Where is the liberation?

by Peter

I recently read a full speech by a Member of Parliament detailing the reasons why the new media bill was required. Very convincing stuff – all of which we have heard repeatedly over the last couple of months.

The alarming thing though, is that this was the speech given by Connie Mulder in 1977 when the Nats implemented exactly what the ANC is doing now.

If we analyse critically the issues that have risen since 1994, the only conclusion is that the struggle for liberation and freedom was a farce. It was nothing more than a power struggle to change the base of wealth from an elite few whites, to an elite few blacks at the expense and sacrifice of the masses. We should hang our heads in shame.

The real acid test is to take all current employment, social, university and institutions (like the Black management Forum) and replace the word “black” with “white”. Imagine the outcry if there was a white management forum, postings of job adverts with whites only need apply tag lines, university entrance requirements with lower standards for whites, sports teams requiring a certain percentage of whites in each team..., that was apartheid and yet are all current situations save for the word white being replaced with black.

So one segregation system has been brazenly replaced by another and the base of power has simply transferred to another inept, corrupt and incompetent set of individuals who then have the audacity to proclaim that the masses have been liberated by them. The poor are arguably worse off than during apartheid. The fact is that the Nats still built houses for the blacks at a greater rate than the current government!

Blacks are still being abused and exploited; it’s just that their masters are no longer white. Maids are still black, gardeners, construction workers, miners, heavy duty labourers are still black. What has changed? Where is the liberation? What has the current ANC government done since 1994? What are the excuses?

The incredulous part for me is that black people will still consider themselves as liberated, simply because there is a black government. Zimbabwe has the grossest of human violations – far worse than during white rule and yet Mugabe still reigns supreme raping the once bread basket of the world.

If we are going to truly become a liberated country, we have to actually liberate the masses. Change has to occur materially in their lives. We need to stop making this a black/white issue and concentrate on making it an accountability issue. It seems Africa has not learnt any lessons whatsoever and wherever “liberation” has occurred, decline on an unprecedented scale has occurred soon after because the so-called liberators had only one real agenda: power.

The current activities of the ANC are case in point. People will continue to flog the apartheid horse (which is beyond dead) as their excuse for what is going on. If only we could be mature enough to realise that the problem is that this country is being mismanaged by people who have no motive other than to enrich themselves. To quote Oscar Wilde: Democracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.