Monday, June 15, 2009

The Night of the Long Knives


I had a brief look yesterday at a new book by Charles Cilliers on the shelves of the "Cairp Tahn" Book Fair- For Whites Only. What White people think about the New South Africa, published by X Concepts Publications, 2009. And then I heard him being interviewed on the radio and fielding questions and comments.

He deals with a range of "white" issues in the book - like, "My domestic worker is my best friend"; "I never benefited from apartheid"; "I always disagreed with apartheid"; "Affirmative action is reverse racism" and the one we all know and love - "When Mandela dies, chaos is going to be let loose in the country" (aka the "Night of the Long Knives").

On radio, the author is sharp. A little bit too "Cairp Tahn" University sounding for my immediate liking - but razor sharp. He says the kinds of things most white people really hate hearing, like - that actually, the country is in a much better place now than when they were running the show; that there is no way that your domestic worker is your best friend; that every white person benefited personally, directly and very comprehensively from apartheid; that affirmative action is necessary to get the historically skewed situation (which white people made), corrected; and that it is highly unlikely that a frail, retired, 90 year-old is holding the whole thing together and that this kind of belief is a prime example of the unfathomable unwillingness of white South Africans to change.

My view is that the political settlement which took place in the country favoured white people far too much and it failed completely to deal with the sense of utter entitlement; arrogance and almost criminal ignorance which abides to this day, in most white heads and most white families. I suppose that was the price of peace at the time. But not anymore! We are 15 years down the line. And 15 years down the line, white South Africans still think black South Africans are lazy slobs; that every one of them is a criminal or a would-be criminal, or rapist or murderer; and that the government is full of crooks because they are black; and that government itself is hanging by a thread - presumably thanks to the whites there are still in government!

I am very grateful indeed to Gordon Brown and David Cameron and the mostly white band of crooks they have in the leadership of their parties, for providing us with the kind of comedy of errors which has been the case in British politics for the past few months. I am extremely interested in the lack of comparison which white people in this country are making with them. They who are usually so ready and so able to dismiss our politicians and a band of incompetent brigands and crooks and who hanker so profoundly for all things "civilized" (read British, European, Afrikaner or what-have-you).

The point Celliers was making on the radio, and doubtless in the book, (which I doubt will be read by many whites - naturally) is that White South Africans have not really changed at all, in the main. The problem is, if they don't change pretty soon, another dynamic may well kick into play. And I don't think it will be very pretty at all.

And please, this is not to say that crime isn't a problem and that idiots and lazy people don't get employed, or that corruption isn't becoming overwhelming. It always was a problem and it always will be a problem. It just isn't a racial problem. That's all.

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