print“I sincerely hope that events in Iraq have inched Americans toward a less Disneyfied view of democracy. It is a mistake to doggedly conflate democracy with freedom, and “the freedom to vote” with liberty. Majority rule, especially as it applies in Middle Eastern and African countries, doesn’t always empower the right people.
Which brings me to another, less-than Magic Kingdom: my old homeland, South Africa, RIP.
The irony of President Bush’s December-8 meeting with Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, went unnoticed. Democratic South Africa is yet another spot where the rule of the demos has turned a once-prosperous, if politically problematic, place into a lawless ramshackle.
South Africa is now the most violent country outside a war zone.”
The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily.com column, “The Ugly Truth About Democratic South Africa.”
Update: A special guest shares her impressions of her birthplace, South-Africa, after a recent visit:
While reading the excellent BLOG reply of Shaka Mehlomakulu, I was impressed by his clarity and intensely knowledgeable criticism of South Africa. He presents the truth as it is unfolding today, and having been there, this very year, and being a native born South African, now living abroad, I can confirm that all that he says is actual and true.
There is almost total press censorship. The true facts are never shown with regard to crime — and the murders, the hijackings and the violence perpetrated against the white farmers.
Wait until these excellent farmers — men of strength and courage and enormous knowledge of cattle, harvests, sheep, pastures, modern equipment — have been so intimidated through violence and slaughter, that they disappear from the South African farming scene. Then all havoc will reign and the wretched South African citizen, both white and black, will rue the day that democracy, that obscene word, was forced onto South Africa.
The politicians are filling their pockets with their ill-gotten gains, the system of enforced black “partners” in every S.A. business is scandalous; nothing better than robbery of every business in South Africa.
Thankfully, somehow, I emigrated at an early age, taking with me my two children, one of whom, Ilana Mercer, has become such a brave voice of freedom. How proud I am of my daughter Ilana and all her knowledge and truth.
—Ann Wendy
Update: Please refer to “Dispatches From the Bloody South African Front” as well.
Great post. I will always defer to a ZA ex-pat’s expertise on this subject. However, from an (older) American’s perspective, I remember when (was it the 80s?) when whites still ruled in ZA and the American liberal MSM went on a full-on crusade to get the white government overthrown. The liberal Democrats instituted trade sanctions, etc. Well, now that they HAVE their black-run government, the American liberal MSM seems incapable of criticizing anything about it — be it Mbeki’s Marxism, the high crime rate, the attacks on whites, whatever….
Ilana: You are absolutely right. Furthermore, democracy is way over rated. I travel a lot to those countries South of our border and is nothing but chaos, misery, crime in their so called democratic governments. Democracy is as big of a failure as communism was. Even here in our own backyard.
Hallo Ilana… Hoe gaan dit? I wonder what would have happened today if the Boer Republics would have remained independent instead of being forced by the British in the late 19th century to unify into one country. Just a thought.
One could easily make the un-PC argument that Africa (both white and black) was actually better off when it was run by non-blacks. At least one could say that the Western imperialists had some respect for the rule of law. Had I been born in South Africa, I’d have gotten out long since.
Ilana, this column deserves to be in every newspaper in the West. That it won’t be is the result of Liberal Fear.
Beauty and Brains.
I think I weighed in on this one, or one similar, not too long ago but will do so again as I have strong feelings here. The willingness of governments, specifically ours and Western Europe, to sacrifice people in the name of political correctness is apparent. The willingness of the MSM to misrepresent the facts and outright lie in the name of political correctness has long been apparent. The agenda-driven education system in its headlong plunge toward political correctness has long been apparent. Why have we been betrayed by our social institutions? I don’t know but I can easily see the results. Young people can’t see the forest for the trees because they don’t know the difference. We old people know but we are dying off. The tragedy of southern Africa is a mirror image of the tragedy being acted out daily in the US and Western Europe. In Africa it’s much more primitive due to population numbers and tribal factors but we can easily come to that here sooner or later. In Memphs, Tennessee today it’s worth your life to go out in public. We have our own terrific murder rate. Unlike southern Africa, here the white people are armed and a high percentage are actually “shooters”. This, coupled with the independant streak more prevelant among Southerners than among the sheep who pass for Americans in other parts of the country, is keeping the incredible level of violence predominately black on black. When the pols finally disarm us all, blood will flow here just like any third world country. Why do we allow it? I just don’t know..
I think they’re supposed to host the next Olympics. Do you think that will come to fruition? lol
I don’t know what the answer is for those people or understand how they can be so vicious toward each other. I’m very glad you got out of there when you did.
Well said, I could not agree more and have personally seen the South Africa slip into disarray.
There is a point which would appear to escape attention in my view. Endemic to black Africans is a tribalism theme which manifests in power / violence and greed / corruption, every time.
Firstly the late Slovo reasoned that blacks were denied democracy for 350 years – rubbish. Hitherto, blacks were ruled by chiefs – who, as Slovo conveniently forgets, were not elected. In fact they were usually the first born son of the previous chief.
If the locals were unhappy with the chief, they held what most would refer to as meetings with the chief, but if the meeting did not resolve the issue, there was a faction fight. Here we learn that it is inherent within most black Africans heritage, that violence is a means to resolve conflict.
When the faction fights were on the boil, rape, pillaging and general mayhem in which the personal belongings (spoils) of the vanquished were distributed amongst the victors. Clearly, power is associated with leadership in such a climate and because violence has for centuries been viewed by black Africans as legitimate, is there any wonder we have such violent crime in RSA today. Life is cheap.
As many of us who were parents or students in 1976 would realize, today’s decision makers in the age 30 – 40 were the off spring or very young participants of those rampaging mobs of 1976. What possible virtues could such decision makers possess.
em>Now I know I shall be castigated as an Uncle Tom (as was Keith Richburg who told the truth when he wrote out of America), but there were some educated suffers of the black variety, most notably Dr Buthelezi, who was not wrong when he called for education before liberation.
Is it any wonder that when attempts to impose a complicated democracy on what some may refer to as environmental retards , there is always the same result throughout Africa – failure .
Blacks currently are incapable of ruling honestly and need to put a sunset to all this organized crime and violence. It’s like alcoholism or drugs – be big enough to firstly concede there is a problem. Then consult widely across black and white in order to plan properly.
What if one dares to ask if a multicultural/multiracial society can really work? What if a South Africa ruled by whites was inherently oppressive to blacks, and one ruled by blacks is inherently oppressive to whites? What if conflicts between the two (or between Israelis and Palestinians, Hutus and Tutsis, Christians and Muslims etc. etc.) are not caused by hatred, intolerance, prejudice, or any of the usual terms, but rather by a fundamental incompatibility in the way of life of the two groups? And what would happen to the current nonexistent genuine discourse about race in America if we dared to ask these questions?
[Questions are indeed good; the cultural relativism implied in these is bad. Since when is the West’s way of life to be equated with that of other cultures? Why are Africans (when they can) and Palestinians flocking, respectively, to Europe, the US, the UK, and to Israel proper?]
The difference between East Asian countries and SA is that the former take pride in their work and they take responsibility for themselves and dedicate themselves to the perfection of what they do. Something no African nation does–long-term vision is absent. They suck their country dry until there is nothing left. They know how to take but they don’t know how to put back in, thus they are outdone in everything…and I do mean everything. That isn’t racist, that’s fact. Try telling me any different and I can quite easily rip other arguments apart. People say there are changes in SA; I say what changes? Do you want to see change? Again, I point you to South Korea. In ten years they went from a war-torn dump to a major player. That’s change; that’s development; that’s a country whose countrymen know how to detect a problem and find a solution to it.
I’m a Boer from South Africa who has had to leave my country, The sad part is all of my family is still there and have to live thru the hell of the current regime. Trust me, unless you have been there for more than a few days and stayed in more than just the nice hotels, you would not know the true hell that is South Africa today. The really sad part is that in general, the folks of my country are great people but the current leadership is using any and all propaganda tactics to keep blacks hating whites and keep zulu fighting Xhosa. What is going to happen and can’t be avoided as things run now is that the blacks will one day grow tired of the ANC lies and turn on them, but before they do, they will turn on the whites, then on each other, and then all out chaos and civil war will break out. When the minister of parliament tells a 15,000-strong youth rally to steal from the whites (“it’s your right”), and the minister of police tells a reporter after the interview that “we are going to kill you whites like flies and there is nothing you can do to stop us,” one can see what they really want.
The other sad part is that when the remaining whites and their Zulu allies try to stand and defend themself, the West will most likley step in and help the ANC kill us off.
Thank Reagan for stabbing us in the back and Jimmy Carter for destroying Zimbabwe and creating one of the most evil dictators in history. We really can’t afford to wait to see how the US goverment “helps” us out next.
Ilana, I have reached a point this morning where I cannot describe my inner feelings re the present crime rate in South Africa. I read this morning on the Internet [link?] about this young, bright, 17-year-old girl, who just finished her school career on a high, meaning she obtained excellent symbols for the final exams in every single subject she studied: she was shot dead at point blank range for no reason at all. No theft of any kind, no rape; no nothing, just shot 3 times in the back.
I’m not even mentioning the poor elderly people murdered daily and the farmers far away from anything. Please help me giving me words of comfort to come to terms with this murderous country I once loved with passion. I promise myself day after day not to read newspapers in SA on the Internet but time after time find myself reading them only to become so depressed with what I read about a country I once offered to defend with my own life on the borders–I defended it from the same people who are running the government at present.
What has happened to our world? It’s Christmas and we should all be joyful and happy, but I find it difficult to comprehend. Make no mistake; I’m glad I’m not there anymore, and I take huge comfort in the fact that despite not having all the money in the world, I took my last pennies, packed up, left with my wonderful wife and wonderful two children (now young adults who are doing extremely well in their careers) to offer them a new, better, brighter future in a strange country we now call home which was not an easy thing to do. We cried together many times. The emotional impact was huge and especially with Christmas it becomes even harder as we do not have any family in our new country. We moved 11 years ago. I’m so angry about all this that if it was in my power to do I would have taken the Soccer World Cup hosting rights away from South Africa as a measure to show the present government enough is enough.
Looking back at the international isolation imposed on the “Old” South Africa due to a certain and unacceptable political system, and comparing this what is going on today–then today is worse than the past by light years and the world just does not care. This makes me believe that Africa is doomed–certainly for its white population.
To Frans: Africa’s whites are indeed doomed. Along with that unpleasant fact we must understand that Africa’s blacks are doomed also. Without white control they are doomed to interminible years of chaos, murder, starvation and disease when left to their own devices, and the dubious benevolence of the UN. The governments who have guaranteed black control of Africa are a long away from Africa. They have done this for many reasons but welfare of the Africans is not one of them. Let the Africans both, black and white, die by the millions “over there” as long as we make the liberals are happy “over here” and we can get their votes.
Well anyway Frans, welcome to you and your family in your new home. I hope it continues to work out well.
The posts above are indeed heart rending and when looking at these, one is compelled to respond .
Being a native, born and bred South African, raised in Kingdom of Kwa Zulu Natal and in the Cape these last 17 years since communism was suposed to have collapsed in 1989, having lived in the past apartheid regime and the new regime the only tangible benefit to blacks and non whites is freedom of expression, movement and freedom of speech. This does not put food on the table or money in the bank .
What a lot of the white brothers and sisters above are not saying is that there is a constitution – which mysteriously only applies to non whites . Take employment – central to any successful family and economy. Today, SA companies bend over backwards to employ blacks only – but the constitution says there shall be no discrimination – surely a contradiction here !! The main criterion for employment is suitability, experience and enthusiasm for the type of work.
What SA lacks is politics of principle and politicians of principle – it’s not about lining your pockets till the ship of state collapses then engaging in a civil war for the remaining spoils, or a sense of entitlement to the trappings and wealth of a rock star. Those protagonists are precisely the communists thast Frans above fought against who he correctly asserts are in power today.
Todays ANC politicians in RSA are “career or cheque book” politicians with no thought of what comes after them. Their only thought is payday – not what they are supposed to do to have earned that pay.
There is an astounding culture of dishonesty which is growing in numbers by the hour. This cannot be good – especially since we rely heavily on foreign investment. Investors want a return and bottomless pits do not feature in investors plans.
Hitherto the ANC government, walking the streets, going to the parks or shops or just driving your car was a safe and pleasant occasion. You cannot do that today . Black, white or any member of the human race. I agree with a post above that forced mixing of cultures, religions etc. may well be a recipe for disaster, but would that not explain how prior to 1976 , there was relative calm and far lower unemployment in this country?
At least black brothers who left the hostels in Glebe(Umlazi) and Kwa Mashu in those days had a much better chance of arriving home at night to feed their offspring! Same with indians, coloureds and whites – when they left for work in the morning – the chances of returning home at night were excellent.
Sorry my friends, this ANC government has been hijacked by communists and incompetent wannabe rock stars. If this tendency is not arrested and turned around by voting for principled politicians in 2009 – Thabo Mbeki will go down in history as just another black african leader who caused a thriving economy and the best developed infrastructure on the continent, to disappear like the morning mist in the rising African sun.
[A superb post. We hope you become a regular on this humble (but humming) forum. How about running for office in SA?–ILANA]
“The Ugly Truth About Democratic South Africa“:
Long live the ANC. We will take from white cockaroaches…. It is our right…
😀
To Jackyou can work etc.: I don’t know where you live, but if you would care to bring your right to steal down south in the US you will be welcomed by the Cockroaches with open ARMS.
Dear Ilana,
When you look at African independence and and black leadership after their release from colonialism there are very few, if any, success stories. If the assault on South African farmers continues in its current direction it will not take long for the country to descend to the pitiful state of Zimbabwe. When I read about Mugabe spouting about whites and how they are to blame for the country’s poverty etc., I wonder why no one has put a bullet through that stupid brain by now.
I have always felt uneasy when I hear “African Americans” refer to each other as ‘brother”. I have seen how the black brothers treat each other throughout Africa and it is not humane, I would not treat my brother that way and if any try to call me brother I refer them to “Hotel Rwanda” .
Lastly, what made George Bush think that he could enforce Western democracy anywhere in the Middle East ? They don’t think like us, they don’t act like us, they have no sense of fellowship for their fellow man. In fact christianity is anathema to the whole group.
Sincerely,
Andy
I pointed this out on FMNN and I’ll do so again here, the murder statistics in the link provided by Ilana should be treated with extreme scepticism.
Interpol get their data from the SAPS and include attempted murders in the total, while the MRC and NIMSS are in agreement with the official murder figures.
[The statistics I provided were gleaned from a few, credible sources, all of which were in general agreement. Note that even if the official figures—which were the ones I went with, by the way—are correct, this still makes SA the most violent country outside a war zone. The official stats are horrendous. I then fortified the case with the experience of a typical, middle-class family, living in the well-to-do suburbs. What you bring to the table are nothing but ASSERTIONS; no sourcing, and no links to credible sources. You also shed darkness with your acronyms. No ones knows what they mean. There are some links to the BBC, which lauds savagery in all forms, in my column about Oprah’s Academy. Follow them to get a glimpse about rape in SA.—ILANA]
http://www.sahealthinfo.org/violence/2003chapter2a.pdf
This page is off the MRC website.
See how the urban murder rates collected in the mortuaries correspond very similarly to the police statistics.