Hannes Wessels,
While I was not living in South Africa when the ANC, led by Nelson Mandela, came to power in 1994 it was plain to see that almost the entire white community of over four million people, even those who had aggressively opposed the transfer of power to a black majority, had resigned themselves to the new reality. They wanted to help, rather than hinder, the new leadership make a success of the new dispensation. Many whites were ecstatic; a new ‘Rainbow Nation’ had been borne that was going to show the world what a multi-racial democracy could become when shod of white-minority rule. Handed on a plate was a sub-Saharan super-state; the continent’s most developed country, infrastructurally and economically; boasting a mighty military, and its most efficient civil-service.
The hubris that surrounded the national team winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup with President Mandela resplendent in a Springbok jersey took national euphoria to unprecedented levels. With home-grown goodwill in abundance, peace on the country’s borders, and the entire world proffering generous support for the ‘born-again’ country, once blighted by apartheid, it was difficult for even the most dystopian to entertain the prospect of failure.
Unfortunately, the adage, ‘don’t fix what is not broken’ was ignored by the new rulers. What they, and their multitude of supporters, chose to ignore was that the previous regime, despite their racist pedigree, and favouritism directed at the upliftment of Afrikaners, had spent the last 46 years, not enriching a privileged political elite, but developing the country based on the fundamental premise that merit cannot be wholly ignored and economic growth is unachievable without a skilled workforce to drive and grow the public and private sector. To this end, the country was churning out over 70,000 highly trained technical personnel every year. These were the people needed to manage and maintain armies, air forces, navies, railways, harbours, airlines, roads, a nuclear reactor, and run electricity and water utilities.
Some of the finest universities in the world were staffed by home-grown and trained academics and generously subsidised by the state to educate highly qualified graduates to fill the professions with lawyers, doctors, scientists, engineers, architects and academics.
Mostly forgotten is the fact the best universities in Africa for blacks were made available by the Afrikaner Nationalists providing a stepping stone to power for people (many of whom would later use their elevated intellectual status to come back and haunt them) such as Nelson Mandela, Robert Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda, Govan Mbeki, Chris Hani, Seretse Khama and Julius Nyerere to name only a few.
It was this complicated, costly, painstakingly constructed infrastructure that provided the platform for South Africa to take pride of place as a member of the sophisticated First World of nation-states.
Merit, the simple fundamental underpinning this progress, the gargantuan elephant in the room, was unfortunately completely ignored by the new leadership. Probably because, apart from running stolen car and drug rackets, it boasted few members who had ever built or run a business. Instead, competence and acumen was replaced by skin colour as the absolute pre-requisite, followed by political affiliation. And that was the catalyst for almost total infrastructural collapse; and with that came a collapsing economy, leading to increased poverty and a massive increase in crime.
What has happened in South Africa is far from unprecedented; in some shape or form, the same has happened in every sub-Saharan nation North of the Limpopo, with Zimbabwe’s ‘land reform’ policy providing the next most recent example of the devastation wrought when people are persecuted simply because they are of European ancestry.
As a Zimbabwe-born white man I am just one of many thousands of my compatriots who has been unfairly discriminated against on purely racial grounds. In fact, for most of us who have elected to live our lives in Africa, discrimination has become a way of life and we have accepted it as part of the price payable for being where we want to be. I am one of the fortunate ones; many have died violently and many more have been rendered destitute. But despite this horrible injustice, I know of few, if any, who harbour any animus against the black people, with whom we co-exist peacefully.
For me, and my generation, I think the greatest pain comes, not with the losses in lives and livelihoods which brings its own sadness, but having to survey the wreckage wrought by the craven desire to dispossess and marginalise white people. Britain, America, Canda, Australia and New Zealand are only just beginning to feel the heat of ‘decolonisation’. Those of us from countries we considered home, like Zimbabwe and South Africa, know only too well from bitter experience, what that means. We wish that, that was taken, had only been cherished and nurtured and used sensibly to enhance and enrich the lives of others, even if we were to be denied any of those rewards.
In most of Africa, all is but lost, however South Africa finds itself at the Rubicon at this moment. Will the new ANC, as the ‘senior’ partner within the coalition with the DA and others, find the courage and the selflessness, to put the country ahead of their party and their personal interests, and stop the destruction of this once formidable union? Or do we have to bear witness the same, racially motivated, wanton destruction being visited upon Africa’s last hope?
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Thanks Hannes, another great article, much appreciated as usual.
Thanks Adrian
So true Hannes…you say it like it is and we all appreciate your clarity of thinking and contribution to these issues.
Thanks Nick and thanks for all you do to set our history straight.
A good website to find out what’s going on in the failed racist commie state of zimBOBwe Ruins is Zim Alert: into the Future
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2328852853820279/permalink/7959519827420192/
Well spelled out Hannes. The truth. Unfortunately. And the really sad thing is that many of the minerally rich countries in the dark continent have just exchanged big bad whitey for the Chinese. Sold out by their own people. Rhodesia was the only time since the Second World War where the Yanks, the Poms, the Russians and the Chinese were united in forcing regime change, even if their ultimate aims were very different.
Wessels,
You and I were born in the same little hamlet of Umtali (now Mutare)
As a white child, and man, you enjoyed all the trappings of privilege. As a mixed race (coloured) of Irish, Indian, African and German descent child, my life was much different.
Without going into too much here, I want you to know that in retrospect, we all failed ourselves. Had the Rhodesian government invested the time and effort to train non-whites when the writing was on the wall, Zimbabwe could have still been the jewel of Africa. Rainbow Nation could have been applied to our homeland before it was thought of in South Africa.
My case was typical of racial discrimination at its finest. In December 1978, I began training with BSAP Equitation Squad 14/1978. This was the first racially integrated Patrol Officer Squad, and I was the first “coloured” person ever accepted into the British South Africa Police, a whopping 89 years after the BSAP was founded.
I wish you and your family the best, and remember, you still have a home to return to.
I remember the eve of the Zimbabwe Rhodesia election which Bishop Abel Muzorewa won. I was a young Patrol Officer at Waterfalls Police Station. That night, myself and several of my colleagues, many white, stood in shock as a convoy of motor vehicles, some laden with suitcases, some with just families, drove down Waterfalls Avenue and turned right into I think First Street, towards Beatrice Road to the South African Border. If only everyone had stayed and worked togather to build the country and make it the finest in Africa.
That “Chicken Run” made us all cry inside.
But think of the Black petrol attendant who could not get a job in Rhodesia desoite have achieved three or four GCE A Levels, while legacy appointments enabled White school dropouts to become Managing Directors and Presidents of large companies.
There were no winners Hannes. We all lost because we did not wish to share.
A well written piece as always, despite our divergent viewpoints. Keep well!
Love this paragraph: “As a Zimbabwe-born white man I am just one of many thousands of my compatriots who has been unfairly discriminated against on purely racial grounds. In fact, for most of us who have elected to live our lives in Africa, discrimination has become a way of life and we have accepted it as part of the price payable for being where we want to be. I am one of the fortunate ones; many have died violently and many more have been rendered destitute. But despite this horrible injustice, I know of few, if any, who harbour any animus against the black people, with whom we co-exist peacefully.”
That last sentence summarizes the white Zimbos perfectly!
The DA are absolute fools for thinking they can form a GNU with ANC (or any African Nationalist party for that matter). They will simply be sucked into the chaos and destruction and achieve nothing, except to ruin their name henceforth.
Once an African country gets their independence……. it’s game over and the destruction takes hold.
Great piece Hannes.
Hannes, you’re a RHODESIAN born white make not a zimBOBwean born white male!!!!! There is a difference. zimBOBwe Ruins only came into being in 1980…..
Yes you’re right Phil. Just not sure how many people today know that Rhodesia existed?
Very few sadly, and it’s amazing how many Americans “brand” Zimbabweans with the same brush as our neighboring SA.
So very true what you say. It’s comes from total ignorance yet now I find I don’t even try to explain.
Should read “Rhodesian born white male” not “make”….most people today don’t know anything about Rhodesia and its history, unfortunately. We try to keep the memory alive….
I agree with Phil. Spot-on. Unfortunately, America’s Carter Administration and Great Britain turned their backs on Rhodesia. Ian Smith’s efforts were admirable. South Africa? Hope? Yes. Else, the downward spiral will accelerate. How do you deal with the ANC’s neo-Marxians and the ever presence of the Chicoms expansion? RIP Rhodesia. Morley Shafer’s documentary from the mid-1970s brings tears to the eyes. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHFVj313Dc4 . That said, thanks for Hannes’ insightful article…
Another very insightful tell-it-like-it-is article Mr Wessels, thank you for that. I hope the new GNU lifts SA out of the ANC created nadir of South Africa’s existence, but I doubt it. What I find amazing is the extent to which the ANC has destroyed SA in in a few short years. Not a single South African parastatal, ministry, town, city or province can boast being in anything like the health state they were in 1994. SAA, the SA army, navy and airforce, Transnet and many more have all but ceased to exist.
That it took so long for the ANC to reduce SA to its current mess is testimony to the fact that it was in such robust health at the time of the ANC takeover. Let us all hope and pray that this GNU can rescue the failed state of South Africa before it joins its northern neighbours in their existence in abject poverty.
Another “Jewel of Africa” was laid waste by another motley crew of pirate politicians, hell bent upon enriching themselves at the expense of a stupidly expectant electorate. Democracy in Africa ended in 1980 when, after John Vorster’s final betrayal of Rhodesia, the government of Ian Smith were forced to give another magnificently manufactured jewel to the very devil himself. It beggars belief that this man, the great Robert Gabriel Mugabe is still hailed as one of the great statesman son’s of Africa.
In his brilliant book written in 1966, British journo Douglas Reed notes that before Rhodesia’s UDI in 1965, EVERY SINGLE ONE of the previous African countries that had been “liberated” from their “colonial oppressors” had ALREADY descended into complete anything-but-democratic disarray led by greedy gangsters masquerading as politicians.
Very insightfully, Reed recognized that malevolent hands were shaping Africa (and the world) at that time. Nothing has changed, but the betrayals of the “Covid era” have forced me and many others to have a more careful look at what is actually going on around us. Those same hands are STILL busily fashioning Africa’s demise, fulfilling a carefully crafted agenda whose lineage predates our wildest imaginations, while sheeple look on benignly, apparently blissfully unaware of the massive globalist threat that looms larger each passing day.
It has been said in different ways many times, but there is no truer political maxim than “those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it”. Another form of colonisation is exploding in Europe, and places like the United Kingdom are soon to find out that their incredibly destructive policies are just about to bite them very hard on their perfidious albionic arses, perhaps we are seeing political karma at its best. It may already be too late for them to reverse the great giveaway of THEIR countries.
All of this is anything but accidental. Those nasty well-hidden hands are very, very busy.
Interesting. We and Rhodesia found ourselves at an historical point where just about all influences were contrary to their countries best interests: the American Order started with a demand that the UK and Europe, exhausted after WWII, get rid of their colonies, the rise of the political Left, BP’s oil was more important than Rhodesia, the royals rather liked the idea of vast numbers of the darker Commonwealth citizens bowing to the Queen, the Tall Poppy syndrome, jealousy of the success of the colonials who “punched far above their weight”, said colonials and their so superior achievements and lifestyles, the depth of spite of the likes of David Owen, Wilson Carrington et al.
And the Poms? Ja, kyk hoe lyk hulle nou. They deserve it, brought in on themselves with worse to come.
For those interested, the article referenced by “Alastair” (in the HK-friend or foe article)
https://alor.org/Storage/New_Times/pdf/NT4108.pdf
Equally relevant here.
If it were possible to reverse SA’s current trajectory… I think there would already be a movement to do so among the political class, but it seems to be going in the opposite direction. So sad to watch; I remember when SA was a world leader in pretty much everything.
Great piece Hannes and succinctly, but profoundly, expressed. The sad reality is that I remain less than sanguine that the ANC will do what is good for the country rather than what best serves their vested and selfish interests. But, I would be happy to be proved wrong.
I feel the same way Hedge; and I too would love to be proved wrong.
I do appreciate the historical facts.
There are and were personages informing people, and yet, there are persons blind or have their head in a cloud.
I desire a return to the originally named countries: Rhodesia, as an example.
To invest there and Angola and Mozambique, too.
The same could be said of the Congo. Especially having a safer mine operation(s).
Tatenda Mr. Wessels.
Though patterns in the Western world are firmly in the grip of the CRT mob, are now affected by form of sociological cancer. To fully understand this Douglas Murray’s book, The War on the West, is essential reading. This I mention as the processes it identifies are fundamental to ANC thinking, may have some influence on the EFF and MK but very little as with them the ability to think at all is almost totally absent.
The gods have presented the ANC with a wonderful opportunity to repair the destruction they have wrought upon the country. Do they have the common sense, decency, intellect to take it? Sadly not. I suspect some improvement, a sort of bumping along but now a bit off the bottom, but nowhere near the levels which are there for the taking. I hope I’m wrong.