WHITE JOURNALIST FIRED IN SA FOR TELLING THE TRUTH

David Bullard- a white journalist- was fired by The Times for placing this article. It was described as "racist"!Now read the article- and decide which paragraph will not be the truth.

ncolonised Africa wouldn’t know what it was missing
Published:Apr 07, 2008

Imagine for a moment what life would be like in South Africa if the evil white man hadn’t come to disturb the rustic idyll of the early black settlers.

Ignored by the Portuguese and Dutch, except as a convenient resting point en route to India. Shunned by the British, who had decided that their empire was already large enough and didn’t need to include bits of Africa.

The vast mineral wealth lying undisturbed below the Highveld soil as simple tribesmen graze their cattle blissfully unaware that beneath them lies one of the richest gold seams in the world. But what would they want with gold?

There are no roads because no roads are needed because there are no cars. It’s 2008 and no one has taken the slightest interest in South Africa, apart from a handful of botanists and zoologists who reckon that the country’s flora and fauna rank as one of the largest unspoilt areas in a polluted world.

Because they have never been exposed to the sinful ways of the West, the various tribes of South Africa live healthy and peaceful lives, only occasionally indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing.

Their children don’t watch television because there is no television to watch. Instead they listen to their grandparents telling stories around a fire. They live in single-storey huts arranged to catch most of the day’s sunshine and their animals are kept nearby.

Nobody has any more animals than his family needs and nobody grows more crops than he requires to feed his family and swap for other crops. Ostentation is unknown because what is the point of trying to impress your fellow citizens when they are not impressible?

The dreaded Internet doesn’t exist in South Africa and cellphone companies have laughed off any hope of interesting the inhabitants in talking expensively into a piece of black plastic. There are no unsightly shopping malls selling expensive goods made by Asian slave workers and consequently there are no newspapers or magazines carrying articles comparing the relative merits of ladies’ handbags.

Whisky, the curse of the white man, isn’t known in this undeveloped land and neither are cigars. The locals brew a sort of beer out of vegetables and drink it out of shallow wooden bowls. Five-litre paint cans have yet to arrive in South Africa.

Every so often a child goes missing from the village, eaten either by a hungry lion or a crocodile. The family mourn for a week or so and then have another child. Life is, on the whole, pretty good but there is something vital missing. Being unaware of the temptations of the outside world, nobody knows what it is. Fire has been discovered and the development of the wheel is coming on nicely but the tribal elders are still aware of some essential happiness ingredient they still need to discover. Praying to the ancestors is no help because they are just as clueless.

Then something happens that will change this undisturbed South Africa forever. Huge metal ships land on the coast and big metal flying birds are sent to explore the sparsely populated hinterland. They are full of men from a place called China and they are looking for coal, metal, oil, platinum, farmland, fresh water and cheap labour and lots of it. Suddenly the indigenous population realise what they have been missing all along: someone to blame. At last their prayers have been answered.

David Bullard and the fight for who to blame What a distressing turn of events! The news was posted on this forum and various news sources around the country and the world for that matter that David Bullard got axed from his position as columnist at the Sunday Times. David went into a story of an Africa without colonization and what things might have been like. A big dose of political satire was thrown in at the end, but I will allow you to read it yourself and make up your own mind. To read it, please visit this link: http://www.thetimes.co.za/Columnists...aspx?id=741855 Some counter opinions and responses from the public in other media can be found at Biz-Community as compiled by Louise Marsland: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/90/23637.html What saddens me about the whole saga is that there is no freedom of opinion built into what is supposed to be quite a robust media. Yes, we know the Sunday Times have come under fire from government, but it smacks of interference on a much more dangerous level than direct involvement. I am of course referring to the kind which occurs purely by threat of involvement! How can the columnists like David Bullard ever be considered free thinkers and have the freedom to write explosive opinions when editors flinch like this? This reminds me of the Deon Maas affair at Rapport with the main difference that Rapport at least had a proper excuse of “hell we are going to lose business!” if they continued posting Deon Maas’s comments. I think he is a Max du Preez clone and not worthy of much attention, but that left there. Naturally this blog is my personal opinion and doesn’t reflect that of the medium it is posted on. You would have to be especially daft to think that as it goes without saying to a large degree I would say. What makes the David Bullard issue bizarre is that the editor posted it and fired him without an outcry from their readership. David Bullard expressed an opinion and a very important opinion that should actually have landed him and a whole bunch of other opinionated folks onto a stage in front of cameras for a mid-week special on the SABC where these things could be discussed properly in an open environment for an extended amount of time. Wouldn’t that make for interesting TV instead of the crap we get dished up with in the form of “local” television. The SABC could actually get the nation thinking damn it! Whether the government, news editors or ordinary people want to hear it or not, the reality is that this very issue that David Bullard touched upon is the root of all evil in Africa and the way it engages with the world, especially the first world. David satirically referenced a conquest by China. This is already happening and in my personal view Africa has so much disdain of what they perceive has been done wrong to them by the West that Africa is showing a bare chest to a sword wielding East. From bad to worse one might say. Again, the above is just MY opinion. Affirmative Action is based on this past wrong that has been committed. Nobody stops to wonder, exactly how wrong was it? The wrong in the view of many in government and elsewhere cam e in the form of retarded development through discriminating policies. How retarded was this development and what impact did colonial powers have on it? The questions are endless and David Bullard paid (literally) to open up the debate. If we as a thinking public slip up and let this guy slip through the cracks without engaging him and other who share and oppose his view in proper debate, we will have done him wrong and our country. This is one of the most important questions our nation can ask and try to answer… How liable are others for our respective sufferings. Shouldn’t we rather blame ourselves?