of the bloodshed has been in black and coloured areas, particularly a vast area called Cape Flats, where high rates of unemployment and drug abuse have fuelled gang activity.

In a crime made headlines last week, six women between ages 18 and 26 were killed when unknown gunmen entered a home and opened fire. The next day, another five men, aged 18 to 39, were shot dead and one was injured in two separate shooting incidents in Philippi, one of the shanty towns within Cape Flats.

Police Minister Bheki Cele visited Philippi following the "incidents" to announce that the national government will shortly deploy a battalion of soldiers to help police quell a surge in violence in gang-infested parts of Cape Town, a step normally only taken over the Christmas and New Year period when crime spikes in poorer neighbourhoods. This initiative will be known as "Operation PROSPER". Seriously.

Hardly a lasting solution, according to Gareth Newham, of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, who called it "a short-term, unsustainable response to a crisis." But what would he know? He's a whitey, obviously a racist living (in his mind) in pre-Freedom Day South Africa. Why doesn't he just leave, as so many other "white flees" have done and go to a safe place like, errr, Chicago.

Footnote: In a report this year by the The Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, only three of the world's top 50 most dangerous cities not from the Americas 50 were in South Africa, with Cape Town at 11th overall with a homicide rate of 66.36 per 100,000 residents.

South Africans won't slaughter white farmers... at least not right now

"White cars, white houses, white women!" That's what black African terrorists were told they get, once they had wrested independence from the colonialists and white settlers. That's what they were fighting for. Not democracy but white cars, white houses and white women!

On 24 October 1964 Britain granted independence to Northern Rhodesia, which was promptly renamed Zambia. One of the first things the new black government of the Marxist Kenneth Kaunda did was to expel the mostly white commercial farmers, so their farms could be "indigenized" -- turned over to his relatives and cronies. The new farmers knew nothing about commercial farming (or even subsistence farming, in some cases) and to no-one's surprise the fertile land went back to bush. Zambia went from being an exporter of food to a net importer.

One of the countries Zambia imported food from was Rhodesia, which was run by white settlers. Rhodesia was the second-most prosperous country in sub-Saharan Africa, after South Africa, which was also run by, errr, white volk. The perfidious Brits sold out their Rhodesian kith and kin in 1980, handing the country over to Comrade Robert Mugabe and his merry band of kleptomaniacs. It took them until 2000 to seize the famously productive white farms, which were handed over to Mugabe's family and friends.

I was there, and on doctor's advice left, just in the nick of time. The botched and often violent redistribution (read: theft) of land left many farms in ruins, and the drop in production triggered an economic crisis that still haunts the country. Uncle Bob's cronies and comrades not only were ignorant of large-scale farming, but had no interest in it. They treated their farms as good places for a Sunday braai, nothing more, and just as in Zambia, the land went out of production and Zimbabwe was plunged into permanent food insecurity.

The other country Zambia, and later Zimbabwe import food from, even today, is South Africa. That country had been independent for a century or so, but didn't come under the control of black Africans until 1994, when the whites saw the black writing on the wall and made a deal with the Nelson Mandela-led African National Congress under which there was to be no wholesale seizure of farms or other sectors of the economy. I was there for that too, and remember a friend warning me "Don't be fooled. In another ten years things will be just like up north." He was wrong, but only about the timeline.

When apartheid ended in 1994, white farmers -- the word in Afrikaans is "boers" -- owned about 85% of South Africa's better farmland. A 2017 government audit found the percentage had fallen to 72%. That is 72% too much, according to Julius Malema, the avowed Marxist leader of the opposition in the country's parliament. This week he introduced a motion, which passed almost unanimously, calling for the amendment of South Africa's constitution to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation... as was done in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Honourable Mr Malema has a long-standing commitment to taking land (or houses or cars, etc) without compensation. In 2016 he told his supporters he was "not calling for the slaughter of white people -- at least for now." The policy was a key factor in new president Cyril Ramaphosa's platform after he took over from the incredibly corrupt Jacob Zuma in February.

In introducing the motion, Mr Malema called white farmers "criminals", and said "the time for reconciliation is now over. Now is the time for justice!" Justice for white South African farmers will look something like this.

"We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land," said the Honourable Mr Malema. The ruling ANC's rural affairs minister "There is no doubt about it, land shall be expropriated without compensation."

One small point that neither speaker addressed was the likely effect on South Africa's agricultural output. Ernst Roets, the deputy chief executive of civil rights group Afriforum, said the motion was a violation of agreements made at the end of apartheid. "This motion is based on a distorted image of the past," he explained. "The term 'expropriation without compensation' is a form of semantic fraud. It is nothing more than racist theft."

Freedom Front Plus party leader Pieter Groenewald said the decision to strip white farmers of their land would cause "unforeseen consequences that is not in the interest of South Africa." Leaving aside the grammatical lapse (for which we'll forgive Mr Groenewald since his first language is Afrikaans), he is wrong only in his use of the word "unforeseen". It is easy to foresee that this will all end badly, just as it has in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

A classic paradigm of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get a different result. By that definition, the decision taken by South Africa's parliament last week is indeed insane.

Further reading:
"South Africa's Farmers Look North for Opportunities", Ventures Africa, 20/11/12. And [Walt adds] where might "north" be? Answer: Zambia, Zimbabwe and other places which chased out the "white settlers" and are now begging them to come back!
"Trump is Petitioned for White Farmers From South Africa to Come to U.S. As Refugees", Absolute Truth from the Word of God, 2/3/18. Includes link to petition which you can (and should!) sign.

What happens, now that the black "redeemer" has died?

Nelson Mandela died today, at the age of 95. RIP. Now that he's gone to his reward, you can expect an outpouring of breast beating and maudlin sentiment such as has not been seen since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Mandela would be a candidate for instant sainthood, if only he were Catholic. [In today's Church, do you really have to be Catholic? Ed.]

Mixed in with all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth will be a large dose of anti-colonial, anti-white rhetoric. Comparisons will be made with the plight of the Jews in the Egypt of the Pharaohs. The Afrikaners will be cast in the role of the evil oppressors, while Mandela is portrayed as the Holy Moses who led his people out of bondage and into... well... into what? Into the promised land of black empowerment, equal rights for all (even queers), and all the blessings a "rainbow nation" can bestow.

Conveniently overlooked will be the fact that, for the vast majority of its people, South Africa is no better -- and in some respects worse -- than it was in the days of apartheid. The education system is in freefall, corruption is rife, and violent crime threatens virtually everyone. In other words, South Africa has become like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa under black rule.

Walt hopes that in the last couple of years of his life, Mr. Mandela's faculties were so dimmed by illness and old age that he was unaware of what a shambles his people have made of his beloved country.

Here's a quote from an early work by V.S. Naipaul, an ethnic Indian native of Trinidad, with some experience of Africa and the failings of countries, including his own, in the post-colonial era. This is from "Michael X and the Black Power Killings in Trinidad", which appeared in a fine little collection entitled The Return of Eva Peron, with the Killings in Trinidad (André Deutsch, 1980).

Black Power -- away from its United States source -- is jargon...a sentimental hoax. In a place like Trinidad, racial redemption is as irrelevant for the Negro as for everybody else. It obscures the problems of a small independent country with a lopsided economy, the problems of a fully "consumer" society that is yet technologically untrained and without the intellectual means to comprehend the deficiency. ] [Emphasis mine. Walt]

It perpetuates the negative, colonial politics of protest. It is, in the end, a deep corruption: a wish to be granted a dispensation from the pains of development, an almost religious conviction that oppression can be turned into an asset, race into money.

While the dream of redemption lasts, Negroes will continue to exist only that someone might be their leader. Redemption requires a redeemer; and a redeemer, in these circumstances, cannot but end like the Emperor Jones: contemptuous of the people he leads, and no less a victim, seeking an illustory personal emancipation.

In Trinidad, as in every black West Indian island, the too easily awakened sense of oppression and the theory of the enemy point to the desert of Haiti.

Hmmm. Haiti. Yes. And Mr. Naipaul wrote that in the mid-70s [when you could still use the word "Negro". Ed.]. Look at Haiti today -- more of a "desert" than it was 40 years ago. Look too at Zimbabwe, whose "redeemer", Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, is only 90, but determined to hang onto power until the desertification of his country is complete. Mr. Mandela, at least, was spared that.