IT IS often stated that blacks stating their opinions risk losing the approval of whites.

IT IS often stated that blacks stating their opinions risk losing the approval of whites.

Sipho Seepe summed it up in the recent published article that blacks whose views coincide with those held by a majority of whites are said to be independent. Condemnation awaits those who dare to display any intellectual agency outside the script.

Wits University hounded Malegapuru Makgoba for daring to introduce the topic of Africanisation. Mahmood Mamdani received similar treatment at the University of Cape Town.

Brian Molefe was demonised for forcing companies where PIC had invested to transform. Now the daggers are drawn out for Jimmy Manyi, a prominent proponent of transformation.

The media and the legal fraternity seem to be the biggest culprits.

One needs only to look at the anti-government rhetoric and anti-transformation venom from these sectors such as Hugh Corder, Richard Calland, Pierre de Vos, and the links with the likes of Paul Hoffman and so forth.

This is the bunch that has publicly declared that they hate Judge John Hlophe, that President Jacob Zuma is constitutionally idiotic, that the ANC government will take this country to the precipice, and now that Manyi has a conflict of interest.

If people like Manyi are not defended, then all those moral crusaders will be cowed and the status quo (untransformed economy with poverty-stricken blacks) will remain.

Patrick Rampai, Klerksdorp