Democracy? It was better under apartheid, says Helen Suzman
By Jane Flanagan, Telegraph
12:01AM BST 16 May 2004
Helen Suzman, for years the lone anti-apartheid voice in the South African parliament, has turned her fire on the country's ANC government for being "anti-white" and for abandoning the country's poorest blacks.
As South Africa celebrates the passing of a decade since its first free elections, Mrs Suzman has cast an unexpected shadow over the party - declaring that parliamentary democracy was healthier under the apartheid regime.
As she sat in the study of her home in one of Johannesburg's smartest white suburbs last week, the veteran human rights campaigner confessed that she was disappointed by the African National Congress government which she had worked so tirelessly to get into power.
"I had hoped for something much better," said Mrs Suzman, 86. "The poor in this country have not benefited at all from the ANC. This government spends 'like a drunken sailor'. Instead of investing in projects to give people jobs, they spend millions buying weapons and private jets, and sending gifts to Haiti."
Dressed in a blue blouse, trousers and matching jewellery, Mrs Suzman's tiny frame became powerfully animated as she discussed the subject of Zimbabwe and President Thabo Mbeki's failure to curb the excesses of his neighbour, President Robert Mugabe.
"Mugabe has destroyed that country while South Africa has stood by and done nothing. The way Mugabe was feted at the inauguration last month was an embarrassing disgrace. But it served well to illustrate very clearly Mbeki's point of view."
Black man: Life Was Better under Apartheid (BBC) (00:30): Black man says Bring back Apartheid: Even though he may have been discriminated against under apartheid; he never struggled to find a job. |
She gestured fiercely with the manicured middle finger of her right hand and added: "Mugabe has done that to the whites, and I think that is exactly what Mbeki admires about him. Don't think for a moment that Mbeki is not anti-white - he is, most definitely. His speeches all have anti-white themes and he continues to convince everyone that there are two types of South African - the poor black and the rich white.
"Meanwhile, he doesn't do what he should be doing, which is improving the lives of the people who voted for him. Mbeki's attitudes to Mugabe and to HIV/Aids are the reason we are not getting the levels of foreign investment that we should."
Mrs Suzman was a lecturer in economic history before beginning her political career in 1953 as an MP for the United Party. Six years later she founded the Progressive Party, and for 13 years was its sole MP. She was a regular visitor to Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders during their long incarceration on Robben Island.
Between 1961 and 1974 she bombarded the ruling National Party government with parliamentary questions about the detailed workings of apartheid: forced removals, racial classification, convictions for pass offences, immorality laws and Bantu education. All were recorded in South Africa's Hansard - two rows of which now line her study walls. "That's my life in there," she said, her tiny arm sweeping along the shelves. "Of course, it would never be possible today to ask as many questions as I did."
One reason is the abandonment of the first-past-the-post system under South Africa's post-apartheid constitution, she said. "I used to be a fan of proportional representation, but I am not at all now I have seen it in action. Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country. Even though we didn't have a free press under apartheid, the government of that day seemed to be very much more accountable in parliament."
Her energy and relentless criticism of the apartheid regime was formidable, and earned her anti-Semitic and sexist attacks in parliament, where for six years she was the only woman politician - referred to as "the lady from Lithuania". She retired from politics in 1989 with 28 honorary doctorates and two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Her probing continues unabated through the work of The Helen Suzman Foundation, which scrutinises elections, voter choice and the conduct of political parties in South Africa, Zimbabwe and other African countries. "I am supposed to be retired, but my diary is as full as ever," she said with a smile.
Around the study, photographs of her with Mr Mandela, Hillary Clinton and parliamentary colleagues jostle with family snapshots. Like many other white South Africans, Mrs Suzman has seen her two children move overseas. A system of positive discrimination and labour laws that impose strict quota systems on employers have led thousands of skilled whites to pursue their careers elsewhere.
"The employment laws are completely unrealistic," she said. The previous education system, she said, left a generation of black children without the skills for the jobs into which they are now being pushed.
"You cannot overcome that in only 10 years. It will take at least another generation before young people are properly qualified. It is increasingly hard for young white people to find jobs, and I can understand why white parents are worried about the future," she said.
Perhaps conscious that she might be misconstrued, she added firmly: "For all my criticisms of the current system, it doesn't mean that I would like to return to the old one. I don't think we will ever go the way of Zimbabwe, but people are entitled to be concerned. I am hopeful about any future for whites in this country - but not entirely optimistic."
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Walter Williams: Blacks were better off Under Apartheid; Africans were better off Under Colonialism
Were blacks better off under apartheid?
Jewish World Review Jan. 9, 2001 / 25 Teves, 5762
Walter Williams | NewsandOpinion.com
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MORAL crusaders have the habit of heading off to their next crusade without bothering to see whether anything went wrong on their last one. During the '80s, TransAfrica, NAACP, Black Congressional Caucus, Hollywood glitterati, college students, and other groups held massive protests on college campuses and at the South African Embassy, built shanty towns, and called for disinvestment and sanctions against South Africa for its racist apartheid system.
There's no longer apartheid and there's black rule in South Africa, but what's the story there now? Andrew Kenny writes about it in his article, "Black People Aren't Animals." The article appears in the December 15 issue of the British magazine The Spectator, the world's oldest continuously published English language magazine (est. 1838).
Each South African day sees an average of 59 murders, 145 rapes and 752 serious assaults out of its 42 million population. The new crime is the rape of babies; some AIDS-infected African men believe that having sex with a virgin is a cure. Twelve percent of South Africa's population is HIV-positive, but President Mbeki says that HIV cannot cause AIDS.
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‘Africans were better off under Apartheid, according to UNDP-HDI’ - RW Johnson
The denialism of the NDR
Africans were better off under Apartheid, according to UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) Measurements; but ANC unable to confront this reality. ANC's attachment to NDR: outmoded Soviet concept
RW Johnson | Politicsweb
19 July 2011
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In the mid-1990s the SACP, with Joe Slovo much to the fore, became enamoured of the Human Development Index (HDI) pioneered by the UN Development Programme because instead of ranking countries by GDP per capita the UNDP was interested in a broader measure of welfare which would include the quality of life in that country, life expectancy, child and maternal mortality rates, social equality, achievements in education and health, gender equality and so on.
The UNDP measure had two immensely appealing features for the SACP. First, it promised to rank countries like Cuba a lot higher than usual because they enjoyed equal poverty, a goodish health system and more gender equality. So this would be a better measure for what the SACP was planning to achieve in South Africa. Accordingly, the SACP paid enormous and positive attention to each successive Human Development Report (HDR) of the UNDP and emphasized that what the government was most keenly interested in was human development.
Thus in 1997 Jay Naidoo, then heading the RDP secretariat, declared that "The challenge is to meet the basic needs of our people and at the same time strengthen economic growth. These challenges are vital but the real issue that needs attention most is human development." (Emphasis added.)
Secondly, the UNDP was a very weak agency, highly dependent on local buy-in from the client's end - which meant, in practise, that it would be easy for the SACP to take over the local operation in South Africa. This duly occurred. I remember attending one UNDP report presentation in Pretoria where those thanked included a long list of SACP figures and where the speech given was a standard Party rant. It was somewhat weird to imagine that these fiery declarations denouncing Gear and "the 1996 class project" were somehow meant to emanate from the UNDP.
Black man: Life Was Better under Apartheid (BBC) (00:30): Black man says Bring back Apartheid: Even though he may have been discriminated against under apartheid; he never struggled to find a job. |
The intention was clearly that the SACP, leading the Alliance, would be able to show the effect of the RDP in gradually transforming South Africa for the better with a rising HDI number which would reward all the ideological initiatives of greater empowerment, gender equality, better preventative health care and so on. Helpfully, the UNDP had calculated its indices retrospectively and these showed South Africa improving from a score of 0.66 in1975 to a score of 0.741 in 1995. If improvement like that could be achieved in the last twenty years of National Party rule, surely the figure would race ahead under ANC rule?
Well, no actually. The 2001 UNDP Report showed that South Africa had slumped to 0.604 due its high Aids rate and lower per capita income due to the (then) weak Rand. The fact that South Africa under ANC rule had slumped even behind its 1975 figure was so much the opposite of what the SACP (and ANC) wanted to hear that they promptly lost all interest in the HDR. After 2001 each successive new HDR was largely ignored.
In fact they were objective measurements all right and by 2010 the HDR showed that South Africa's score had fallen again to 0.597, placing the country 110th out of 172 countries surveyed. (Zimbabwe was in 172nd place.) Had South Africa maintained its 1995 score it would have been 59th. That is, under ANC rule South Africa has fallen 51 places, a fair measure of the catastrophic failures this period has seen.
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South Africa's Coloureds: Better Off Under Apartheid?
The ANC is Not for US, Say Coloured Voters
Fadela Slamdien, All Africa
17 January 2011
South Africa's Coloureds Better Off Under Apartheid - New Zealand TV3 (03:01): NZ TV3 news: Former anti-apartheid activist, Ryklieff is starting to believe he was better off under apartheid. |
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.
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Black People Remembering the Past with Nostalgia
Matchbox beats 'sim card'
Once-despised township houses now preferred over RDPs
Jan 17, 2011 10:47 PM
Phumla Matjila, TimesLive
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Phumla Matjila: Ahem, I get a lump in my throat the size of an egg when older black people remember pre-democratic South Africa with a whiff of nostalgia.
Surely, South Africa today can't be worse than during apartheid, I tell myself as I eavesdrop on the conversation of three generations of women, chit-chatting, bemoaning how some things have changed for the worse in our country.
Even the youngest of the women, in her late 20s, is sounding pessimistic about her future and that of her children.
Politeness takes a back seat as I strain to hear their conversation. After all, their story resonates with many South Africans: those who are unemployed, live in the poor areas of our townships - and, in rural areas, rely on public healthcare and transport, and survive on government grants - and, when they die, burden those left behind, usually children.
Sitting on the stoep, watching children play in a muddy puddle, the older woman tells the youngest of a time when they would wake up early in the morning to look for a job.
A grandmother reminisces about those days when she wouldn't return from a day of job-hunting without having found a job (even if was just for that day), or the promise of a job for a relative, or a neighbour, if she was not suitable for the job.
The other older woman nods in agreement. Looking for a job meant going from door-to-door in the "suburbs", she explains.
"It was never a futile exercise."
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Over 60% Miss Apartheid! Less Corruption, More Efficient Competent Goverment
'Things were better in the bad old days'
By Andrew Quinn, IOL
December 11 2002 at 04:35PM
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).
The polls, part of the "Afrobarometer" series of public opinion surveys, found South Africans had generally positive assessments of how their country was governed, and were growing increasingly optimistic about the future.
But they also revealed a growing sense of "apartheid nostalgia" as South Africa grapples with high crime rates, increasing corruption and rising joblessness following the end of white rule in 1994.
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Abathembu's Support Secession: Things Much Better Under Apartheid
Why is the Transkei collapsing?
An open letter from Mbulelo Ncedana to Nelson Mandela
Mbulelo Ncedana, Cope
05 February 2010
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OPEN LETTER TO TATA OMKHULU MANDELA ON NON-DEVELOPMENT
Non Development in the Community of Nelson Mandela
During the holidays I went to Eastern Cape, our home Qunu, made famous by your stature, tata omkhulu Mandela. For me it was heart breaking to see our people, especially the old, still needing to go to the bush or open fields to relieve themselves. To see that in Qunu there is no water and toilets; and that only those who can afford to install septic tanks had anything resembling basic services.
I subsequently attended a community meeting on 28/12/09 where we received a report of the situation in the area from the headman. He told us there were no real plans to develop the area, and that as the community they've lost trust in their ward councilor who came only once last year to the area during the General Elections. After promising them heaven and earth he disappeared with his name.
I felt morose and embarrassed seating in that meeting listening to old people benching their hopes on food parcels that never materialise as promised during electioneering. I heard things I thought I'll never hear again; old people, with rheumy eyes, saying things were much better under the Bantustan government.
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Black Zimbabweans say life was better under White Rhodesian Goverment...
Postcard From Zimbabwe
By Nicholas D. Kristof
Published: April 7, 2010, New York Times
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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.”
Over and over, I cringed as I heard Africans wax nostalgic about a nasty, oppressive regime run by a tiny white elite. Black Zimbabweans responded that at least that regime was more competent than today’s nasty, oppressive regime run by the tiny black elite that surrounds Mr. Mugabe.
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Blacks don't Want Black Rule; Liberals: Blacks Must Have Black Rule; Even if they Don't Want It!
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 government 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 horrified.)
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 ‘eventually’ 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 scintilla 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 themselves don’t want it? Well, if that were true it might make a difference; but he didn’t think it was.
***
‘Blacks Must Have Black Rule Even If They Don’t Want It!’
A few minutes later, however, he changed his mind. Even if they didn’t want it they must have it. In other words, for whites to deny blacks the vote is absolutely wrong, but for blacks to do the same is all right. Why does something become acceptable just because perpetrators and victims are of the same race?
Given the premise that black rule means oppression, such an absolute principle of democracy means it is perfectly all right for blacks to oppress blacks yet profoundly wrong for whites to treat them decently –but without suffrage. The idea that a ‘democracy’ guaranteed to become repressive must be supported at all costs, strikes me as paradoxical in the extreme.
***
Apartheid Is Not ‘One Single Thing’
Ben is a Zulu, about 60, and works at a garage where I bought a used car; he’s been working there for 26 years and is a South African citizen. Ladybrand is in South Africa, across the border from Maseru, the capital of Lesotho (pronounced ‘Lesoothoo’), a small mountainous country completely sur-rounded by South Africa and where I taught from 1987-88.
As we drove to the border I asked what he thought about the trouble in South Africa. Did he want to see blacks take over? His an¬swer was straightforward: No, he did not. ‘Our nation [i.e., blacks] is bad’. Why were they bad? I asked. Because they kill anyone who disagrees with them. Blacks could not run things; if they were in charge, nothing would work.
Does he ever go to Soweto. Often, he says; his family lives there. What do people there think about the ANC and black rule? Well, while many used to be for the ANC, this has changed because of ‘necklacings’ and suchlike. ‘If they are trying to help the black man, why are they killing so many blacks?’ he asked several times.
But then he began talking about how blacks were ‘oppressed’. I asked for examples; he said if a white man were to beat up a black employee, the police would do nothing. Suppose the boss was black and this happened under a black government? Would the police do anything then? No, he said; but at least you could fight back.
In South Africa a black man would be in big trouble if he hit his white boss.
He said that apartheid was bad, though it was changing. Before, blacks had always been separated from whites – separate toilets, entrances, queues, etc.. Everything should be the same for everyone, he said, since doing things separately meant whites didn’t like blacks.
Did that mean going to the same schools? Yes, he said. But since blacks were 80% of the popula-tion, whites would have to attend schools that were 80% black. Would such schools be very good? No, he quickly agreed. But how can you expect whites, who pay for the education of whites and blacks, to send their children to bad schools? He agreed you couldn’t. If everything should be the same, shouldn’t blacks be allowed to vote? Here he agreed with what he had said earlier: he was happy with whites running things and would not want to live in a country run by blacks.
By this time we were at the border post. He expressed great pleasure at our conversation and said he wished we could talk for two hours. I asked if he’d ever had such a conversation with a white man before and he said emphat¬ically he had not, though he’d worked with them for years.
The upshot was that while against apartheid, he was not in favour of blacks voting and controlling the government, nor did he necessarily think everyone should all go to the same schools. He agreed that apartheid was not ‘one single thing’; some parts might be good and others bad. It is clear that many blacks who’ve been ‘persuaded’ that apartheid is bad and that they are ‘oppressed’ would also say they do not want black rule.
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Did Black South Africans want Black Rule:
Did ‘Evil Apartheid raise poor black living standards to the highest in Africa?
Boer Volkstaat 10/31/16 Theses
B. Politically Incorrect Truths About Apartheid Conflict
Executive Summary | Excerpts
4. No Proper Authority: Did Black South Africans want Black Rule:
Dr. Gedaliah Braun’s discussions and evidence compiled over 16 years of frank conversations with Africans, are detailed in his book Racism, Guilt, Self-Hatred and Self-Deceipt: A Philosophers Hard Headed Look at the Dark Continent. Dr Braun details his many brutally frank conversations with working class black South Africans from all walks of life; asking them whether they wanted black rule. He could not find one black South African who wanted black rule. He concludes that although many black Africans were very unhappy with particular aspects of Apartheid rule; they most definitely did not want black rule. They feared that black rule would be similar to black rule in the rest of Africa, which was far worse, than life under apartheid. Dr. Braun confirms Rev. John Gogotya’s allegations in ANC: VIP’s of Violence that “the ANC is not the authentic voice of the black people in South Africa.. does not represent the majority of blacks in South Africa”. It confirms that the ANC’s decision to embark on a violent liberation struggle, was to force the black population by means of coercion and terror, to support the ANC’s agenda of overthrowing white rule. Conclusions reached: The ANC lacked Proper Authority, did not have Right Intention in launching the ‘liberation struggle’; had no prospects of success and used disproportionate force against their own people.
5. No Right Intention: Did ‘Evil Apartheid raise poor black living standards to the highest in Africa:
The evidence proves that while Apartheid withheld political suffrage at the national level (not local, or regional) from black Africans, it did provide them with the highest living standards of all Africans on the continent of Africa. In fact Apartheid provided poor black Africans with higher living standards than middle class whites in any communist state, such as the Soviet Union. Consequently the ANC’s alleged outrage to justify waging war on behalf of living standards of poor black South Africans was not sincere, but fraudulent and hypocritical, considering the ANC’s endorsement of the far worse living standards of poor black Africans in African states under the direct political control of the ANC’s ‘liberation struggle’ Marxists political elite friends. Conclusion: The ANC lacked Right Intention.
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