Going by what's been....

expressed in this Forum re Madiba has blood on his hands and he is not the saint the media make him out to be...the below quote from this Forum is a fine example of what some believe.........

"he had every right to resort to whatever means to achieve freedom".....tell that to the grandmother who was killed and the grandchild holding her hand, who was maimed for life. Violence against innocents is evil, no matter what your cause.

As a matter of interest I'd like to ask those of you who who believe in the above to tell me what they would have done had they been born black in pigmentation and living under the Apatheid system? Before you do, please bare in mind that being oppressed meant that you'd been stripped of all freedom, that your civil rights had been squashed, that you had no voice, that as a black person your dignity as a human being had been taken away from you and  that in the eyes of the law  a black person was inferior to a white. Furthemore, any conscientious objection led to detention without trial and anyone who had the courage of their convictions were murdered while in detention. Protest were illegal and protestors were either beaten, arrested and shot. Here I painfully remind you of a child called Hector Pieterson who was shot in the back while trying to get out of the way  and I also painfully remind you of the Sharpeville riots where the frustrations of the masses was silenced by the barrel of the gun.

I also remind you that under the Apartheid system one could be detained for 90 or 180 days without charge under the suppression of the Communist act and that under the cornerstone policy of Job Reservation certain jobs were reserved for whites only. Put in another way the system was there to crush any hope, dreams or wishes of a black person to share in the benefits of civilization.

So my white brothers, having  lightly touched on the system many of you enjoyed and which the oppressed despised, can I once again ask....what would you have done had you been a black person living under the nightmare of the above?

That is in the past and it was wrong. 

However what about the current climate, is it just apartheid in reverse?

Laws like BEEE make it harder and harder for young white people to get jobs.

Julius Malema will form a new political party and get support for basically taking away anything and everything from white people. He wants to make it like Zimbabwe.

Denny, both you and I no longer live in South Africa. What is it like for a white school kid who has just left school and does not have a large family of cousins, uncles etc who are rich and can help them.

Things may get worse and worse in South Africa.

All of these BEEE laws are supposedly about restoring balance, however if a kid is 18 years old, apartheid was finished before they were born.

Why should they have to pay for the past injustice?

Apartheid as a system was wrong, but is it responsibale for the population growing too quickly?

In most 3rd world countries most of the problems are due to population growing faster than the economy.

No enough work leads to crime.

Hundreds of years ago it was feasibale to have large families that could work on vast areas of land.

In the Modern era the world population is much larger and this is no longer feasibale.  This is causing more problems in Africa than Apartheid. 

Also, as wrong as Apartheid was, White people also did not have equal rights in Black areas like the Transkei, Swaziland etc.

Expelled ANC leader Julius Malema threatens Mugabe-style land grabs

A South African firebrand expelled from the ruling African National Congress pledged a political comeback yesterday with a party dedicated to land reforms in the style of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Julius Malema, who was sacked as head of the ANC’s youth league last year, said his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) were committed to the “expropriation of land for redistribution” without compensation.

He also pledged to nationalise the country’s banks.

Sharkbok, with all due respect, please read my question again, feel free not to respond but if you are then I suggest you get to the point of what I'm about. The issue that's in question is whether armed struggle was justified and I'm asking those who feel it was morally wrong to tell me what they would have done if they had been  black living under Apartheid at the time.

thank you.

Dave, I've read your comments and you sound like the Denny of old hahaha....but in all seriousness here is an opportunity for those who claim Madiba to have "blood on his hands" to tell us what they would have done at " the time" if they had been black.

It's one thing pointing a finger at him, and I'm not defending him neither am I condemning him, I'm merely curious, it's the one question I've always wanted to ask white folks.

Didnt the Boers use violent methods in their bid to escape oppression ?

Wehe . . . all the Chickenrunners seem to have a lot to say about who us vasbyters should forgive for what . . . but I'm pretty sure I speak for all of us real South Africans who are still here when I say we don't give a flying toss what you Chickenrunners have to say on these matters from thousands of miles away in Australia, the UK or the USA.

If you want to have a say in what happens in South Africa, come back and live here.

Hmmm . . . you're asking what I would have done if I were black man growing up during the apartheid regime? Well, I'm not sure anyone can say with any great certainty what they would have done if certain circumstances had been different. You're basically asking posters to pretend they were someone else and then guess what that person would have done.

It's a stupid question . . . but I'm pretty sure there's one thing I would not have done and that is spy on my neighbours and tip off the police about illegal anti-apartheid activities and/or meetings and then run away to live in another country when exposed as a spy, which . . . according to at least one admittedly dodgy account . . . is what you did, Dense.

Does that answer your question?

So Bluebok, Is it safe to say that you would have done excatly as Madiba had you been a black person at the time i.e armed struggle?

.

 Denny I did read the question. I am just adding some context to it. 

To answer your question directly, if I was black at the time of Apartheid I probably would have taken military action against white people. 

Their are 2 sides to the fence, and this has shown that each side favours its own when in power.

Apartheid was implemented wrong, and a better solution to would have been to try develop a majority middle class from all races that would have common interests.

That did not happen, just like it did not happen in other continents.

In other continents, the european white people became the majority and this made it easy to give everyone equal voting rights, because they settlers could not be outvoted.

Western Europe was the modern world back then due to the renaisance and the industrial revolution.

So people coming from Europe were technologically more advanced and even more educated schooling.

In South Africa the majority are black people

Lets say that South Africa gave everyone equal voting rights ages ago. 

Would it just have become Zimbabwe ages ago? Would black people be as willing to share equal rights with white people?

Would it just be a case of white people giving away equal rights to allow black people equal rights, and then more rights?

I do not live in South Africa, and probably never will again.

I finished university and thought that I would have a better chance overseas to develop a career.

Althpugh I did want to travel and see other countries as well, so it is not just about a career.

To some degree I feel that South Africa is no longer my country. Instead it belongs to the black people. 

Part of the reason I love watching the Springboks is that I reminds of what it is to be a South African.

What do people feel like in South Africa that are white and not getting jobs and clear favouritism to black people? 

The point I am making is that Apartheid was wrong to black people, but BEEE and what ever else is wrong to white people.

Zimbabwe has seen most white people lose everything they own.

So maybe we should not be so critical of white people that were safegaurding their own interests. It is clear that black people in Africa do the same.

Bluebok, I deliberately narrowed the debate around a single question simply because some on here condemned Madiba for condoning armed struggle. I'm merely asking them for a better solution had they lived under the same nightmare. I really don't want to expand the debate into other areas of South African politics.... that's something for another day and a different debate.

Who gives a shit???

It’s ancient history.

Life goes on.

A lot of bad things have happened on this planet.

According to Bacon Butt he would have been a hero. Fighting the oppressors … eye to eye!!!

It’s a whole different ball game when you have a gun stuck in your face. You may think your tough but till it actually happens you never know.

A side of your personality you didn’t realize existed may show itself … surprising you. For all you know, you may be whimpering coward, ready to flee the country ... much like you, Cry Baby!!

Or you may be a hero like ol bacon butt wants us to be believe he is.

A cowardly spy, huh?? That’s interesting!!! Somehow it doesn’t surprise me.

Hows Poef, your bumchum, dense?? Changed he oozing rag lately??

 Deny, it is very difficult to even try and comment on what one would have done back then. Remember, the world was a different place back then. It is unfair to judge Madiba on what he did 50 years ago on today's values and principles. I think if I was in the same shoes today that he's been back then, I would probably still fight an armed struggle, but my targets would be different. No soft targets and only police/military targets as well as some strategic infrastructure that is not directly life threatening, but remember, the world has moved on since then and we think differently about these things now, way back then my alternative self would propably have done the same thing.

Tx Draad..Tx Bluebok.....my thoughts as well. It comes down to a question of means and ends, some would believe in moral means to achieve moral ends which is what I believed in at the time but then there are those who believe that the end justifies the means which I now believe to have been the right approach under the prevailing conditions of the time.

I have always been willing to debate and will be, but before I say anything, let me say this. I am prepared to discuss this as long as it stays civilised. The moment that it turns into a personal attack and name-calling, it will be the end of it. In addition, we have to accept that there is a part of the South African history where a lot of people got hurt in many ways. Emotionally and physically. The sad reallity is that it has not stopped. People are still dying violent deaths to this day. In all posibilty proabaly in bigger numbers than before. People from all over the spectrum are deprived of basic human rights on a daily basis. Political freedom has not brought everybody total freedom. There are many many people who are worst off than ever before despite having gained political freedom.

OK, with that off my chest, I have another issue and I have addressed it at numerous occasions before in rugby related discussions. There is no reason to exagerate to make a point. (I do not for one moment deny the hardships and the suffering of people of colour in SA. Not for a moment. I have also taken it upon me to make sure that my sons, now aged 33 and 30 years old know the what has been happening to poeple of colour from when they could understand. I also taught them to respect everybody as a person and not based on his/her skin colour. Bear in mind that they were born in 1980 and 1983, well before 1994. In other words I started educating them well before the changes started taking place. This just to indicate that I am in no way a racist, as some like to believe. I have had friends and coleagues in the SADF of all races. )

OK. The exageration issue. Firts of all, there is no eveidence that Hector Pietersen was shot in the back. In fact, he was not even the first of the children who was shot. He was just the one who had a picture taken of him being carried unconsiusly.

Another boy, Hastings Ndlovu, is believed to have been the first child to be shot on that fateful day. But Nzima, a photographer for Johannesburg newspaper The World, was on the spot when Mbuyisa Makhubo picked Hector up and, together with Hector's sister Antoinette, ran towards a press car, into which he was bundled taken to a nearby clinic, where he was pronounced dead.

A group of 30 students gathered outside the Phefeni Junior Secondary School singing the traditional Sotho anthem 'Morena Boloka Sechaba Sa Heso'. When the police arrived the crowd became violent, throwing rocks at the police. The police in turn fired teargas into the crowd in order to disperse them. Before the crowd could be dispersed, the police opened fire on the demonstrators. [4]

There are conflicting accounts of who gave the first command to shoot, but soon children were turning and running in all directions, leaving some children lying wounded on the road.

Hector Pieterson's mother is amongst the claimints in the class action that is ongoing in the USA, against companies and organisations who "supported" the Apartheid govt. Guess who have distanced themselves from that class action? The SA Govt, Desmond Tutu, Thabo Mbeki and..... Nelson Mandela.

The Soweto uprisings was also not purely a political thing but more the result of a hard-arsed idiotic politician. There was a complaint, as far as I know, about the children not having text books. (Sound familiar?). The particular minister was grilled in Parliament about it, and undertook to send text books without further delay. When the text books arrived, they were all in Afrikaans.  A stupid mistake with the despatching of the books. The media then reported that they schools were forced to teach in Afrikaans.

Furthemore, any conscientious objection led to detention without trial and anyone who had the courage of their convictions were murdered while in detention.

That is nor true. Each and every objector was tried and sentenced. Even the Jehovas Witnesses. They did not have the same routine and lifestyle, if we could call it that in the detention. I saw it with my own eyes. I was stationed at Northen Transvaal Command from 1977 to 1980 and the Detention Barracks resorted under N Tvl Command. I was inside that DB on many occasions. The Jehovas Witnesses had their own special "uniform" because they were not allowed to wear "military type" uniforms. The same went for the conscientous objectors. The sentences of each and every court martial was publsihed in what was called Part 2 Orders. In addition, it was whites who were prosecuted for refusing to do military service. It is also not something that happened in SA only. All over the world it is/was a criminal offence to refuse conscription. Remember Muhammad Ali? No concientous objetors were murdered in Detention. They did not take part in any physical training or any such, and the only deaths in detention that I can think of was due to heat exhaustion, etc on a few occasions, and the culprits were severoy dealt with. As I said. No black person was ever detained for being a consientous objector, purely because they were not called up for military service.

it is true that jobs were reserved for whites, but that also started coming to an end long before 1990. The same with access to finance. I bought my first house in 1984. I battled my arse off to get a home loan, despite a govt guarentee system for public servants. The banks and building societies were forced to allocate certain percentages of their loans for people of colour. Once that "quota" was filled, the only way a branch could grant a home loan was if somebody made a counter investment. In other words, if I wanted to borrow R50,000 the bank would lend me that if someone else inversted R50,000. My home loand was for R54,000 at the time and I paid someone R4,500 in cash (no receipt) to invest R54,000 at Saambou Wonderboom for five years, so that they could lend me the R54,000.  This just to point out that Blacks were not totally cut out of absolutely everything, and they did start getting access to it long before 1990. My dad started promoting some of his black storeman, ahead of whites, as early as 1975. None of their white coleagues dared to complain to him about it, because they knew that he always looked at the merit of an appointment and not at the colour of the skin. That was also not at a small Mickey Mouse company. It was at a huge Anglo American Corp factory.

The Sharpeville massacre was a totally unfortunate incident. There was a similar march of thousands of people to a police station a month or two earlier where nine or ten policemen where killed by an angry mob. Most of the personell at Sharpeville Police Station were young and inexperienced with very little or no traing yet in crowd control. They pannicked when the crowd of between 5,000 and 7,000 stormed and started throwing stones, and they opened fire.

Communism was a real threat in that time and the Act Against Communism was against communism and intended to oppress communism, not black people per se. The oppression of blacks had nothing to do with teh Communism act. The acts that left the black oppressed were acts like the Pass Laws and the Act on Seperate Amenities, Act ons Seperate Development, etc,etc. Those were inhumane and the broader base of the electorate (whites for that matter) realised in the early 80's that it was wrong and could and should be stopped. That is why they supported and voted for the changes. The negotiations for Mandela's release started long before FW de Klerk became president. Mendela himself has regarded Kobie Coetzee (who was sent to him in jail, by PW Botha) as a decent mand and a friend.

I am by no means trying to find excuses for or condoning any of those events. I am just saying that to exagerate it and to twist what has happened does not serve any purpose.

To say that there was widespread violence against blacks is not true. Once again, I am not denying stuff like the death of Steve Biko and people in jails, etc. I am just saying that if you listen to what is being said by some activists, there were millions of blacks who died in jails. It is just not possible. I don't think that the SA jails could harbour millions of people in those days, let alone having a few million killed without mass graves all over the show. Yes, there were those killed by the likes of Eugene de kock, etc, but millions? I am not saying that it is insignificant. One death is one death too many, but do not blow it out of proportion.

That brings me to deaths caused "from the other side". It was not only MK who was responsible. They were fairly tame. Why do the term Poqo, never get mentioned? They were the armed wing of the PAC.

Poqo

Poqo was formed as an armed wing to the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) during the 1960's and was known for its aggressively violent sabotage campaign. Unlike other resistance organisations of the time, such as uMkhonto we Sizwe, Poqo made no effort to avoid loss of life and was the most anti-White underground movement of its time. Its aim was to overthrow the South African government in order to replace it with a socialist African state. The word 'poqo' means 'pure' or 'alone' in Xhosa and the organisation drew most of it's following from the Western Cape and the Transkei.

Arguably the largest underground grouping of the 1960's, Poqo's strategy intentionally involved killings. Their main targets were Langa and Paarl policemen and their alleged informers as well as Transkei chiefs (read as collaborators with the apartheid regime) and their followers. The structure and functioning of the organisation was based on the Communist cell, where members do not know the identity of their fellow members. Any person who disclosed Poqo information was sentenced to death and about ten members of the organisation were executed for betrayal.

Following Poqo's aim of destabilising the country and inspiring an uprising, organisation targeted Paarl on 22 November 1962. The crowd of 250 men, who were armed with axes, pangas and other home-made weapons, marched from Mbekweni location to the town and attacked the police station, homes and shops. They also killed two Whites: Frans Richard (22) and Rencia Vermeulen (18).

They followed this attack with the violent murder of a family camping at Bashee River in the Transkei on 4 February 1963. Norman and Elizabeth Grobbelaar, their teenage daughters Edna and Dawn and Mr. Derek Thompson were hacked to death in their caravans. People across the country became fearful and the government was spurred to vigorously suppress any potential rebellion. Already strict security laws were strengthened when the Minister of Justice, B. J. Vorster, enforced the 1964 General Laws Amendment Act, otherwise known as the Sabotage Act and the 90-day law. This law made sabotage a capital offence and gave the Minister house arrest and detention without trial powers.

Both Poqo and uMkhonto we Sizwe armed responses to the injustice of the White minority state of South Africa, but Poqo proved more dangerous at the time. Its leaders were less known in security circles and its approach was much more brutal and potentially powerful as a movement sowing mass terror. Due to apartheid's repressive response and the virulently anti-White stance of Poqo, it found itself without the mass support it needed, and the organisation fell apart.

Poqo later became none as APLA (Azanion People's Liberation Army)

As for what I would have done? I can, in all honesty, not asnwer the question because I was not involved or did not experience it. I can say this though. I can to a degree accept that hard targets (police and military) have been attacked, but I can never ever condone the killing and barbaric killing of innocent people. Never in my life. As far as apologising goes, I still believe that all those involved should have come clean every one. Not a single onbe should have been excused, and if one was excused then all should have been excused. That was why the TRC was convened and the idea, right from the outset, was that their would be no blanket amnesty for anybody. Not a single person. In the end the likes of Mandela, Mbeki, Sisulu, etc as well as the likes of FW, Pik Botha, Magnus Malan, etc etc never appeared before the TRC. FW and those guys at least condemned and had people prosecuted for atrocities, but from the ANC, UDF and PAC side there was never a word. It was not condemned and it was never admited or apologised for.

I trus that this would be seen as debate and discussion and not an attack or an invitation to start a mini war on here.

If South Africa is to go the way of Zimbabwe where the white people lose everything including their freedom and rights of possesion, will it be justified for White People to terrorize and bomb any black people? 

Will white people become freedom fighters or terrorists?

If I was a black person during Apartheid I probably would have taken military action against whitepeople. 

Should white people do the same if South Africa becomes like Zimbabwe?

 Black people are allowed to live in Europe without their land and property being taken from them.  White people do not "“expropriation of land for redistribution” without compensation."

 The armed struggle - To murder women and children, plant bombs in civilian areas. Armed struggle - please get real.

What happened in the anc dearth camps re comrades not complying?

Note something Tutu (Who has stated he will not vote again for the anc) heavily criticised mandela re his silence on huge issues relarting to anc failures re corruption etc. He says mandela put the anc before the country. Now as all these things comes out ,as mandy knows it will, he warns his fans he is no saint (that is to his credit).  The sainthood staus of the man is unreal and will fade away in time. How closely he was involved in murders, corruption  etc etc will in time be revealed.  The idol will fall as the truth becomes known. 

Is he worse than most - probably not. Is he a great saint obviously not and he knows and admits it. 

This is one subject that is by no means a Sharks/Bulls or Stormers/Cheetahs type of banter/argument and I amnot taking it lightly.

@Dave, had we debated the subject instead of flying off and started with name calling, we would have discovered that we share a number of viewpoints. I have left SA under more or less similar circumstances as you. It had nothing to do with the political, social or economical situation in SA. It was also a decision involving my family, etc. We have discussed it in private if I remember correctly. My two sons were already here for a number of years and I had a business opportunity. It gave me the opportunity to compete fairly in a market. I was not forced by a government to take in partners or deal only with certain suppliers, etc. I also did not leave SA unhappy either. There is one point were I do not quite agree with you. You argument is based upon the past, as you have said. There is in essence no problem with that, accept that we are told that we should forget about the wrongs by the ANC, PAC, etc and help build on the future, but we are not allowed to forget about the wrongs of the "previous regime" as they like to put it. What is good for the goose, is good for the gander. 

I am not saying, and I have never said, that I do not acknowledge the good Mandela has done. There is no way that one can ignore that. I am just saying that one can never forget the bad either. One has to remember the entire history and know where you came from to know where you are going to. If you read carefully what I have written above and on SS you will see that I have not condemned the bad from the struggle side. I have also condemned a lot of what has been done by the Nats as well. I have said it many times, and I will say it again. I can never condone any violence by anybody on anybody ever. I am not talking about a war situation where one has to defend your country. I am talking the use of violence against innocent civilians. That would include inhumane treatment as well. The fact that I am not prepared to only remember the good that Mandela has done, does not make me a racist. If I was a racist, I would not have made it in the UK for more than a year, and particularly not in such a multi-racial town as Reading.

"I have decided to withdraw from this debate....but I leave you one Gandhi quote:

-

"Nonviolence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed".

Moz, Ghandi was thrown off a train for his political stance when he visited South Africa. He writes in his autobiography that he ws forced to sleep on a wooden bench on a freezing cold night in Pietermaritzburg.

Allow me to say that based on all forms of civilized opposition being crushed, the likes of Ghandi and Ghandi himself would either have been detained without trial indefnitely, or murdered whilst in detention.

He would not have been allowed to lead civil protests in South Africa like he did in India.

My question remains.....stripped of all civil liberties with no recourse to  the law, if hypotheticaly you were a black person at the time, what course of action would you have taken?

 "The armed struggle - To murder women and children, plant bombs in civilian areas. Armed struggle - please get real.

What happened in the anc dearth camps re comrades not complying?

Note something Tutu (Who has stated he will not vote again for the anc) heavily criticised mandela re his silence on huge issues relarting to anc failures re corruption etc. He says mandela put the anc before the country. Now as all these things comes out ,as mandy knows it will, he warns his fans he is no saint (that is to his credit).  The sainthood staus of the man is unreal and will fade away in time. How closely he was involved in murders, corruption  etc etc will in time be revealed.  The idol will fall as the truth becomes known. 

Is he worse than most - probably not. Is he a great saint obviously not and he knows and admits it. "

Beeno, In case you've missed my point, I've asked a STRAIGHT  question, I understand the question is hypothetical and some might struggle for an answer but if you can't or will not answer the question then please save me the bother of  reading  your diatribe which has got absolutely nothing to do with the question.

It's a question Beeno.....a ......question...Get it now?..

Good....there's my man.

"What complete bullshit that people living abroad cant comment on the plight of black SA'ns back in the apartheid days. I was growing up in SA at the time. This debate was never about the current SA it was about how we would have reacted to oppression had the tables been turned. I have no interest at all in making a difference now, my life is elsewhere and thankfully so. For the record I never left because I was unhappy in SA, I left because I took the decision that my family and I would have better long-term prospects in the UK, be it on every level from financial to security wise. My take is on the past, I am not in a position to comment on the present SA"

Tx...Dave.

 Top spot Mr. Mozard!  Violence begets violence.  To many it may seem like the only solution, however there are serious consequenses to such a "solution".  Today, South Africa is one of the most violent societies in the world.  If I cannot get something (anything) fuck, I will burn, plunder and do the industrial foxtrot until my demands are met.  It is after all how I grew-up with the ANC leading by example.  If someone does not agree with you, kill the fucker, his maid, his dog his cat and then for effect sommer burn his house down.

Pleeeease, show me one, just one of these countries who were awarded their independance by violence who are today a successfull metropolis.  Hahiti have been "independent" for more than 100 years and what happened to the food and wealth that once was that country.  Not a single African country is even close to its potential.  Most, if not all of them are racked and ruined by greed, corruption, violence and in many cases dictatorships.  And do not come with colonisation, Ethiopia was never colonised and it too is not a gleeming example of success.

I believe that the answer lies in working TOGETHER.  Screw these Marxist ideas and the tribalism and, and, and....

Was violence the answer?  No war has a winner, only death and destruction.  Most wars that have been "won" and land that was so acquired has been reversed iritish Empire?  Todat it is but an island, a muddy misrable place (weather wise).  What happened to the conquering Spanish?  Where is the heritage of Alexander the great?

The real heritage of the armed struggle in South Africa is a total failure to say the least.  South Africa, like Zimbabwe and a whole string before is slowly but effectively being "governed" in sy se moer in.

With sufficient violence, you could break your finger off in your ass but then you will not be able to have a s#it and eventually die.  The previous violence wa sthe mother of the current violence in south Africa and it will be the death of the country..

If only, if only we as humans could work together for a better future for ALL and not one tribe, one ethnic-group or one color then it would be heaven on earth.  But, by God, not even on this Internet forum does the one person respect the other.  We live in a terminally ill world and all of us are virusses carrying this death with us.

Would I have done that?  I have the luxury of hind sitght and the answer is a resounding NO.

But, the West was also to blame because they saw SA as a pawn in their fight with communism and instead of a solution they just trew more money and arms at the "problem".

Violence is never a solution, the consequenses are just to dire for both sides of the conflict and for those who have to follow, trying to fix the fuckups caused by violence.

 Vlag, I hear you, but where I differ is that I believe the oppressed had every right to take up arms as we all know all too well that negotiating with the Nats was never going to be fruitful. Hell in life sometimes one can talk through issues, at other times a good smack does the trick.

I certainly dont condone the killing of innocent people, I'd be a sadist if I did. But I do appreciate that innocent people are affected by struggles just as they are in wars. To me there is no difference in fighting a war versus fighting for ones basic human rights. In fact there is far more credibility in that fight than some of the current battles being fought today.

My reaction on the SS board was more down to people's insensitive timing. Throwing negatives at Madiba was in piss poor taste in my opinion, given where the man is right now

Saff, OK, lets leave the reactions on SS there, because I do not fully agree with you about it and harping on about it will serve no purpose at all. It was me who started it by "throwing the negatives" and I am quite prepared to admit it.................. again. The other people responded on your reply to me. But let us please move away from that part.

I agree with you, and I have made it very clear, both on SS and on here, that I do not deny any of the wrongs of the past........ by both sides. I have said that I would probably also have considered violence, but I would never know because I was not in that position. What I would never ever even have considered is violence against innocent people and in particular women and children. That was what I have criticised and I will criticise and condemn it forever and a day. The fact that it was particularly decided and planned to attack soft targets.

There is a perception that whites should never forget the hardships of blacks and the all whites should feel guilty about it for years to come. That is part of teh "general consencus" in SA as well. If that is true, then we should also never forget about all of the atrocities on whites, and they should be highlighted on the same level as atrocities on whites. My personal opinion is that nobody should be expected to forget, but forgiveness comes from both sides. I can only forgive someone if he has confessed and owned up to what he/she had done. That was after all the purpose of the TRC. To be thankfull that someone has forgiven what I have done does not negate the wrongs that he/she is responsible for, as long as he/she refuses to admit and condemn his/her own wrong doings.

He was a terrorist. He couldn't even travel to the US without special permission until he was removed from the list.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-30-watchlist_N.htm



What you forgot to mention is that they got R30,000 each after the TRC.



So they said hey here is R30 000 for anyone who wants to come and tell a story how they suffered.



Just think someone living in a small shack how far R30000 can go for them. They stories weren't even investigated. R30000 mahala just be creative and you got it. Hell my dad should have gone and told some made up fiction about District 6 or something. But he did not because he my parents knew about District 6 and die Bo Kaap which land value was 5 times higher than the land at district six. Coloreds were not remove from the Bo Kaap with the higher land value.



Then why no one mention what happened when they throw two tribes together and tell them there you go vote and select a president.



the Hutu majority in that country organized the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi, many in East Africa began to speak openly of the need to reconfigure the nations of that region in ways that would separate historically antagonistic groups, such as the Hutu and Tutsi, or give badly needed breathing room to densely populated and unstable countries such as Rwanda and Burundi.

Talk of creating separate “Hutulands” and “Tutsilands” quickly dissipated after the Rwandan genocide. But two years later, in late 1996, Rwanda and Uganda teamed up to launch an invasion of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), whose aim was to stop cross-border raids in Rwanda by Hutu refugees settled in eastern Zaire.

Yip first 150 000 got slaughtered. Then the Bantu law of revenge where 4 million died.

And what they wanted to Sperate two regions and two cultures? They wanted to apply appartheid?



Zulus slaughtered the other tribes by the thousands. They did it so much that the Great scattering happened.

So the British said that the cultures must be separated which was the Bantustats.



The Xhosas got both Ciskei and Transkei.



The Tswanas who have their own country called Botswana, also got Bophuthatswana.



Yes the Twanas got Botswana with all its daimonds and Bophutatswana who had the world largest platinum depository. Anyone know the value of platinum? Go look it up. The ANC torched Bophutatswana for a reason and its the deposits cause they want to nationalize the mines.



The Sothos who already had Lesotho as their own country also got Lebowa and QwaQwa.

The Swazis who already had their own country Swaziland got KaNgwane.

The goverment build them homes schools rugby fields offer them a education but a few oppressed them with voilence denying him that right.

Where did Steve Biko and Mandela received their education? In a South African university. 

Most people going oh sorry this sorry that never even experienced apartheid back then. They go on what was fed by international media.

Wonder why a white SA helped Botswana who had only 12km of tar road and a literacy rate of less than 20 percent when it got its independance from Brittain? oday Botswana is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. 

Apartheid would have been over ages ago if it wasn't for the communist sponsored terrorist with their own agenda's. 

Ever wonder why they killed a Steve Biko who had different views from Mandela and his other comarades and who did not believe in voilence but education but Mandela who was a biggewr threat yet lived comfy in jail for 27 years? 

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, over 300,000 people have been murdered in South Africa . To put this horrifying number into perspective, it is sobering to recall that the United Kingdom suffered 383,000 military deaths during World War II, after years of intense fighting across France , Germany , and the Mediterranean basin.

According to Max Coleman’s authoritative book, “A crime against humanity: Analysing repression of the Apartheid State ”, published by the South African Human Rights Committee, 21,000 people died in political violence in South Africa during apartheid. Included in Coleman’s figures are deaths due to SA Defence Force actions in Angola , security force action in South Africa , and intra-black (or “black-on-black”) killings.

Our population growth and our average life expectancy in fact showed us Africans in South Africa to be in better than average health when compared to other Africans on the rest of the continent: in the decades prior to the official policy of apartheid, (which was started in 1948), the average life expectancy of African South Africans was only 38 years.

However, during the last decade of the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994, our average life expectancy had risen to 64 years — on a par with Europe’s average life expectancy. Moreover, our infant death rates had by then also been reduced from 174 to 55 infant deaths per thousand, higher than Europe’s, but considerably lower than the rest of the African continent’s.

And the African population in South Africa had by then also increased by 50% percent. (source: “a crime against humanity: analysing repression of the Apartheid State”, by Max Coleman of the Human Rights Committee).

   

Holy mackerel....

The internet tough man. The one who ran away, the moment the ANC took over, would have been the first to violently fight against oppression, with the provision; if his skin happened to be "black".

Yeah right!

You were not even prepared to live in a country where it might be a little inconvenient. Your actions speak much louder than your words (on an internet forum).

 So Denny, is this the end of the discussion? You happy with the replies?

 One question Denny, 

If you were a white person living in South Africa that had been made redundant through BEEE affirmative action what would your opinion be of racial prejudice?

Or if you had a kid that was struggling to get a job due to BEEE.

As I also no longer live in South Africa, although I do feel entitled to an opinion - the people who live their now may hae different views than people who live overseas.

People that voted an end to the inequality of Apartheid, only to have it replaced with inequality to White People.

Or people that were born after the end of Apartheid struggling to get into the workforce, with laws in place that ensure black people get preference. Many large companies have even stopped employing white people like SAA (South African Airways), Woolworths etc.

Having to live day to day with the knowledge that things could get worse and worse for people that have skin that is white.

When will the "balance" be restored? 

Or will this just be a permanent situation like Zimbabwe.

As soon as money runs out in one area, it is just time to take from the white people again until their are no more white people left?

Have you heard the saying "Africa for the Africans". 

Do white people not get equal rights in Africa, but black people get equal rights in Europe?

The point I am making is Apartheid was wrong, but would you rather be the oppressor or the oppressed?

That is indeed a telling quote by Mandela, Sharkbok. That in itself propogates lawlessness.

Sharkbok

In all fairness I owe you an response. I asked a straight question and you came back with a straight answer. Firstly the question you ask is one I've  previously asked in another Forum. It went along these lines....If you were the ruling party how would you set about closing the economic disparity between White and Black?

Id like to answer your question but for a number of reasons I'd rather enter into a private debate with you if that's ok?