05/04/2023
Earlier: U.S. Regime Media Decides “Inequality” Causing South Africa’s Riots — And It Wants To Bring It Here
On March 29, 2023, Lay Of The Land, a webzine saying it supplies
Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond
rather curiously posted SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF by Michael Witkin, a native of Cape Town South Africa who has been resident in America for some 40 years.
I surmise that this eloquent and devastating article could not find an outlet in the MSM or at least some less obscure webzine. H/T Lay Of The Land.
SOUTH AFRICA AT WAR WITH ITSELF https://t.co/t44oFlWyke
— 🦁Lay Of The Land (@LayOfTheLand5) March 29, 2023
This essay is a lesson for America. It is about Cape Town, on the southern tip of Africa, which was founded in 1653 by the Dutch — and so the oldest White settlement in sub-Saharan Africa. (The Dutch founded New York in 1624.)
The conventional wisdom after the end of white rule in South Africa in the early ‘90s was that because the Democratic Alliance, the only major party with substantial white participation, was elected to govern both the city of Cape Town and the province, it would be protected from the worst effects of black rule in the rest of the country.
On the basis of Michael Witkin’s article, the rest of South Africa is an extreme catastrophe.
A large part of the essay is devoted to ‘Ruin Porn,’ a genre which had a vogue pertaining to American cities about 15 years ago, but which has since been largely Cancelled. To anyone who knew Cape Town under white rule the pictures are chilling. Particularly poignant is Witkin’s lament:
I visited the Hebrew school that I had attended in Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town, as a young boy. A building now that has been totally defiled, abandoned and eerie…
I peered through the ubiquitous razor wire fence; a child’s swing swayed gently in the summer breeze. I remember a time when the nursery school playground bustled with the clamor of children’s laughter. Now all I could see were shadows and figures in the landscape wreaking havoc; with the stench of putrefying trash adding to the setting.
Witkin is particularly eloquent on the collapse of South Africa’s infrastructure services:
Besides the non-existence of South African Airways, which was one of the finest airline companies in the world, the postal service is almost nonexistent. The postal workers rifle through the mail opening up letters and parcels and help themselves to whatever they can find.
A 1969 South African Airways ad.
(In the late ‘80s SAA was one of the strongest long-distance carriers in the world. The Wikipedia article dealing with its demise is almost comical (at present). Amongst many other atrocities:
SAA has been accused of racism for rejecting white cadet pilots on the grounds of race, who met the educational and physical criteria. By filling out several dummy applications, journalists from the newspaper Beeld established that the online form had been programmed to reject any white applicants.
Witkin is (correctly) particularly exercised about the demise of ESCOM, the State monopoly electricity supplier:
Besides no airlines, no postal service and no trains, there is a dwindling electricity supply. They have rolling blackouts, euphemistically called “load shedding” which can last as much as 10 hours per day in Cape Town. Johannesburg is worse…
Without electricity there is no viable economy. Retail stores, restaurants, businesses and factories cannot operate….Little maintenance has been done and with a large increase in the population (mostly emigres from other African countries) they have not kept up with the need to build additional power plants.
I discussed the ESCOM situation in U.S. Giving $8 Billion To South Africa For Green Power — How Much For The Big Guy? ESCOM managed a 10-fold expansion under Apartheid South Africa (1948-1994) and had an impeccable overseas credit rating. There is remarkable multiracial agreement on the cause of ESCOM’s demise. From my essay linked to above:
Eskom board member and former Altron CEO Mteto Nyati warned that empowerment rules hamper Eskom’s performance…
He added that affirmative action is hampering Eskom’s ability to employ skilled people who can fix the company.
and
Eskom generation executive Rhulani Mathebula said Eskom’s biggest problem is fraud and corruption.
The problems include people stealing coal and diesel, damaging plants to get maintenance contracts, and delivering the wrong spares and equipment.
To his credit, Michael Witkin spares a tear for the lot of the desperately poor white underclass which has been precipitated by the anti-white discrimination now ruling in South Africa. He mentions, but for some reason does not link to You don’t need to die to see hell, just visit a white slum in South Africa, by Sohil Sinha, TFI Global, July 13, 2021. Significantly, this is an Indian webzine. (It seems there is a market for anti-white porn.)
Also to his credit, he deplores the ongoing massacre of white Afrikaner farmers:
A large number of South Africa’s farmers are Afrikaners who unbeknownst to the outside world have been brutally murdered, their wives tortured and raped; their children shot. The government fails to offer any protection to its white farmers and there was a popular EFP (Economic Freedom Party) song, called “Kill the Boer” that the Equality Court ruled “does not constitute hate speech”.
VDare.com has tried to keep up with this ongoing atrocity.
What is immediately relevant to America is Witkin’s grasp of the crippling effect of Affirmative Action in South Africa:
…the Rainbow Nation does not exist. “Equal opportunity” for whites does not exist. In fact, the abused minority of whites are discriminated against rigorously.
Blacks get preferential treatment in employment, education and other areas. A white male is less likely to get a job over a black male. In fact, employment equity laws make it harder for whites to get work. Jobs in upper management go to blacks further ostracizing whites, and in a sense, sentencing them to more menial employment with the inability to use their talents to further themselves.
While “Strict quotas are enforced for the degree in medicine and surgery. The intake of white students is capped at 2%” (Solidariteit Mar 26, 2022), there is a huge shortage of doctors and qualified medical personnel.
(According to Wikipedia the latest census (2011!) says whites are 8.9% of the population.)
Of course this is a completely familiar and predictable story for alert American readers. In fact it began here about 20 years earlier in this country as blacks began to take over the government of major American cities. Paul Kersey exhaustively documented this in
“Learn, Whitey, Learn!” — Paul Kersey’s ESCAPE FROM DETROIT
and
“The Tragic City” — Birmingham AL After 50 Years. Coming To An America Near You?
and many times since.
In this country this problem is (or was) occasionally moderated by the influence of the Federal Government (Charlotte Needs New Mayor: “Before Voting For A Black Politician … “). But in South Africa there is no such force.
For me there is no reason to go further than J.P. Rushton’s definitive article for us I.Q.: Why Africa is Africa — and Haiti Haiti. This was put very pithily (and at considerable personal cost) in 2017 by Marc Faber:
…thank God white people populated America, and not the blacks. Otherwise, the US would look like Zimbabwe, which it might look like one day anyway, but at least America enjoyed 200 years in the economic and political sun under white majority.
I am not a racist, but the reality — no matter how politically incorrect — needs to be spelled out as well. (And let’s not forget that the African tribal heads were more than happy to sell their own slaves to white, black and Arab slave dealers.)
There is simply no objective evidence that blacks can operate a complex society like whites or Asians.
Unfortunately two more subjects that Americans urgently need to consider.
The first is the culpability of South Africa’s Jewish community in this disaster. Most of them arrived from Eastern Europe in time to participate in the late 19th century boom in South Africa driven by the great gold discoveries of that time. They were tolerated by the pragmatic Anglophone business community and even respected by the Afrikaners, who as Fundamentalist Christians raised on the Old Testament accepted that they were the Chosen People.
Jews immediately became active in the South African Communist Party, but more important were generally the driving force in leftist opinion in South Africa. This was exemplified by Helen Suzman, for 13 years (1961-74) the only MP for the Progressive Party, vigorously denouncing white rule — to the delight of the Western (and Communist bloc) Media. And in the social interactions within the close white community they were very effective.
But what was the alternative? The alternative was the disaster vividly described by Michael Witkin. And having helped to set South Africa on its catastrophic course, most of them left.
This makes me wonder about Jewish political judgment. Are they capable of nation building? I know Israel has just celebrated its 75th anniversary, but 75 years is nothing in the sweep of History. The Crusader States lasted almost 200 years.
I have to suggest that Jewish political activity in America must be viewed from this perspective.
The second question is how on earth did the Afrikaners — the majority of the White community who controlled South Africa from 1948 — allow this to happen? Their political vehicle, the National Party, founded in 1914, was explicitly an ethnic particularist outfit devoted to the interests of their people.
After all, this disaster was totally predictable. Apart from the wisdom of centuries about blacks and their own 300-year experience, observations of post-colonial Africa from the 1960s — particularly the utter collapse in the Congo indicated what would happen. This is why the Rhodesians held out for 11 years against the whole world: see Trump On South Africa — Brimelow On Rhodesia.
So what happened? I believe the top leaders were bribed. I do have some personal information to this effect. But consider:
Merkel: Gone Mad — Or Bribed? GOP Example Suggests The Latter
and
And So Farewell To Sheldon Adelson — Zionist Activist; Immigration Enthusiast (But Only For U.S); Chinese Asset?
Email Patrick Cleburne.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.