There are some anomalies concerning our South African history that raise interesting questions.
Youth Day on June 16 is “celebrated” ostensibly in commemoration of the youth uprising against the requirement that half the subjects in school were to be taught in Afrikaans. Apparently, there was no objection to the other half of the subjects being taught – not in the scholars’ mother tongue but in the actual South African colonial language – English.
When Helen Zille stated that “colonialism was not all bad”, there was an earth-shattering public outcry against her as though she had praised colonialism. Yet, the objectors did so, not in their home language, but in English, the colonial language. But more, they were enjoying (if that is the correct term) all the fruits of colonialism – cars, houses, clothing, etc.
When Dingaan instructed his amabuthu to massacre Piet Retief and his team, Retief had just returned from an intensive and dangerous search to retrieve the hundreds or thousands of cattle that had been stolen from Dingaan, not by the Boers, but stolen by another Nguni tribe in the area.
Millions of refugees from liberated African countries risk life and limb and paying substantial sums of money are daily crossing the Mediterranean Sea in unsafe rubber boats, seeking refuge in former colonial countries.
The 1994 election is frequently termed as “the country’s first democratic election”, but ever since then the ANC government is hobnobbing, primarily with authoritarian states and political leaders, while distancing themselves politically from the western democratic countries. However, they still actively clamour to continue getting the trading benefits and substantial free or low interest grants from the western democracies. They sabre rattle naval exercises together with authoritarian countries yet publicly participate (ironically) in a so-called peace mission re Russia’s uncalled for aggression against a country seeking a safe haven independence from a bullying authoritarian country.
All these anomalies are mind boggling, yet we live in them and hope for the best.
V A Volker, Pietermaritzburg
READER LETTER |Strange that ANC enjoys company of authoritarians
There are some anomalies concerning our South African history that raise interesting questions.
Youth Day on June 16 is “celebrated” ostensibly in commemoration of the youth uprising against the requirement that half the subjects in school were to be taught in Afrikaans. Apparently, there was no objection to the other half of the subjects being taught – not in the scholars’ mother tongue but in the actual South African colonial language – English.
When Helen Zille stated that “colonialism was not all bad”, there was an earth-shattering public outcry against her as though she had praised colonialism. Yet, the objectors did so, not in their home language, but in English, the colonial language. But more, they were enjoying (if that is the correct term) all the fruits of colonialism – cars, houses, clothing, etc.
When Dingaan instructed his amabuthu to massacre Piet Retief and his team, Retief had just returned from an intensive and dangerous search to retrieve the hundreds or thousands of cattle that had been stolen from Dingaan, not by the Boers, but stolen by another Nguni tribe in the area.
Millions of refugees from liberated African countries risk life and limb and paying substantial sums of money are daily crossing the Mediterranean Sea in unsafe rubber boats, seeking refuge in former colonial countries.
The 1994 election is frequently termed as “the country’s first democratic election”, but ever since then the ANC government is hobnobbing, primarily with authoritarian states and political leaders, while distancing themselves politically from the western democratic countries. However, they still actively clamour to continue getting the trading benefits and substantial free or low interest grants from the western democracies. They sabre rattle naval exercises together with authoritarian countries yet publicly participate (ironically) in a so-called peace mission re Russia’s uncalled for aggression against a country seeking a safe haven independence from a bullying authoritarian country.
All these anomalies are mind boggling, yet we live in them and hope for the best.
V A Volker, Pietermaritzburg
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