Cape Coloureds & Elderly Blacks Miss Apartheid: Living Standards much better under apartheid; despite forced removals

The ANC is Not for US, Say Coloured Voters

Fadela Slamdien, All Africa
17 January 2011

Cape Town — Much has been said about the 'coloured vote' in the Western Cape being the ANC's Achilles heel. Being the one province in the country that does not have a majority black population - the ANC's traditional voter base - and the ANC's inability to woo coloured voters to provide them with an outright win has seen Cape Town swing between the DA and ANC until the DA gathered strength with the winning the province in 2009.

Not even Nelson Mandela's reign in the early days of democracy was able to grant the ANC an outright majority vote in the province. West Cape News hit the streets of Grassy Park in an effort to obtain insight into the mood ahead of upcoming local government elections.

Among the tens of coloured people canvassed during a day in Grassy Park, most elderly people said a lack of jobs and high levels of crime reflected badly on the ANC. Leaning toward the right, a number of people said their lifestyles were better under apartheid, despite the fact of forced removals.

"They should have left things as they were. Before, there was very little crime, the death penalty was in, and one could send your children to the shop at night. Everybody had jobs. People were given houses and not put out on the streets like now. In 1994," said a resident who did not want to be identified.

She said despite the Group Areas Act, the apartheid government provided for them. "People who were kicked out of Constantia were put in council flats. Look at the way people are living now. People are not put into flats. Now there is crime and drugs. Why vote for the ANC if all of this is happening?" she said.

Another major grievance was the issue of affirmative action, which most viewed as form of reverse racism, with black candidates trumping coloured applicants.

"It is a black apartheid now. The ANC has nothing to do with us. Blacks get the jobs first. They don't give it to coloureds and whites," said 81 year old Acarr Achmat.

Black Rule vs. White Rule in SA... Did black people want Black ANC rule?

Racism, Guilt, Self-Hatred and Self Deceipt: A Philosophers Hard Headed Look at the Dark Continent

by Gedaliah Braun
Excerpts

Racism, Guilt, Self-Hatred and Self-Deceit: A Philosophers Hard-Headed Look at the Dark Continent, by Gedahlia Braun [AmRen]

Defining a Liberal: a conservative is someone who dislikes blacks as a group but likes them as individuals, and a liberal is someone who likes blacks as a group (i.e. vote-fodder for the welfare state) but dislikes them as individuals.

***

Horror At ‘Whites Only’ Sign

In 1987 I spoke with a Canadian academic (in Papua New Guinea) who had excoriated the govern-ment for doing business with South Africa. He mentioned how ‘horrified’ he had been to see a ‘Whites Only’ sign in a South African train station. (I had seen the same signs and confess that I was not hor-rified.)

He was more ‘savvy’ than your typical liberal and agreed that if blacks took power in South Africa they would sooner or later create ‘a fascist’ regime. Nevertheless there must be black rule because ‘even-tually’ they would progress in the way whites have.

But Africa cannot go through the same historical process of development as Europe, because the cul-ture Europe de¬veloped into already exists; and you cannot reinvent the wheel – especially when you know it’s already been invented! Western technology has, it is true, been copied by Orientals, but that is not happening in Africa and there’s not a scin¬tilla of evidence that it ever will.

This guy seemed to be asserting that no matter what South Africa must be ruled by blacks, end of story. But this presented a dilemma, for we both agreed that universal franchise eventually meant zero franchise. Given this, would he still insist blacks must run the country? Yes. Even if blacks them¬selves don’t want it? Well, if that were true it might make a difference; but he didn’t think it was.

Black Zimbabweans say life was better under White Rhodesian Goverment...

Postcard From Zimbabwe

By Nicholas D. Kristof
Published: April 7, 2010, New York Times

HWANGE, Zimbabwe: Here’s a measure of how President Robert Mugabe is destroying this once lush nation of Zimbabwe:

In a week of surreptitious reporting here (committing journalism can be a criminal offense in Zimbabwe), ordinary people said time and again that life had been better under the old, racist, white regime of what was then called Rhodesia.

“When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited,” one man, Kizita, told me in a village of mud-walled huts near this town in western Zimbabwe. “But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us.”

“It would have been better if whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come,” added a neighbor, a 58-year-old farmer named Isaac. “It was better under Rhodesia. Then we could get jobs. Things were cheaper in stores. Now we have no money, no food.”

Abathembu's support Secession; ‘Things Much Better Under Apartheid...’?

I heard things I thought I'll never hear again; old people, with rheumy eyes, saying things were much better under the Bantustan government.

The government has spent billions to build new stadiums and other infrastructure for tourists and a small domestic minority, but cannot ensure that school kids in the most needy of communities have decent soccer facilities and equipment.

Here in South Africa (and this applies equally to the public and private sectors) dishonesty and incompetence are either rewarded or simply ignored. With a few exceptions, those who expose and confront the truth - and who try to uphold collective and personal accountability - are punished, marginalised and labelled.

When lying, cheating and conscious ineptitude become standard "governance" practice (whatever the "sector"), we are in deep crisis.

Do you blame them when they come with these preposterous ideas of finding independent states like the one ybaThembu. Your people, tata, abaThembu, no longer feel like being part of South Africa you created since 1994, and want self determination or independence.

In conclusion, tata, I hope my letter does not upset you too much, but sometimes we need to take toll and assume responsibilities for our failures. We've failed our people. There's no other way of looking at it. I don't see the bunch that came after you doing things better, instead things seem to be going from bad to worse.

60% of South Africans: ‘Country Better run under Apartheid!’; ANC more corrupt, less trustworthy & less competent...

Most South Africans, both black and white, believe the country was better run under apartheid and say unemployment and crime are the government's top challenges, according to two new polls released this week (2002).

Overall, the polls showed that about 60 percent of South Africans felt the country was better run under apartheid, with both blacks and whites rating the current government less trustworthy, more corrupt, less able to enforce the law and less able to deliver government services than its white predecessor.

But black respondents were also beginning to wax nostalgic, with 20 percent now giving a positive rating to certain aspects of life under the apartheid regime, compared with 17 percent in 2000 and eight percent in 1995.

Mattes said the rise in pro-apartheid sentiments among blacks could reflect both the growing income inequalities within South Africa's black community - where many have actually grown poorer since the end of apartheid - as well as difficulties in dealing with government bureaucracy.