01/26/2006
Please make the stupid people shutup!
I just watched excerpts of the interview with PW Botha and all I can say is that if you ever want to see denialism and historical revisionism at its finest then you should definitely watch this. Those who are easily nauseated by blatant hypocrisy or outright lying should avoid at all costs. A few of the choice quotes (News24) :
On why he never thought blacks were inferior : "Because many blacks, I repeat, many blacks and coloured people co-operated positively with government policy."
On how apartheid was not of his or the NP's making : "[Apartheid] did not originate with us...It's a very old policy and we didn't ask for it."
(This particular quote was said with a perfectly straight face and I was surprised irony didn't walk in the door and hit him in the face with a cricket bat) : "[The] disastrous policy of affirmative action destroys people's chances of providing a service to the country..."
I don't care if "he's still sharp as a razor" as some of the pundit class have called him. He still remains as before a windbag who has an inflated ego and a logical process so flawed that it would make a Standard 5 teacher despair.
PW you'll always be the biggest clown in SA in my book!
15:17 Posted in Farcical | Permalink | Comments (6) | Email this | Tags: South Africa, PW Botha, South Africa
Comments
He is right, you know. The policy of racial seperation was introduced by the English when South Africa was still a British colony. The term "Apartheid" was only coined by the nationalist Verwoerd... from there the general misconception that it was designed by the National Party.
If you don't believe me - try reading a book or two.
Alas, you're the clown.
Posted by: ustupid. | 01/29/2006
ustupid? It is people like you that piss me off. You realize that this sites content is the proverbial needle in the hay stack. Read a book or two in this country? You need to do one thing first, find out the author, the publisher and lastly whether its something you yourself wrote in some drunken stupour..
Check the facts, we live in a country that is having its potential abused. So if you have the balls to come and comment on an impartial site, with objective columnists, I have only two questions do you actually stay in SA? Are you actually Wotter Basson? yes i replied which i shouldnt have.
Posted by: vincehof | 01/29/2006
That limited policies of racial separation existed before 1948 is not in doubt or in dispute. However, only the most blinkered observer would believe that the policy of
Apartheid was a continuation of existing pre-1948 laws. By 1948 the Smuts government (United Party) was beginning to move away from such policies as was evidenced by the Fagan Commission. This Commission was set up by the government to investigate changes to the system of segregation and the main recommendation of the commission was that segregation in the cities must end.
In response to these findings the National Party started their own commission called the Sauer Commission. Its report suggested the exact opposite of the Fagan commission, i.e. segregation should continue and be implemented across all social and economic areas of life. There was a direct link between the rise of postwar Apartheid and the Sauer commission that was a son of the National Party!
Apartheid went much further than anything envisioned pre-1948, it was a grand plan to permanently separate the races and ensure Afrikaaner domination in South Africa long into the future. The so-called "apartheid laws" were all implemented on the NP's watch including :
1950, the Population Registration Act
1951, the Bantu Authorities Act
1953, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act...etc. etc.
So when PW says that "[Apartheid] did not originate with us...It's a very old policy and we didn't ask for it.", he is being disingenuous at best, a liar at worst. Saying what happened post-1948 was a continuation of what had happened before then is taking revisionist history to the next level!
Posted by: someamongus | 01/30/2006
Well said, and entirely correct. I've always detested those who try and shirk the responsibility for creating Apartheid by shifting the blame to the British, Smuts, or perhaps some particularly nefarious aliens conducting a mind control experiment.
Of course, as you correctly said, it's all bullshit. The very reason for inventing the policy of Apartheid was that the NP wanted to demonstrate just how different and more severe their new solution was than anything that had come before. "Segregation isn't enough!", they yelled from their pulpits and platforms, "We shall be swamped, we need something stronger, we need Apartheid!"
And make something stronger they did. By 1953 the NP had introduced no less than 10 major pieces of legislation, far exceeding anything the British had dreamt up in reach and oppression (except perhaps in the dark days of slavery), and much harsher than the middling segregation efforts that Botha and Smuts had introduced to try and appease conservative Afrikaner voters.
So revisionist history it is, and anybody who cannot see this fact is either incredibly ignorant or being wilfully blind in an attempt to make their "side" look better. While I strongly disagree with the SABC's refusal to screen this interview, I'll admit that for me at least, there's nothing actually worth hearing in it. PW Botha is nothing less than an idiot if this is his position on what the NP did.
Posted by: Darren | 01/30/2006
Well put Darren! It really does concern me that in SA today there seems to be a new wave of revisionists intent on distorting history for their own purposes. This is an extremely damaging practice that gives former oppressors the false belief that they too were the "victims" of history instead of active participants in it.
On the flipside, for the former oppressed majority there is no closure as they feel with no-one taking responsibility for what happened they are in effect being "robbed" of justice.
The path to true reconciliation is a difficult road to travel.
Posted by: someamongus | 02/01/2006
I'm currently digesting masses of information on the history of S.A-the atrocities suffered by Africans are in the literal sense is frankenstein sickening, but hey I really want to move on from this feeling and be somehow proactive with the current situation.
No doubt a country's history is impactive on the lives and psyches of individuals
Posted by: Shaalinie Sivalingham | 02/22/2006
The comments are closed.