We were better off under apartheid‚ say EC villagers

We were better off under apartheid‚ say EC villagers

Malibongwe Dayimani | 21 July, 2016 18:24 | Sunday Times |

"We shot ourselves in the foot by toppling the apartheid government‚" residents of an Eastern Cape village said on Thursday.

Tsholomnqa villagers had been waiting for a tarred road and decent houses for decades‚ said community leader‚ Wele Ntshongola.

He said the dawn of democracy had marked the beginning of the collapse of quality service delivery for the Eastern Cape rural area which is situated on the R72 outside East London.

"This village was in a good state under the Ciskei homeland led by LL Sebe. We used to have a tarred road... with workers who used to maintain it as well as free seed‚ crops and livestock." He said they celebrated when democracy dawned. "Little did we know that democracy would bring more oppression.

This democracy is not for everyone and poor rural dwellers are bearing the brunt." Ntshongola claims the villagers of are mostly ANC supporters and should be prioritised by the government.

"I am not saying that I agree with the policies or laws of apartheid‚ but at least we were getting service delivery back then."

King of Zulu's: SA Democracy was better off under Apartheid

King Of The Zulus: Slams ‘So-Called’ South African Democracy, Says Country Was Better Off Under Apartheid

Oliver JJ Lane | 09 Dec 2015 | Breitbart |

The head of the royal household of the Zulus has landed in the centre of a political storm after he made favourable comments about the former white minority government of South Africa.

King Goodwill Zwelithini spoke while visiting a cattle auction and gave a speech reflecting on his life and 44 years on the throne of the Zulu tribe. Straying into potentially controversial territory, the King remarked on the quality education in farming he had received from the white Afrikaners and the genuine respect he had been treated with by the former white rulers of the nation, reports South Africa’s Times.

The King also praised South Africa’s strong army and economy during Afrikaner minority rule, and lamented the declining state of the nation since black majority rule. Commenting on the sudden wave of anti-colonial feeling sweeping the country which has seen statues to the fathers of the nation torn down, King Zwelithini compared the people of the country to arsonists who “loved to use matches” to destroy apartheid-era infrastructure.

South Africa is a 'less equal place' now than under apartheid, author says

South Africa is a 'less equal place' now than under apartheid, author says

January 14, 2015 · 3:15 PM EST | Jeb Sharp | PRI's The World

JS: Is South Africa a more equal place (now)?

KN: No it isn’t. It’s a less equal place. You’ve seen huge eruptions of inequality develop where education is playing a huge role in determining where people end up in the occupational sphere. Of course, South Africa is not unusual in that. What has happened is South Africa has now joined the rest of the developed world in seeing this galloping inequality. But once upon a time, because of apartheid, race would have been the defining line. Now class is an incredibly important dividing line. It’s not that race doesn’t matter. It has everything to do with whether you’re likely to be in a good school and learn English and have opportunities for the kind of cultural capital that will give you a leg up in the labor market. But those divisions are now erupting within racial groups. So you’ll have two people side by side who in the past would be condemned to the same terrible life, and now their pathways are diverging, and that in turn has huge implications for their confidence in democracy. Because when poor blacks see what has happened among the affluent, who are turning their backs on what needs to happen for the poorest of poor, they feel the promise of democracy has been vastly diluted, if not a failure.

Faith Moyo: Life in Rhodesia was better than Zimbabwe

Life in Rhodesia was better than Zimbabwe

Faith Moyo | 21 April 2012 17:11 | ZimDiaspora

Walter Williams: 'Blacks were better off under apartheid' (02:22)

Over the past 32 years human rights situation in Zimbabwe have been blatantly violated by a black government that masquerades as a champion of peace and democracy, thus the Mugabe regime has eroded all norms of 21st century civilization.

In contrast, Ian Smith’s Rhodesian era turns out to be better than "our" black government.

Most black Zimbabweans would now prefer Ian Smith as leader to Robert Mugabe – though the human instinct of freedom remains high on the agenda. The Mugabe regime has perpetrated serious crimes against its own people – black-on-black.

For what’s the purpose of freedom when freedom kills you, when freedom denies you free speech, when freedom kills your relatives, when freedom starves you, when freedom excludes you on tribal grounds?

‘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

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.)

‘South African Indians prefer Apartheid?’ - ANC Survey

South African Indians prefer Apartheid?

September 29, 2004
SepiaMutiny | Rediff

It is well known that there is a growing unease between black South Africans and Indians in South Africa. How bad is it? A recent poll suggests that are large percentage of Indians there think that things were better during apartheid. From Rediff.com:

Despite their support for the ruling African National Congress, more Indians than whites in South Africa were unhappy with the present dispensation and prefer the former apartheid regime to the present democratic state, a survey by ANC has revealed.

The survey, conducted in the Guateng region (which has an Indian population of over 3,00,000) revealed that 37 per cent of Indian respondents replied in the affirmative when asked whether they prefer going back to the apartheid regime compared to 19 per cent of whites who made the same choice.

“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.” - KZN Africans

“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.” - KZN Africans

‘Some things were better under apartheid’

11:12 GMT, Saturday, 29 May 2010 12:12 UK | BBC

When apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, many expected the lives of its black population would improve but promises of land distribution and new homes have not been fulfilled, as Hugh Sykes discovered.

In a community of shacks on a hillside near Johannesburg, a man complained to me:

“We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now.”

In a community of shacks on a hillside near Durban, a man complained to me:

“Life here under apartheid was bad, but now it is more bad.”

I felt slightly unsettled hearing this.

It seemed like questioning a sacred belief - that apartheid was an unmitigated, 100% evil system.

But there is less idolatry here now, as it dawns on most people that the new South Africa is still scarred by extreme poverty and high unemployment.

Walter Williams on MandelaDay: 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

The tragic fact of business is that ordinary Africans were better off under colonialism. Colonial masters never committed anything near the murder and genocide seen under black rule in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Nigeria, Mozambique, Somalia and other countries, where millions of blacks have been slaughtered in unspeakable ways, which include: hacking to death, boiling in oil, setting on fire and dismemberment. If as many elephants, zebras and lions had been as ruthlessly slaughtered, the world's leftists would be in a tizzy.

During South Africa's apartheid era, I visited several times and lectured at just about every university. In a 1987 syndicated column, I wrote: "Africa's past experience should give Western anti-apartheid activists some pause for thought. Wouldn't it be the supreme tragedy if South African blacks might ponder at some future date, like the animals of Jones' Manor (George Orwell's Animal Farm), whether they were better off under apartheid? That's why blacks must answer what's to come after apartheid? Black rule alone is no guarantee for black freedom."

‘Democracy? It was better under apartheid’ - Helen Suzman

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.

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.

Gareth Cliffs' "Dear Goverment" says PC media unspeakable: 'Many worse off than before 1994!'

Gareth Cliff rattles analysts and journos

October 23 2010 at 11:39am
IOL: Saturday Star

Radio Jock Gareth Cliff’s “Dear Government” letter may have been criticised this week, but the Idols judge has done what many ordinary citizens – and journalists – have been unable to do. Not only did he get a prompt response from the Presidency to his letter but he also secured a meeting with President Jacob Zuma at the Union Buildings on Tuesday.

Now his scathing attack on the government has spawned more public letters to Zuma, including one from University of the Free State head Jonathan Jansen, as well as a website, www.deargovernment.co.za.

In his letter, Cliff called Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande “ugly”; said Zuma’s children, born out of wedlock, were being unfairly enriched; and railed against the abuses of black economic empowerment.

“My letter is sincere and concerned, not looking for a fight,” he said, defending his penned words.

‘Blacks Must Have Black Rule Even If They Don’t Want It!’.....

Transferred to: TYGAE: SQSwans: Gedaliah Braun: Racism, Guilt, Self-Hatred and Self Deceipt: A Philosophers Hard Headed Look at the Dark Continent.

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

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.”

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.

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.

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.