Is this a threat of a definate sign of things to come?

Strange how the issues of nationalization and land ownership are both rife at the same time here and next door in Zim' - don't you think?...

Just how much collaboration and talking is going behind closed doors?

Malema: Without owning land, voting means nothing

Colesberg - Without owning land, voting in South Africa means nothing, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema told a youth rally in the Northern Cape on Saturday.

Malema told the crowds that South Africans did not own their own country.

"This land belongs to foreigners," he said. He said people needed land to feed themselves and to do business as citizens.

The so-called willing buyer, willing seller system was not helping the government in the land redistribution program.

"You need land to do everything. Without land voting means nothing," he said.

Malema said South Africans can vote until they are purple.

He said as long as they did not have the economy of South Africa their votes were useless.

"You vote and you still go beg," he said.

Malema said people have voted every five years in the past and still workers get beaten and killed by farmers, because they do not own those farms.

He said the country's political freedom would mean nothing if a practical programme of intervention on property issues was not decided.

He said people in townships were still squatting in property which they call land.

Opposite this, he said, were people with small families who owned huge land as "big as countries."

Malema said he was told one should not talk politics of land and property or nationalisation because it would scare investors away.

"They invest in countries where there are civil wars. " he said, adding that people should not believe the "lies" that investors would be scared off by talks of nationalisation.

Malema said Investors did not care about people and that they were interested in making profit.

He also said if investors were to leave, the Chinese would come in.

"The Chinese will work with anybody," he said.

- SAPA

Propagandist bollocks - but considering his support group's general IQ level, VERY scary...

"New racism grips South Africa"

WE all know that racists - especially South African ones - are white. We also know that ending apartheid in South Africa in 1994 was a happy-ever-after story.

Now welcome to the brutal truth.
South Africa is sliding back into a new racial divide, perhaps even a new apartheid. And this time most of the racists and thugs are black.

What's more, it is also sliding into an anarchy so terrible that already almost 20,000 South Africans are murdered each year - a killing rate three times higher, pro rata, than Iraq's.

Between 1000 and 3000 of the dead were white farmers, who now number just 40,000 in a population of 47 million.

Eugene Terre'Blanche became one of them two weeks ago, and for once this murder made our news, since he was the South African racist from central casting, leading the Afrikaner Resistance Movement and being farewelled with Nazi salutes.

Police even said he'd been killed by black workers he hadn't paid. Bastard.
This week that story changed. Now it was leaked that he'd been killed while apparently trying to sodomise a boy.

This seemed an attempt to discredit anyone who'd point to his death as a sign of something more troubling than the deserved death of a creep.

Yet it's significant that just two days before Terre'Blanche's killing, the leader of the ruling African National Congress's youth wing, Julius Malema, performed at a rally the infamous apartheid anthem Shoot the Boer.

"Kill the Boer, kill the farmer," he cried, along with many hundreds of supporters. "Shoot to kill."
Malema is the protege of President Jacob Zuma, but his six million members give him a power base of his own.

This seems to have allowed this badly educated 28-year-old, who says he hates "whiteness", to get his hands on a lot of wealth, including two houses, cars and a Breitling watch.
He's also grown powerful enough to allegedly threaten Cabinet minister Jeremy Cronin, a white Communist: "Wait to see what's coming to you."

And last week he visited bankrupted Zimbabwe, which he loudly praised for having seized white farms and reached for foreign-owned mines.

"In South Africa, we are just starting. Here you are already very far."

All this might be dismissed as the ravings of a pet fool, and, indeed, Zuma this week told him to shut up. He was scaring investors and panicking the country's five million whites, who not only grow most of the country's food, but pay most of the taxes that keep 13 million workless blacks going.

But the respected South African Institute for Race Relations, which fought apartheid, this week warned of worse than Malema.

Racial tensions were fast worsening, it said, "chiefly as a result of incitement by the (ANC) to 'shoot and kill' the Afrikaner ethnic minority". This seemed to be a deliberate tactic, it suggested. The ANC had largely failed to ease black poverty, while its leaders used their power to get rich themselves.

Violent protests against the ANC by poor blacks were now "commonplace", and "in order to shore up support in the black community, the ANC increasingly appears to be seeking to shift the blame for its delivery failures on to the small white ethnic minority ... "

Stoking racism to keep power can be a murderous game, one which may soon play out catastrophically in the land of Nelson Mandela.

Already many whites are leaving, especially Jews. They've seen this kind of thing before.

Andrew Bolt / Herald Sun

A story out of Australia.

Take a gander at some of the comments too...

Fact-based and thankfully lacking sensationalism.

The circus is in town!

He said Mahlangu was working as a grasscutter on nearby Ventersdorp farms when Terre'Blanche had offered him a job in November last year.

The two agreed on a monthly wage of R600, but Terre'Blanche was alleged to have always defaulted on payment.

"He throttled my client once when he complained about non-payment, and so he quit his job. Terre'Blanche then sent one of his black employees to plead with him to return to work. He returned because he desperately needed the money," Moroko said.

He said his client had moved from the farm and worked as a gardener at Terre'Blanche's home and the AWB offices.

Eugene Terre'Blanche's youngest alleged killer is happy and safe, while his jailed accomplice has his future in the hands of a maverick lawyer.

Both accused - 28-year-old Chris Mahlangu and a 15-year-old minor - abandoned their bail applications at the Ventersdorp Magistrate's Court yesterday, where they were making their second appearance since the murder.

The teenager, accused of murdering Terre'Blanche, traded his freedom for a bed, three meals a day, and the chance to attend school and watch TV at night.

The boy was supposed to apply for bail yesterday, but told his lawyer not to go ahead with the application because he was comfortable at the place of safety where he has been held since his arrest.
Lawyer Zola Majavu said the accused was having experiences he had never had before.

"He is sleeping on a bed for the first time in his life. He is also having there meals a day for the first time. He is also studying, something he was not doing while he was at his home, so there is no need to change the status quo.

"Even the social workers agree that he should be kept there. It is in his best interest that he stays there," Majavu said.

Asked if the teenager was aware that he would have to go back to his hard life if acquitted, Majavu said he was aware, but this would be dealt with it at the relevant time.

Inside the court, it was revealed that Terre'Blanche had personally recruited one of his alleged killers to work for him on his farm. Terre'Blanche and Mahlangu had a cordial relationship, and the AWB leader was said to have trusted him. This emerged moments after Mahlangu decided to abandon his plans to apply for bail.

The decision was taken after he became aware that the State was in possession of an affidavit purportedly written by his uncle Isaiah Ngobeni, disputing that he was living with him at his home in Soshanguve, outside Pretoria. Ngobeni apparently told the police, who had visited his house after Mahlangu's arrest, that he was not aware of the whereabouts of his nephew. He denied ever living with him.

Mahlangu's lawyer, Puna Moroko, told magistrate Makgaola Foso he had contacted Ngobeni, who denied making such a statement to the police.

Moroko has been told that Ngobeni agreed to be a State witness.

Now Moroko plans to secure relatives of Mahlangu to come to court and verify his address before applying for bail at his next appearance.

Outside court, Moroko confirmed that Terre'Blanche had recruited his client for cattle herding.
Moroko said Mahlangu would plead not guilty to all charges. He would argue that the two had argued over wages and he had acted in self-defence.

The lawyer confirmed he had abandoned claims of sodomy against Terre'Blanche, despite having earlier alleged that Mahlangu had been sexually assaulted.

The matter was postponed to May 10. Both accused are facing four charges: murder, housebreaking with intent, crimen injuria and attempted robbery.

The court was secured by a heavy police presence yesterday morning. Across the road, a large contingent of local and international media set up camp.

Local community members arrived with placards reading "Hey boere stop killing our farm workers and stop raping our black women"; "Boerevolk is in heaven"; "Land for whites is a dream that should not happen"; and "The ANC is not responsible for Terre'Blanche's death".

A helicopter hovered above the court as the crowd of protesters grew throughout the morning and became louder, blowing whistles and vuvuzelas.

Recorded songs such as the banned Dubul' iBhunu (Shoot the Boer) were played over loudspeakers.

AWB heavyweight Andre Visagie arrived at court flanked by two armed bodyguards.

He called for black people to stop "murdering" white people and called upon Boere Afrikaners to stop voting as "there is no chance we will ever win".

He said South Africa, which had been a First World country but had been torn down by the ANC to become a Third World country, was now a country that Boere Afrikaners did not want to be part of.

"Our nation is not part of the Zulu nation, the Xhosas, not even Indians. We live in a country where a spectrum of languages are being put together, and we are being asked to limit our languages and culture to build the rainbow nation," he said, attracting a great deal of media attention outside the court.

Visagie made news headlines last week when he walked out of a live interview on e.tv conducted by Chris Maroleng. He lost his temper after being repeatedly interrupted by political analyst Mohau Pheko.

Baldwin Ndaba, Botho Molosankwe and Gill Gifford

That's perjury. Plain and simple.

It is a criminal act and both of the accused (accused? They CONFESSED!?) have committed it. Jail the bastards.

It is reckless and irresponsible on the part of the media to have thrown such rubbish around in light of the HIGHLY volatile racial situation in South Africa at present.

Why do we have to put up with blatant and insulting criminal action from those in power and yet be expected to do nothing about it?

It would probably hold up in a decent court as fraudulent, but then, we don't seem to have any responsible and politically-untainted legal avenues left here anymore.

It is an insult of the highest degree to think that the law-abiding and tax-paying citizens of South Africa are paying for a MURDERER to have a "bed, three meals a day, and the chance to attend school and watch TV at night."

The boy was supposed to apply for bail yesterday, but told his lawyer not to go ahead with the application because he was comfortable at the place of safety where he has been held since his arrest.

Where else in the world would you find a crock like that?

The boy BLUDGEONED a man to death in the most violent way possible and is now enjoying a better quality of life for it - by way of our bank accounts.

It's just crazy.

Eugene Terre'Blanche's youngest alleged killer is happy and safe...

He's "happy"? If ET didn't throttle the little bastard, he really should have.

"Even the social workers agree that he should be kept there. It is in his best interest that he stays there," Majavu said.

Asked if the teenager was aware that he would have to go back to his hard life if acquitted, Majavu said he was aware, but this would be dealt with it at the relevant time.

It's in OUR best interests that he be sentenced to death. Unfortunately our democratically-illiterate 'leaders' have barred that avenue, so lock him up - until the ANC's prophesized "second coming" comes.

The decision was taken after he became aware that the State was in possession of an affidavit purportedly written by his uncle Isaiah Ngobeni, disputing that he was living with him at his home in Soshanguve, outside Pretoria. Ngobeni apparently told the police, who had visited his house after Mahlangu's arrest, that he was not aware of the whereabouts of his nephew. He denied ever living with him.

Here's another liar that should be locked up for withholding evidence. Seeing as how the police have been there before, it shouldn't be that difficult to repeat. Go get 'em, boys! *cough*

"He throttled my client once when he complained about non-payment, and so he quit his job. Terre'Blanche then sent one of his black employees to plead with him to return to work. He returned because he desperately needed the money," Moroko said.

DO YOU HAVE EVIDENCE of this ALLEGED (my favourite word) incident, Moroko?

If not, you're also a liar in need of some bars...

This murder deserves a first-world trial. Sadly though, it's in a 4th-world kleptocracy.

The lawyer confirmed he had abandoned claims of sodomy against Terre'Blanche, despite having earlier alleged that Mahlangu had been sexually assaulted.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Local community members arrived with placards reading "Hey boere stop killing our farm workers and stop raping our black women"; "Boerevolk is in heaven"; "Land for whites is a dream that should not happen"; and "The ANC is not responsible for Terre'Blanche's death".

Excuse me? BLACKS MURDERED THE BOERS (all White people in general) - and continue to do so.

The "Boerevolk" are here, and they're fed-up with your shit. I'd be a little loose around the bowels right now if I were a Black...

Who taught these protestors how to write in the first place? Aaah yes, WHITE "Boerevolk".

The court was secured by a heavy police presence yesterday morning. Across the road, a large contingent of local and international media set up camp.

Recorded songs such as the banned Dubul' iBhunu (Shoot the Boer) were played over loudspeakers.

Recorded songs? Loudspeakers? Banned songs? Um...not "banned" - ILLEGAL.

A police officer is bound to serving and protecting the citizens. ALL of them. Why were the songs, the orchestrators, and the infrastructure for such blatant racism and disrespect not removed?

Get your toilet rolls ready. The shit's going to hit the proverbial fan, and it's coming sooner than you think.

Drivers get away with murder: NPA

Johannesburg - South Africans were getting away with murder in road accident cases involving negligent drivers in the past, said the National Director of Public Prosecutions Menzi Simelane on Wednesday.

"We had a meeting last October where we looked at how we can contribute in reducing road fatalities because every Easter and Christmas, people are dying because of drunk drivers and those crossing red robots."

"We decided to start charging people with murder in cases where facts justify that we do so, as it is provided in the law," he said.

Harsher sentence

Simelane said people were getting lenient sentences because they were charged with culpable homicide. When a person is charged with murder the sentence is harsher than that of a culpable homicide.

He quoted the Molemo "Jub Jub" Maarohanye case, where charges were changed from culpable homicide to murder.

Maarohanye and co-accused Themba Tshabalala were charged with four counts of murder and two of attempted murder after an alleged drag racing accident in Soweto in March that left four school pupils dead and two injured.

The two were released on bail by the Protea Magistrate's Court and the matter has not been finalised yet.

Strong message

Simelane said the Maarohanye case occurred just two weeks after the NPA had agreed on this.

"When I heard about the case in the media before the accused were named, I sent an SMS to the director of public prosecutions to say - let's start with this one (case)."

Simelane said the aim was to send a strong message to the public that if a person is caught driving drunk or crossing a red robot, and gets into an accident that kills someone, they would have a criminal record - they will not just be given community service.

"Even if they are released after paying a fine, they will still have a criminal record," he said.

- SAPA

So, the National Prosecuting Authority wants to label all 'bad' drivers as murderers.

Let's take a quick look at some of the issues that immediately come to mind...

We live in one of the most violent and crime-ridden countries in the world. If you're alone and come up to a dark and dodgy stop somewhere one night, are you going to come to a complete stop? Remember! THE POLICE have often made mention of simply yielding on such occasions.

Recently a relative of mine was chased by what we can only assume were would-be hijackers. They chased said relative through a good half a dozen intersections. Would YOU have stopped to enquire as to their motives for chasing you?

When last did you see the traffic police sitting outside a pub?

...how about conducting breathalyzer tests anywhere?

Policing moving violations?

HIDING BEHIND A BUSH TRAPPING YOU, probably in an illegal fashion in a 'safe' spot? Aaah, I thought so...

If the police in this god-forsaken shithole of a country actually bothered to do their jobs properly, we wouldn't even need to sit here discussing this absurd idea.

Such generalization will do nothing but allow for mass abuse, mass erroneous convictions, and mass resistance from all spheres.

I am not against harsh punishment for drunk and negligent drivers, but I am against BS measures to counteract it.

Once again we have sweeping and ill-conceived measures being bandied about due to the lack of basic and simple action on the government's part.

GET OFF OF YOUR FAT, LAZY AND USELESS ARSES AND DO SOME REAL WORK!

The man playing South Africa's death card

As white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche is buried, the dangerously charismatic Julius Malema threatens the country's future, says Rian Malan.

Julius Malema, the ANC Youth League leader Photo: REUTERS

We are not here to mourn the white supremacist Eugene Terreblanche, whose funeral took place yesterday, but since his name is on the world's lips, let's face the truth: the saddest thing about his murder last weekend is that it obscured an event that casts an infinitely darker shadow.

The event took place in Zimbabwe, and involved, as fate would have it, Julius Malema, the ANC Youth League leader whose repeated singing of an old struggle song about shooting Boers is viewed by many Afrikaners as an incitement towards precisely the sort of violence that claimed Terreblanche's life. Even as an iron bar shattered the old right-winger's skull, Malema was in Harare, feasting with Robert Mugabe and picking up tips on how best to destroy the teetering remnants of Western influence here in South Africa. Terreblanche's murder was an individual tragedy. Malema's actions threaten to destroy an entire subcontinent.

Julius Malema is a chubby man-child who rose to prominence as Jacob Zuma's attack dog, threatening violence against anyone who sought to block the Zulu patriarch's rise to the state presidency. When Zuma emerged triumphant, Malema found himself in the pound seats. A poorly educated 28-year-old, he mysteriously acquired two posh houses, a fleet of cars and an obscenely expensive Breitling watch – curious accessories for a man who positions himself as champion of the poor.

Malema openly professes dislike for "children of the colonialists", a term he insists is not synonymous with white people. At other times, he says he doesn't hate white people, just the quality of "whiteness". In Malema's circle, this sort of juvenile wordplay passes as intellectuality. His utterances are often buffoonish, his politics a mix of crude populism and sinister racial demagoguery.

Malema is the vulgarian who dismissed the woman who laid a rape charge against Zuma as a slut, arguing that any female who stays for breakfast in rape's aftermath "clearly enjoyed herself". He levelled similar slurs at Opposition leader Helen Zille, calling her "a racist little girl" who slept with all her male colleagues. In every case, he seemed to relish the resulting outrage, especially if it came from whites. But this was a sideshow. In South Africa, the real struggle is the struggle between rival ANC factions, eager for power and its spoils. It is in this arena that Malema's behaviour acquires a disturbing cast.

When Jacob Zuma came to power a year ago, most observers were expecting a sharp turn Leftward, but the Zulu patriarch was at pains to allay such concerns. He toured the UK and Europe, assuring financiers that their investments were safe in South Africa. A few months later, Malema begged to differ: nationalisation is very much on the cards, he said. Zuma's minister of mines, Susan Shabangu, issued a stern reprimand, saying that South Africa's minerals would never be nationalised "in my lifetime". Malema just laughed, accusing Shabangu of "sucking up to monopoly capital" and hinting she would soon be out of a job.

In African culture, it is shameful to address one's elders in this manner, but Malema got away with it. Emboldened, he took to excoriating his superiors for placing key economic ministries in the hands of whites and Indians. Then he picked a fight with cabinet minister Jeremy Cronin, South Africa's most visible white Communist, who had dared to opine that his enthusiasm for nationalisation had much to do with a fondness for bling and nothing to do with the plight of the poor. In response, Malema reportedly sent Cronin a threatening SMS: "Wait to see what's coming to you."

Alarm was mounting, but Malema appeared untouchable. Two weeks ago, he made an extraordinary speech at the wedding of Robert Gumede, an IT entrepreneur grown rich off government contracts. Grinning malevolently, Malema warned Gumede that the masses were coming to take his money away. Billionaire Patrice Motsepe and ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa were told to expect a similar fate. Zola Skweyiya, South Africa's high commissioner in the UK, was mocked as a coward who had become "scared" of foreign capitalists. "Skweyiya is telling investors in London that nationalisation of mines will not happen," said Malema. The youth leader clearly had other ideas.

Insulting a man of Skweyiya's stature is an unspeakable violation of African etiquette. Malema's utterances were also an outrageous violation of his party's standing policy on nationalisation. I assumed the ANC's elders now had no choice other than to put him firmly in his place. I was wrong. No one said a word.

It was against this backdrop that Malema set forth for Zimbabwe last weekend. In the past, he has always hewed to the ANC line: Mugabe's disastrous policies will not be emulated in South Africa. The rule of law will be upheld, the constitution respected. There will be no land invasions, no nationalisation of mines or businesses.

But something has clearly changed. On his trip to Harare, Malema was met at the airport by a clutch of notorious profiteers whose connection to the great dictator enabled them to grow rich even as their country died. These "vultures" are said to be slavering at the prospect of another killing as Mugabe moves to dismember Zimbabwe's last surviving businesses and mines in the name of "indigenisation".

By all accounts, Malema was thrilled to make their acquaintance. They organised a crowd to sing his controversial song about shooting Boers. Then they whisked him off in a presidential Mercedes Benz and put him up in Harare's most expensive hotel. In return, Malema expressed his unqualified admiration for the policies that have ruined Zimbabwe and vowed to press for their adoption south of the Limpopo River.

"In South Africa, we are just starting," said Malema. "Here you are already very far. We are very happy today that you can account for more than 300,000 new farmers, against the 4,000 who used to dominate agriculture. We hear you are now going straight to the mines. That's what we are going to be doing in South Africa. We want the mines. They have been exploiting our minerals for a long time. Now it's our turn also to enjoy from those minerals…"

On Thursday, Malema reiterated these sentiments at a press conference marked by an ugly racial attack on a BBC reporter. There has been no repudiation. The silence says something truly ominous: Malema has protection. Someone in the ANC – either the president himself, or an awesomely powerful faction inside the party – is encouraging him to rally the masses for a Zimbabwe-style obliteration of Africa's only viable economy and last surviving hope.

I thought that only the South African Communist Party (SACP) was capable of irrationality on such a dumbfounding scale. I was wrong. Malema is not a tool of the SACP. In fact, he's at constant odds with the SACP's leadership. The other day he even resurrected Pretoria's old Red Menace theory, accusing "yellow Communists" – a veiled reference to Indians in the party's leadership – of plotting to control the ANC by secret means. Anyone who voices such painful truths cannot possibly be an ally of the SACP.

Besides, the Reds are fairly sophisticated, whereas Malema's every utterance is a cringe-inducing embarrassment. Listen to him in Harare last Saturday: "They are so bright, so colourful, we refer to them as white people. Maybe their colour came as a result of exploiting our minerals and perhaps if some of us get opportunities in these minerals we can develop a nice colour like them." This is not a coldly scientific Marxist-Leninist. It's Pere Ubu or Idi Amin.

It could be that President Zuma has simply lost control of the ANC, or that Malema is the puppet he uses to mouth ideas too radical to emerge from the presidency. If you ask me, Malema is the point-man for a powerful ANC faction whose motive is greed and whose chosen weapon is racial demagoguery of the most primitive kind.

The trouble is that this card trumps all others. Our underclass is huge, poorly educated and desperately poor. They know what happened in Zimbabwe, but even so, the prospect of loot is irresistible, and that's Malema's bait. Mandela gave them free houses. Mbeki gave them welfare grants, leading to a situation where five million taxpayers support 13 million indigents, with the total rising far more rapidly than our ability to pay. Now Malema and the faceless vultures behind him are offering them the rest. They are playing the death card, the Ace of Spades.

Te morituri salutant.

Did the Communists kill ET?

I recently came across an interesting theory related to Eugene Terra'Blanche's murder, and it does have some fairly valid and thought-provoking points...

It goes as follows:

• Chris Hani, the late (assassinated) left-wing leader (South African Communist Party) was killed on Easter Saturday, as was Eugene Terra'Blanche - the late ("murdered") right-wing leader (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging).
• The Young Communist's League (part and parcel of the SACP) arrive at the court 2 days after ET's "murder" wearing their "Do it for Chris Hani" t-shirts, stirring the pot even more, and hailing the accused as heroes.
• The YCL don't like Julias Malema, and booed him at the SACP conference a short while ago. They know he has been in the news singing old "struggle songs" about killing boers and preaching his hatred of white people. They know he will more than likely be blamed by AWB members/farmers for causing ET's death.
• ...and now they are allegedly going to pay for the accused murderers' defense!

Are the communists avenging Hani's death and warring against the ANCYL, whilst whites are getting caught in the middle?

Statement by the South African Institute of Race Relations on the ramifications of the killing of Eugène Terre'Blanche - 6th April 2010

The Institute desisted from issuing a formal statement in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Mr Terre'Blanche in order to first gauge the broader social, political, and international reaction to the killing. The Institute is now in a position to make the following points.

Racial tensions in the country appear to have increased significantly in recent weeks. This appears to be chiefly as a result of incitement by the ruling African National Congress to ‘shoot and kill’ the Afrikaner ethnic minority in the country. The anxiety around this incitement may well have influenced opinions across the broader white community. What appears to be the case is that much of the racial rapprochement that characterised the first 15 years of South Africa’s democracy is being undone. This rapprochement saw both black and white South Africans come to occupy a middle ground on race relations upon which the maintenance of future stable race relations depends.

 

Since 1994 the number of white farmers and their families murdered in South Africa is conservatively put at around 1 000. It may very well be much higher. There are currently an estimated 40 000 commercial farmers in the country. Over this same period in the region 250 000 South Africans out of a total current population of approximately 47 million have been murdered. Criminal violence can therefore be described as ‘rampant’ and has done considerable damage to the social fabric of the country. However, this is not to say that all murders in the country are a function of simple criminal banditry. In an environment where law and order has largely collapsed the consequences of incitement by political leaders to commit murder must be taken seriously.     

 

Over the same period the policy measures put in place by the Government to raise the living standards of the black majority have failed to meet expectations. The key interventions of affirmative action and black economic empowerment have been exploited by the African National Congress to build a network of patronage that has made elements of its leadership extremely wealthy. The party also appears to have been so overwhelmed by corrupt tendencies that it is no longer able to act decisively against corrupt behaviour.

 

It has also through incompetence and poor policy been unable to address failures in the education system which are now the primary factor retarding the economic advancement of black South Africans.

 

At the same time the party is acutely aware that its support base of poor black South Africans has begun to turn against it. Violent protest action against the ruling party is now commonplace around the country.

 

In order to shore up support in the black community the ANC increasingly appears to be seeking to shift the blame for its delivery failures onto the small white ethnic minority, which today comprises well under 10% of the total population of South Africa. Here parallels may be read to the behaviour of Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe when that party realised that its political future was in peril. The ANC Youth League’s recent visit to Zanu-PF which saw it endorse that party’s ruinous polices are pertinent here. 

 

In such an environment it is plausible to consider that the ANC’s exhortations to violence may be a contributing factor to the killing of Mr Terre'Blanche. Certainly the ANC’s protestations to the contrary seem ridiculous as the party is in effect saying that its followers pay no attention to what it says - this from a party that routinely claims that it is the manifestation of the will of all black South Africans. This is not to say that a labour dispute or some other matter could not have inflamed tensions on the Terre'Blanche farm. Rather it is to say that a number of different matters should be considered in determining the motivation for the crime.

 

Certainly the ANC’s exhortations to violence have created a context where the killings of white people will see a degree of suspicion falling around the party and its supporters.

 

It is of concern therefore that the police’s senior management are on record as saying that they will not consider a political motive or partial motive for the killing of Mr Terre'Blanche. This suggests an early effort to cover up the ANC’s possible culpability for inciting the crime.

 

Should any allegations of a political cover-up arise in the pending murder trial of the two young men accused of the Terre'Blanche murder the political consequences could be significant. Should evidence be led that the two young men acted with what they understood to be the tacit backing of the ANC, and a causal link between their actions and incitement by the ANC be established, then the possibility of charging the ANC’s senior leadership in connection to the murder arises. Equally plausible is that the Terre'Blanche family and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging could bring a civil suit against the ANC and the Government. 

 

It is possible that the killing of Mr Terre'Blanche will greatly strengthen the hand of a new hardened right wing in South Africa. In life Mr Terre'Blanche attracted a small, uninfluential, and extremist following. He will not be mourned for what he stood for. However, in death he may come to represent the experiences of scores of minority groups in the country who perceive themselves as being on the receiving end of racist and now also violent abuse from the ANC. In effect therefore Mr Terre'Blanche may be seen as having been martyred for a minority cause in the country.

 

The implications of a resurgent right wing will be numerous. It is most unlikely that this right wing will take the form of camouflage clad henchmen on horses in shows of force. The ANC has also often, wrongly, identified groups including the political opposition, Afriforum, agricultural unions, and even this Institute as ‘the right wing’. This silly ‘red under every bed’ attitude in the ANC saw it lose the trust of many civil society and political groups. These groups could all be defined first and foremost by the common belief that they had to act within the bounds of what the Constitution prescribed.

 

But the ANC belittled and undermined them. It also undermined parliament, the national prosecution service, and the various human rights and other organisations that were established under the Constitution. It may yet usurp the independence of the courts and the judiciary. The result was a shutting down of many of the democratic channels that were created for citizens in the country to make the Government aware of their concerns and circumstances.

 

The resurgence of a new political consciousness among minorities could drive an altogether different political force. Such a movement will draw its strength chiefly from a hardening attitudes in the white community but perhaps also in the Indian and coloured communities. These will be views that in the main have come to subscribe to some or all of the following points:

 

1. That the Government has corrupted and debilitated many of the country’s internal democratic processes for political or civil expression that were established under the Constitution
2. That cooperation with the current Government of South Africa is therefore fundamentally unfeasible and therefore futile
3. That the Government is unable to restore law and order in the country
4. That the Government is therefore unable protect its citizens
5. That the Government has a hostile agenda against minority groups

 

However it is equally, if not most likely, that many minorities who subscribe to the five points above may simply get so fed up that those who can will pack up and go. Here they may take the advice of President Zuma to remain calm as they pack up their businesses and their families and calmly board aircraft for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. With the exodus will leave much of the tax and expertise base of the country. 

  

Should the ANC, however, find itself facing increased political resistance it will in many respects have a tiger by the tail. Firstly, the ANC depends greatly on the tax income paid by white South Africans to balance South Africa’s books. Secondly, it depends entirely on the food produced by a small number of white farmers to feed the country. Thirdly, white South Africans still dominate the skills base of the country. Finally, and most importantly, much white opinion since the early 1990s has been moderate. White South Africa has been willing and often eager to cooperate with the Government in building an open, non-racial, and prosperous South Africa. Losing that cooperation will to an extent put an end to any serious chance that the ANC has of leading South Africa to become a successful and prosperous democracy.

 

While the ANC will be inclined to blame whites for this, and may even take drastic action to confiscate white commercial interests as they are currently doing in agriculture, these actions will be ruinous for the economy. The result of such ruin will be to drive a deeper wedge between the ANC and its traditional support base and thereby hasten the political decay of the party.  

 

When General Constand Viljoen decided to throw his lot in with democracy in the early 1990s the right wing in South Africa was a spent force. So it should and could have remained. The ANC could have taken advantage of white expertise and tax revenue to realise their own vision of a better life for all. Things have however gone badly wrong for the party. Corruption has destroyed its ability to meet the demands of its constituents while racial bigotry has now seen it defending its image against what should have been an insignificant and dying neo-Nazi faction in the country.

 

The failure of sensible South Africans to take back the racial middle ground in the country will be serious. Polarisation will beget further racial conflict and a hardening of attitudes on all sides. This is perhaps the greatest leadership test that the current Government has faced and it is one that they cannot afford to fail.  

 

- Frans Cronje