I'll do the same. I love the fact that the ANC boycott against City Press didn't work. We now need to watch the advertising in this publication, can the dominant party (I'd love to say ruling party but they clearly aren't that) separate itself from its governmental role and ban all government advertising on City Press.
So said Ferial Haffajee on the City Press website this morning.
The Spear is down. Out of care and as an olive branch to play a small role in helping turn around a tough moment, I have decided to take down the image.
Another interesting article in the papers this weekend were on the über-racist jungle jim. The best one spoke of how his contract as Government Communication and Information Service CEO is not going to be renewed. But the hard-hitting article came from Jonathan Jansen in the Mail and Guardian.
Anyone who thinks that Jimmy Manyi, after his comments about coloured people, is simply an aberration on the post-apartheid landscape is hugely mistaken. Manyi, like Butana Komphela, is merely saying the kinds of outrageous things that many of his ilk among the powerful (and the restless, economically disenfranchised and powerless) think but lack the courage to say openly about the people they dub "coloured".
Manyi is a perfect product of our racist past: he categorises humanity into the four racial boxes of apartheid, assigns biological and social essences to the people in each of them and then damns them accordingly. I once sat on a panel with this man discussing affirmative action and employment equity, and I was astounded by his lack of reflection, his incapacity for generosity and the racial and ethnic determinism that shapes his thinking.
The fact that the man is protected by so-called black (read "racial African") lobbies and receives a light, laughing tap on the wrist from powerful political parties tells you that Manyi-type thinking enjoys considerable support among the elites. That he holds positions of influence makes the man's thinking dangerous in the extreme. What he spewed out and now receives support for is no laughing matter. This is precisely the kind of racist discourse about others—"there are too many of them"—that preceded the ethnic genocide in Rwanda. It is the language of scapegoating, and our skins should crawl when faced with this kind of provocation.
I believe that this view that is taken by jungle jim is necessary for the ANC's survival. It is rapidly realising that its struggle credentials have run out of steam and now must blame whites and other minorities for its own failings. Something that Hitler and Mugabe were particularly competent at doing. Unless the ANC catches a swift wake-up it will be recorded in the history books as another African failure along with Mobutu Sese Seko, Mugabe et al.
More on this in an upcoming post.
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