Racial Discrimination in South Africa

Racial Discrimination in South Africa

Adriana Stuijt - 6/8/2005

Over the course of my many years as a journalist in the Republic of South Africa, I have amassed a large body of documentation on all the Afrikaner groups from all sides of the political spectrum, and believe I speak with considerable authority because of that. Even though I currently live in the Netherlands, I still maintain close ties with many South Africans.

I am also very deeply concerned about what I see as an approaching ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Afrikaners. This group has been politically emasculated by the ANC regime and has withdrawn into its shell. Unfortunately, that seems like the best they can do. In fact, they should stop cooperating with the ANC. The Freedom Front, which represents Afrikaners, should withdraw from this public arena and drop its 4 seats in the parliament, as well as to refuse to deal with the ANC any longer - since they merely help President Thabo Mbeki pretend that he is indeed still running a 'democracy'. Reality is very different and South Africa now is rapidly deteriorating into a dictatorship, where, for example, Mail & Guardian is banned for printing the truth about government corruption, and genuine protestors are shot when they demand the housing the ANC has been promising them.

Meanwhile, the government's Health Minister is pushing a vitamin drink as a cure for AIDS, so public hospitals often provide people with this mix of alchemy rather than the drugs that people can actually get helped by.

The reason why Afrikaners need to withdraw from politics really is very simple: it's a matter of physical survival. The Jews of Germany were pushed from public participation by the Nuremberg laws; the Afrikaners are facing the same reality with the so-called Black Economic Empowerment policies of the ANC-regime.

Mbeki is a Black Nazi, not a leader of South Africa: his Black Economic Empowerment policy benefits only his own Xhosa tribe and display nationalist-socialism in its purest form. They have even made Nuremberg-type laws to exclude Afrikaners from land-ownership and are causing them to disappear from public life - exactly what happened to the Jews under the Nazi yoke.

More than 260,000 Afrikaners have already lost their jobs over the past 10 years due to the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy of the ANC regime. More than 440,000 Afrikaners now live below the breadline ($60 a month) - yet are being denied any government aid or food-handouts even from non-governmental aid agencies because they belong to the so-named "previously advantaged" group.

Ten years ago, there were no poor Afrikaners at all - on the contrary, Afrikaners employed more than 5-million Blacks. Now unemployment is rampant due to Mbeki's anti-Afrikaner policies. Considering that the total number of Afrikaners is only 3-million - that's a devastating blow to the combined wealth of this social group. They were never very rich as individuals - their wealth was contained in their national treasures such as Volkskas, Sasol, Sanlam and other such enterprises through which they were also employed and educated. These 'State" enterprises have all been looted by the ANC and BEE.

The ANC regime's "legal discrimination policies" include all Afrikaans-speakers: Mbeki's tribal Xhosas are taking over the jobs of Afrikaans-speaking Coloreds (people of mixed race) in the Western Cape.

It's no coincidence that the so-called "land rioting" now taking place has been launched by Xhosas living in squatter settlements in the Western Cape - these are riots orchestrated by the ANC to create an atmosphere of unrest in which many Colored and Afrikaner neighborhoods can be invaded.

The most dangerous policy by Mbeki's Black Economic Empowerment are the Nuremberg-like "racial purity" laws, which are deteriorating into an ethnic-cleansing campaign targeting regions where Afrikaans-speakers are still the majority. A similar campaign is also being launched against members of the Zulu tribe, the largest ethnic group in the country. There have been scores of political murders and attacks in that region of South Africa. The recent political assault on Vice President Jacob Zuma, who belongs to the tribe, are also like anti-Zulu.

The independent Volksstaat, or Afrikaner state, idea is becoming an ultimate political goal of every Afrikaner, a hope they carry deep inside their hearts, often afraid to admit it.

These newly-poor people are now all out in the streets and living in backyards of their relatives who still have jobs. Pretoria North, Vanderbijlpark, Sasolburg and other cities are filled chock-and-block with desperately poor Afrikaner families.

Unlike the Jews under the Nazi yoke, the Afrikaners don't need laws requiring them to wear Stars of David to identify them publicly: their ethnic-European appearance and Afrikaans language very clearly identify them as "the enemy of democracy" - the term of preference used by Thabo Mbeki when he speaks of Afrikaners, or "whites" as he prefers to refer to this social group.

His latest speeches by ANC officials are particularly interesting for the subtle warnings they contain against Afrikaners, referring to some as "good Afrikaners" - also inferring that most however are the enemy. This is outright hate-speech.

An analysis of Mbeki's speeches over the years makes his sentiments against Afrikaners very clear indeed and his actions. He's intent on erasing the Afrikaner identity and history from the landscape of South Africa, as he can't even stand to see Afrikaans names.

A million Afrikaners, a third of the total population, have fled the country. Many - among them are well-educated teachers, nurses, engineers, skilled mine technicians, etc - are internal refugees inside South Africa, floating around the countryside, hoping for jobs which aren't there.

Adriana Stuijt is a leading European journalist on the affairs of the Republic of South Africa.