PoliticsSouthAfrica: ANC Racism? A question-mark engulfs ANC ruling party
Shay Riley posts in Booker Rising (Mar6,2k11). Riley's blog is one of premiere news sources of internal changes in Black and African political, cultural, and economic thawt and action. Check it out! -- Politicarp
One further detail: The term "coloured" in South Africa can be further understood beyond the parameters Shay Riley indicates below. In the mentioned Western Cape province (see below) the people to whom we refer as Cape Coloured are, to a considerable extent, descendants of intermarriage between the San ("Bushman," also "Khoisan" or "Khoikhoi"), and white colonists of Dutch and French descent. This was a process of re-raciation (all races, I believe, are almost constantly in such process/es involving simultaneously gene pools and culture, which sociologically tend to be mutually-reinforcing, but re-raciation is the opposite tendency.) The "Cape Coloured" people are ethnically distinct from the mostly-Bantu Black-tribal peoples who are the majority in South Africa. The Cape Coloured for centuries spoke their own dialect of Afrikaans language derived from Dutch largely (not one or another of the Bantu languages) and constitute 52% of Western Cape population. A leader from the coloured Reformed Churches, Dr Allan Boesak, led much of his extensively-churched community to support the battle against Apartheid both in Church and State, and tawt his people, his Cape Coloured constituency, that they were Black, at least for all political purposes. At one stage in his development, he wrote the book, Black and Reformed -- Apartheid, Liberation, and the Calvinist Tradition (1984); he also entered the fray of mass anti-Apartheid demonstrations alongside Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other churchmen. Here's some of what Wikipedia says about the controversial Dr Allan Boesak:
Boesak suggested that the African National Congress was well down the slippery slope of ethnicity preferences and "had brought back the hated system of racial categorization." [a footnote here refers to "ANC entrenches racism - Boesak" News24. [1][2] Also in 2008, while serving as the Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa,[3] Boesak, to the shock of many senior church leaders,[4] announced that he would resign all of his positions within the church because of the church's discriminatory position on homosexuality and gay and lesbian persons. Boesak invoked the anti-apartheid 1986 Belhar Declaration, which lambasts all forms of discrimination, to say that the church should welcome gays and lesbians and begin to perform gay marriage ceremonies and appoint gay clergy. Dr. Boesak had originally come out in favour of same-sex marriage in 2004,[5] a year before South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled that the denial of marriage rights to gay people was discriminatory and violated the country's constitution.[6][7] In December 2008 he left the ANC to join the Congress of the People party. In reaction, the ANC leaked a memorandum written by Boesak, detailing how Boesak discussed different roles he could play to help the organisation. His preferred choice was the post of South African ambassador to the United Nations.[8] The same month saw Boesak voicing his views on the Zimbabwe crisis, calling on citizens of the stricken country to rise up in opposition to President Robert Mugabe and his authoritarian ruling party. He also censured Mbeki for failing in his role as theSouthern African Development Community's official mediator to heed the churches' call for a peace-keeping force.[9] He also called for a revaluation of affirmative action, describing as "totally inexcusable"[10] its effectuation in the Western Cape.Most Americans, Black and White, don't understand this historical stream in South Africa. Thanks to Shay Riley for picking up the present-day pulse of a hardy tradition, which the ANC seems to be disowning. -- Politicarp
'Justice Malala is one of South Africa’s most respected politicalFamousFaces Management:
analysts and newspaper columnists. An award-winning former
newspaper editor, Malala currently heads up Avusa’s (formerly J
ohncom’s) stable of 56 magazines.
South Africa's labor market
Talkin' slick about coloureds & Indians: Jimmy Manyi
"In this [old-school] ANC, for example, all members would be appalled by racist behaviour. It would not be left to a coloured leader of the ANC [Trevor Manuel] to stand up for the principle of non-racialism. African, Indian, white and coloured ANC leaders would stand up on principle against racism of any kind. Not anymore. After the events of the past week, this much we now know is true: the ANC's leadership is prepared to sell its own core principles down the river if the prize is right. You will remember that the chief government spokesman, Jimmy Manyi, while he was director-general of the Labour Department, in March last year, said on a television show that there was an 'over-supply' of coloureds in Western Cape [province, which is 53% 'coloured'; it is one of two provinces that isn't majority black. It is also a province that is a Democratic Alliance stronghold].' They should spread in the rest of the country...so they must stop this over-concentration situation because they are in over-supply where they are so you must look into the country and see where you can meet the supply,' he said."
More: "Here's the really offensive stuff. Trevor Manuel, the minister in the presidency, stood up and [recently] wrote a letter that is probably the most principled to come out of the ANC in a long while in response to Manyi's Nazi-esque utterances. He concluded by saying: 'I now know who Nelson Mandela was talking about when he said from the dock that he had fought against white domination and that he had fought against black domination. Jimmy, he was talking about fighting against people like you.' With these words he has made himself the loneliest man in the ANC today."
"Coloured" response to ANC: Trevor Manuel
Mr. Malala wonders why ANC leaders ain't backing Mr. Manuel? "Manyi is the man who now speaks on behalf of the South African people and its top leaders in the cabinet. This is the public face of South Africa, our best foot forward. We should be proud of ourselves. Our struggle is now complete. Our public face is that of a man who says Indians have 'bargained' themselves to the top of the corporate pile. Tell me that is not prejudiced. Why is the ANC so silent, so weak, so shallow, so cowardly when it comes to such an important principle? How can the party of Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada and so many others now be afraid to speak out clearly on principle? It is because the ANC is no longer about principle. It is about aligning oneself with the forces that are in the ascendancy at certain moments in the life of the party."
-- end of Riley's post, and a Hat Tip to him!
