- and the mounting pressure on South African whites
"I would not be surprised if eventually we all have to line up and have our ID books stamped, or something, to prove that we attended a "Reconciliation Day' ceremony."
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Shaun Willcock
December 16 is "Reconciliation Day" in South Africa. It is a public holiday. In the "good old days", before South Africa was taken over by Nelson Mandela's racist, Communist-controlled African National Congress (ANC) and driven into the ground, when the country was still well-governed by conservative Afrikaners, December 16 was known as "The Day of the Vow". It was a day held sacred in the hearts of Afrikaners, for way back in December 1838, as the pioneering Voortrekkers faced what looked like probable extinction at the hands of the mighty Zulu army, they took a vow that if God would grant them victory, they would for ever afterwards keep the day of the victory sacred, as a day of thanksgiving for their deliverance.
And sure enough, on December 16, although vastly outnumbered by Zulu warriors, those hardy Afrikaners were mightily victorious at what became known as the Battle of Blood River: a defining moment in South Africa's turbulent history. When the Zulus finally fled, some 3000 lay dead, but not one Trekker had been killed. The Scriptures do not support their contention that future generations of Afrikaners were bound before God to keep the day sacred, although it is certainly very true that God did indeed give them victory that day, not because they were God's special people but because He in His sovereignty had purposed for them to be victorious, and to go on to eventually govern this mighty country.
However, when the ANC came to power, they could not stomach the fact that the Afrikaners continued to commemorate the Battle of Blood River on December 16, the Day of the Vow: a commemoration of a great victory by vastly outnumbered white settlers over the most powerful black nation in Africa. And so the ANC determined to do something about it. Their solution? To declare December 16 a public holiday to be called "Reconciliation Day", thereby claiming the day for all South Africans, and also rubbing the noses of the Afrikaners in the dirt, by very subtly declaring, as it were, "You are now expected, by your new masters, to accept that your own leaders, and the Afrikaner nation in general, oppressed the black people of this country, and you are now required to quit honouring your own heroes and your own history and your own victories, and instead you are now going to be forced to 'reconcile' with your black neighbours whom you so wronged."
For let there be no doubt about this: the ANC's so-called "Reconciliation Day" is nothing less than another opportunity for the ANC leaders to berate the Afrikaners, and whites in general, year after year; to accuse them of not doing enough for the blacks; of not being willing to "share their wealth" and to "embrace change" in SA; and to demand that they not only ignore their own history, but actually express sorrow for it in fact; and to accept the re-writing of history which the ANC is undertaking all the time, portraying the whites as the personification of evil and the blacks as the oppressed, suffering good guys. Bottom line: this whole concept of "reconciliation" is a lie, a farce, it isn't happening and as things stand now it can't truly happen, because the ANC is demanding reconciliation on its terms: "We blacks are all the innocent victims here; you whites are the bad guys; you must change, you must make amends for what your forefathers supposedly did, you must come to us on our terms, grovelling at our feet and humbly accepting whatever crumbs we deign to toss your way." And another reason why "reconciliation" is a farce, is because whites are being told to "reconcile" with Communist terrorists, people who conducted an armed revolution, who bombed and tortured and necklaced* people to get their way and come to power. Whites are expected to be "reconciled" with these unrepentant thugs!
Well, ever since the ANC's "Reconciliation Day" came into effect, many Afrikaners have ignored all this nonsense, and have quietly continued with their old "Day of the Vow" celebrations anyway. And this makes the ANC powers-that-be spitting mad. Every year, various top-ranking government ministers use the opportunity of "Reconciliation Day" to criticise and vilify the whites. As in Zimbabwe and every other African country after its "independence" from white rule, whites in SA have become the convenient scapegoats behind which the ANC seeks to hide its own ineptitude and incompetence, its utter inability to properly govern this country, and its own deep-seated racist prejudices.
This year, whites were treated to the vitriol of Essop Pahad, the Minister in the Presidency. He said that white South Africans who fail to attend national reconciliation celebrations or national holidays, represent an entrenchment of racist attitudes and prejudices. "Whenever we mark our national days," he said, "you will find that perhaps well in excess of 90% of people who attend these events are Africans. We have to address the question as to why significant sections of our population do not find it interesting, convenient or necessary enough to attend these functions... as part of the process of creating a non-racial South Africa" (The Witness, December 16, 2005).
It is easy enough to answer his speech (and we will overlook for now his reference to black South Africans as "Africans", the implication being that white South Africans are not Africans): 1) The reason why over 90% of those who attend the celebrations of SA's national days are black, is because probably at least 90% of the ANC is black, and because it is an organisation committed to black advancement, and because it is blatantly anti-white in its attitudes and its policies. Why on earth would whites attend such rallies, when they well know that the ANC uses those occasions to berate them, criticise them, belittle them, blame everything on them? Whites no longer feel that they have any place in SA, any future. They are pushed aside, attacked, hated, condemned, their history, culture, language, etc., are all crushed and derided, their wives and children raped, their husbands and grandfathers tortured and murdered. Plus, of course, large numbers of whites are still conservative and anti-Communist, and hold the ANC and its Communist masters in contempt. In a word, they have nothing to celebrate! 2) The reason why most white South Africans would not attend political rallies, etc., held on national days, even if they liked the ANC (and most whites will never like the ANC), is because there is a huge difference between blacks and whites in this regard. The heavily-politicised blacks actually appear to enjoy flocking to huge open-air rallies, and sitting for hours in the baking sun listening to lengthy speeches by their political leaders. The whites, on the other hand, have no tradition, no history of doing such a thing, not even when there was a white government! For them, a national holiday is a day for sitting quietly at home with their families, or going to the beach or a dam, to swim, fish, or just relax in the sun.
But the pressure is on. The ANC, like its Marxist buddies throughout the continent, could very well eventually reach the stage where attendance at their rallies will be compulsory. All over Africa, the masses have to sit through endless speeches by their political leaders, and woe betide them if they do not show up! It may come here too. I would not be surprised if eventually we all have to line up and have our ID books stamped, or something, to prove that we attended.
In his own speech on "Reconciliation Day", President Thabo Mbeki, addressing a crowd gathered at "Freedom Park" in Pretoria to mark the national day, said: "We need to confront what may be an uncomfortable question, whether as South Africans, black and white, we are under the same flag and under the same anthem marching separately - even pretending at times that the other does not exist" (Weekend Witness, December 17, 2005). The new flag we can live with - at least it is fairly non-political. The new anthem - for Christians at least - is a different matter, as it is the revolutionary anthem of the ANC and of various other terrorist organisations that came to power in southern Africa through the barrel of a gun. That, plus its pseudo-Christian lyrics, make it unacceptable to Christians in SA.
But yes indeed, we are marching separately. What, though, is the reason for this? It is the ANC government's own racist attitude towards white South Africans, doing all in its power to reduce them to second-class citizens in the land of their birth, and thus enforcing a new form of apartheid, where black South Africans enjoy all the privileges of citizenship, and white South Africans count for nothing. Mbeki went on: "We clearly need to ask ourselves whether we have done what we need to do to overcome the stereotypes that were entrenched over many years by racist policies of the past, or [whether] we still quietly pander to those stereotypes." Of course he was referring to whites.
It is always the whites who are expected to change, the whites who are the bad guys, the whites who are the racists. And by constantly harping on about these things, Mbeki and the ANC do a great job of hiding the fact that they, themselves, are the real racists. It is the ANC's own deeply racist policies that are driving white South Africans out of the country, and reducing those who remain to insignificance. It is the ANC's own prejudices and lies which cause blacks to stereotype all whites as racists.
Mbeki went on to add that South Africans must break down the racial walls that divide them, and then said that wealth distribution represents one such wall, and the rich became rich through the sweat and toil of others, many of whom remain poor. Mbeki in the past has defined "the rich" as white and "the poor" as black. In other words, then, what he was saying was that the wealthy white South Africans must redistribute their wealth to the poor black South Africans. This is classic Marxist economics, of course. "Wealth redistribution" means, in ANC doublespeak, taking what whites have earned and giving it to blacks. It has already begun, of course, with the farm expropriations. Note too how he conveniently overlooks the fact that today in SA, vast numbers of blacks have become obscenely wealthy - including himself.
The pressure is on. For over eleven years, since the ANC took power, whites have been increasingly and deliberately marginalised. The ANC has made it very clear that they are not welcome here, unless they toe the ANC line. The ANC, in line with Marxist organisations everywhere, believes that the entire country must be turned into one vast slave labour camp, where the entire population, zombie-like, follows every dictate of the leaders, believes every statement they make, accepts their version of history, never questions their utterances, and (in the case of the whites) like a dog that is kicked by its owner, comes grovelling back with the attitude of, "We are not worthy of your benign rule. We deserve to be ground underfoot, for we are such curs, and we have behaved so badly, and all we ask is to be allowed to sit whimpering at your feet, where we belong." This is their goal, and they are going all out to achieve it. For whites in South Africa, it's been an incredibly rocky ride, and it's going to get even rockier. Make no mistake about it.
10-Jan-2006 08:30
* For non-South African readers: the "necklace" was a method of execution used by the so-called "liberation movement" whereby mostly black town councillors seen as collaborators, those suspected of being traitors and so on, had a petrol-filled tyre placed around their necks which was then ignited. Approximately 400 people were burnt alive in this way.
Shaun Willcock is a minister of the Gospel, and lives in South Africa.
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