Sitting at Braam Fischer Airport, my flight's been delayed by two hours and my team Kaizer Chiefs is getting their ass kicked, taking the joy out of this beautiful afternoon. But enough about Chiefs, I remain a loyal supporter of Abafana Bokuthula Noxolo. I figure I should use this time constructively.
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I've been thinking of crafting my views on the recently popularised #RedOctober situation, but was busy getting everything in place for Macufe. Now that's done, so I've had the time to think. I know how I feel about it, but the most fascinating realisation was just thinking of how I'd feel if I was an Afrikaans person, seeing the whole situation unfolding. So I figured my letter to Steve would be from a white Afrikaaners perspective. Unfortunately I don't speak Afrikaans so it'll have to be in English, but if I was Afrikaans, this is how I'd phrase it....
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Dear Steve,
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Have you gone mad? This is by far the worst time for you to be raising your racist head and making such statements. I mean really Steve, what did we as the Afrikaans community ever do to you? We've supported your music for years, let your Zuma-like behaviour slide and we still continue to hold you as a shining light amongst our proudly Afrikaans nation. But this Steve, this is really testing our loyalty.
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Do you realise what you've done? First things first, do you know Steve, that next year is set to be a difficult one for us? How so, you ask? Well, it's officially going to be 20 years since we conceded defeat and agreed to became a democratic New South Africa. So, by virtue of that alone, a lot of people are going to be asking the question: So what has changed, really? Now let me not lie to you Steve, the past two decades have been good to us, very good in fact. What we feared most when we let political power go, was that it would result in us losing economical power as well. But guess what, it didn't happen! We still own the land, hold the same control to the means of production and save for a couple of them who now own houses at Harties, we still have our holiday homes and farms.
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See Steve, in his infinite wisdom, beloved Dr Hendrik Verwoed was an architect of a very sophisticated and dare I say, genius system when he constructed apartheid. He put laws in place which denied blacks the right to education, owning companies and even limited where they could live. Leaving us to the best this country had to offer, and not only that, also giving us some of the cheapest labour, allowing us to accelerate this country’s development. The system worked like clock-work for nearly half a century! Half a century Steve, and 19 years after it was disbanded, it still continues to serve us. You are a beneficiary of that system Steve, so please don't be foolish and take away our comfort and joy.
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How so, you ask? Well, I'll tell you how. The moment you start painting us as victims, you get people asking too many questions. Terrible questions like: Who is to blame for the state of our country? What characterizes a victim, and who are the real victims? Why does SA have one of the highest gini-coefficients in the globe?
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Do you know what the gini-coefficient index is Steve? That is the measure of the difference between those who have (us, and a couple of BEE’s) and those who don’t have (the majority of South Africans). So, the moment people start asking questions about that, then our entire plan falls flat.
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Steve, have you read the latest employment equity report? This report states that in 2011, white males still had 65.4% of all management positions. In a country where we only make up 8.9% of the population, this is great news! The report goes on to show that in most sectors that are driving this country’s economy (agriculture, mining, manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail) we still have over 60% share of the top positions. The report also shows that employment equity figures have regressed since the early 2000s. People were very excited about BEE and employment equity back then, but now they’ve stopped caring or have shifted their focus. Either way, we win. This is very good news Steve, news that most don’t really realise because they’re focusing on Generations, the Guptaz and Zuma’s latest scandal.
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See, the thing is Steve, we had to let the apartheid thing go. Too many tongues were wagging and being banned from almost every global body really wasn’t fun. I mean, imagine, they wouldn’t even let us into the Olympics, global companies refused to do business with an apartheid state and who can forget how us, one of the best Rugby countries in the world, were not allowed to be part of the Rugby World Cup?! That’s really tragic Steve.
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But what I’m trying to make you realise is that, now we have the best of both worlds. The world loves us, we’re able to do business with whoever we like and get to show all those who moved to Australia that we knew what we were doing all along. 1994 wasn’t the time to leave SA, it was in fact the time to stay and start cashing in!
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While you’re at it Steve, why don’t you take some time out to read the latest population Cencus statistics. Based on those, average household incomes for white South Africans have gone from R193 820 in 2001 to R365 134 in 2011. This is compared to R22 522 to R60 613 for black people. Don’t worry about them noticing though, we can just use percentages to fool them. On paper, their house hold income has tripled, whilst ours hasn’t even doubled.
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My point here Steve, is that you don’t want to attract too much attention to how well we’re doing because then you risk us losing our position. I happen to like how now the ANC government is being blamed for all this country’s problems, but if you think about it Steve, they had a really huge task ahead of them when they took over this country. A nation that was meant to offer sub-standard living to the majority of its population, and an opulent life to the elite, was now meant to learn about equality? They had to give electricity, education, health and water to millions who’d just gotten by on the bare minimums. Not only that, they had to deal with the massive debt we’d incurred whilst in government, and also make sure that the country was economically viable.
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When I hear of the statistics of how education has improved in this country, I must tell you it worries me Steve. I like how everyone is so enraged by textbooks not being delivered to Limpopo but in actual fact, if they saw the facts, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge this government.
I mean, look at it,
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percentage of South Africans who have no schooling has gone down by more than 50% between 1996 - 2011 (19.1% - 8.6%), and South Africans who've completed matric have gone from 16.3 - 28.9%
. Access to free houses, free health facilities, free education. All of it, delivered under very difficult global economic conditions.
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Steve, I must urge you to spend more time reading. This will help inform your views, and honestly help you see the bigger picture. A recent study was released by the Unilever Institute titled: 4 Million and Rising. In this study, not only do they go into the historical context of the black middle class (growing up under apartheid with bantu education, group areas act, travel restrictions, job reservations and repression) but they also show that even with all those odds stacked against them, the blacks are now thriving. Their middle class is now 4 million and is set to grow. This for me is scary Steve. Very scary. The calibre of black that was born under apartheid was uneducated, fearful of us and very easy to manipulate. This study shows Steve that the blacks we knew who only drank, had multiple children and enjoyed killing each other are now evolving. I mean, it speaks of them now being more savvy about investment, being health conscious, investing in their children and what’s even more, investing in educating and empowering themselves. Yes they also travel, buy German cars and drink a lot, but they’re also highly ambitious and smart. That’s not good Steve, not good at all!
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As I mentioned earlier Steve, people who question are problematic, and yes in the good old days, we would often get rid of them. But now, now they’re popping up everywhere. Like that boy Julius Malema, he’s a pain in the neck that one. But I like him because most people just see him as a joker not to be taken seriously. He’s good because he comes from a poor background and that means when he sees money, he gets all excited, making him easy to bribe with shiny things. A lot of them are like that Steve, just look around you.
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But my main interest is in preserving our fortunes Steve, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me there. Your arguments about crime statistics against our race are very weak young man. According to CrimestatsSA, overall crime rates in South Africa are now on a decline, and the most affected by crime are black South Africans. You see, the first thing that black people do when feeling threatened, is turn against their own. That is where xenophobic attacks come into play. Did you know Steve, that there are more white people living in South Africa that are not of South African origin, than black? They don’t consider this when they turn on each other I tell you, this xenophobia trend is quite misguided if you ask me. But hey, rather they kill each other than us, I say.
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In closing Steve, let me be the first to assure you, white interests are well protected, and we have a good thing going here. Black people are not smart enough to really cause us harm, and the ones who are aren’t ever going to run this country, I can promise you that. Between you and Oscar’s mishap earlier this year, we sit in a very precarious position. One that is threatening our levels of comfort beyond what we can tolerate. Oscar’s whole case hinges on whether he thought it was a black burglar behind that bathroom door, giving him the right to shoot to kill. Yes, we all have those fears. But we don’t want them to be on everyone’s mind because as I’ve shown you clearly, even bigger questions will crop up. Questions we’d rather sweep under the rug, if you know what I mean.
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Don’t feel despondent and think that no one echoes your sentiments Steve. Although the turnout at your march wasn’t impressive, I’m sure you’ve seen by the number of signatories on your petition that a lot of us agree with you. We’re working on it Steve, we can’t have all the hard work by our ancestors from the last 400+ years go to waste. We are legitimate members of South Africa, and our interests must be protected. The way we go about it must just be well calculated and smart.
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My advice to you. Go back to making that great music that we love, and stop meddling in politics. You’re doing more harm than good.
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Yours in unity,
Afrikaans South Africans.
