Pete’s blog

Been thinking about why there is a tendency by many South Africans to overreact to bad news. I’m going to tackle this question this week in a hard-hitting, uncompromising way. And yes I am going to make a lot of this a black/white issue. Nothing like having a new web-site to offend the maximum number of people

I think that this is a very complex issue, so I am going to tackle a little bit at a time.

In last years of apartheid, the minority white population lived in fear of the majority black population. Constantly warned of the “swart gevaar” (black danger), with unrest in the townships and the signs of the approaching end of apartheid. The possibility of civil war or a violent revolution was very real. At the back of the whites’ minds was the thought that “I think the blacks will want some payback for everything we’ve deprived them of during apartheid”. This didn’t happen. There was no wide-spread unrest, no unrest at all in white suburbs, whites got to keep their jobs and their property. Quite a remarkable thing indeed – often referred to as a miracle.

Now this breaks into two streams. First there is still a lingering belief/fear at the back of a lot of whites’ minds that they have gotten off too lightly, that one day a black guy will appear at their door and say “I’ve come to take your house”. The farm repossessions in Zimbabwe did nothing to ease these fears. This makes a lot of people rather jumpy and edgy. They hear that Zuma is a man of the people who will do a lot for the poor, but translate that as he will take money and land from the rich whites to give to the poor blacks. I don’t know how you deal with this. Quite honestly the whites did get away with it, but they should thank their lucky stars and get on with it. But I think the government is also failing to harness this. With EE and all that, a lot of whites feel excluded from the government, the reconstruction and nation building. If the government could give the guilty whites more room to contribute and add value, it might do a lot for everyone.

Secondly, after apartheid, there was very little change in the standard of living for most whites. Once again, quite remarkable considering that instead of servicing 5 million people, the government budget now had to stretch for 40 million people. This is one of South Africa’s dichotomies – the infamous dual economy. South Africa is both a developed country as well as a developing country. If you live behind 6 foot walls in a walled-off suburb, drive a nice car and work in a nice office in Sandton, it is very easy to forget this. For you, you live in a developed country and expect everything to be run and work as if it was a developed country. Unfortunately South Africa is also a developing country, so when development issues surface, they appear so much more incongruous and shocking to the people living in the developed country. How do you address this one? Well I think it would be fantastic if once a year everyone visited a rural area (and maybe helped them with something), just to remind themselves that we do live in a developing country – you could even get to use your fancy 4×4 for real off-road driving!

Next to really bring racism into it (told you I was going to be uncompromising). Apartheid did a very good job of teaching whites that blacks were stupid and inferior. The colonial mentality that natives could never run a government was perpetuated. People say “Look what happened in Zimbabwe, look at Zaire, look at Idi Amin, Sierra Leone, Liberia. Blacks don’t know how to run governments, they all become corrupt despots who destroy their countries. Now that South Africa has a black government, we are going to go the same way.” From the very beginning a large proportion of whites were expecting the ANC government to fail and are still expecting it to fail. Any mistake, any slip-up and they pounce saying “See, told you they would mess up, we’re going to go the same way as Zimbabwe”. A few of these people will even look back nostalgically at the apartheid government and say how much better they were at running the country and how they managed to keep crime under control. The truth is that the ANC has not failed and has in fact done a remarkable job. Consider how much easier it is to run a country when you only have to worry about keeping 15% of the population happy – the other 85% you don’t have to spend much time or money on and only need to keep them submissive and separate. Now imagine the new government that suddenly has to worry about keeping 100% of the population happy, whilst trying to address centuries of neglect for 85% of the population…

Going to stop there for tonight. There is a lot more to be covered, but don’t worry, I’m done stereotyping the whites as elitist, guilt-ridden, subliminal racists Will look at the relationship between government and media next.