IT WAS good to see President Thabo Mbeki addressing the nation on Sunday night. He was late, very late, but what he had to say was well said.
What has been happening in SA these past few weeks is, as Mbeki said, an absolute disgrace.
It will certainly bury, for most of the lives of citizens alive today, any notion of South African uniqueness or special modernity on the African continent.
In a way, that might make it easier for the people who will replace him and his government next year. They will not have to try to live up to the construct of SA as a modernising influence on the continent. They’ll be able to be themselves.
The outbreak of xenophobia may also help South Africans grow up and, maybe, even grow up together. For that to happen, though, they would have to draw the correct conclusions from the violence.
One would be that racism or xenophobia belong to both white and black South Africans and both are capable of being immensely cruel because of the prejudices they cling to. Another would be that we delude ourselves too easily here. The poverty in our townships is desperate and dangerous and no amount of advertising or holding hands or grand speeches about “rising” is going to make it go away. Only good policy correctly and determinedly executed will.
And let us end the doublespeak Mbeki and his ministers have brought to our public life.
Butchering other human beings is indeed a disgrace, as he called it on Sunday night. But not only here. In Zimbabwe too, surely, where Robert Mugabe’s followers have killed and beaten thousand of opponents over the past decade?
Why has Mbeki never called that a disgrace? Because it isn’t his country? What about the violence meted out daily in his own country by criminals on innocent citizens?
That was the weakness in his television address. It wasn’t the work of a moral leader. You couldn’t hear the word “disgrace” without wondering where it has been all his time in office. - Business Day - NEWS Worth Knowing
What has been happening in SA these past few weeks is, as Mbeki said, an absolute disgrace.
It will certainly bury, for most of the lives of citizens alive today, any notion of South African uniqueness or special modernity on the African continent.
In a way, that might make it easier for the people who will replace him and his government next year. They will not have to try to live up to the construct of SA as a modernising influence on the continent. They’ll be able to be themselves.
The outbreak of xenophobia may also help South Africans grow up and, maybe, even grow up together. For that to happen, though, they would have to draw the correct conclusions from the violence.One would be that racism or xenophobia belong to both white and black South Africans and both are capable of being immensely cruel because of the prejudices they cling to. Another would be that we delude ourselves too easily here. The poverty in our townships is desperate and dangerous and no amount of advertising or holding hands or grand speeches about “rising” is going to make it go away. Only good policy correctly and determinedly executed will.
And let us end the doublespeak Mbeki and his ministers have brought to our public life.
Butchering other human beings is indeed a disgrace, as he called it on Sunday night. But not only here. In Zimbabwe too, surely, where Robert Mugabe’s followers have killed and beaten thousand of opponents over the past decade?Why has Mbeki never called that a disgrace? Because it isn’t his country? What about the violence meted out daily in his own country by criminals on innocent citizens?
That was the weakness in his television address. It wasn’t the work of a moral leader. You couldn’t hear the word “disgrace” without wondering where it has been all his time in office. - Business Day - NEWS Worth Knowing
No comments:
Post a Comment