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In the South African Human Rights Commission, CEO of AfriForum, Ernst Roets submitted that South Africans have double standards on dealing with issues of racism and hate speech. In his submission he stated that the white racists were dealt with more harshly than their African counterparts, citing estate agent Penny Sparrow whose racist rants catapulted her to overnight stardom in social media lending her in hot water.
Interestingly, Roets submits a historical rhetoric that is very familiar in the South African racially oriented societal debates involving the minorities, particularly whites both on social media and other platforms.
He says, "Imagine for a moment if a white person went on international television and made a statement more or less along the following lines of 'the problem with black people is that they are brought up in a culture into which they become lazy and violent believing that they can steal whatever they want because the world owes them everything'". An all too familiar notion and statement often directed specifically to Africans in the country. In other words he was playing with words that he very accustomed to. He couldn't have picked a better example!
The learned Roets made this remark, and wanted the commission to believe it is an example but what he has done is just to repeat the same rhetoric that the minorities have repeated from time immemorial.
In fact, many young white South Africans have been taught along those lines from childhood to early teens by the likes of former apartheid apparatus General Franz Joost [See Afrikaner Blood documentary] in boot camps under the guise of White self-determination.
Generally AfriForum represents the so-called minorities’ interests and has on various occasions challenged and campaigned against Affirmative Action, BBBEE, Sports Racial Quotas etcetera. Most of these protestations are only intended to benefit the minorities at all expense. For the African that is standard of the likes of AfriForum, and other racially based formations in SA.
Most of racial slurs in social media are by far concentrated to a white, very bold and explicit few who carry the baton unashamedly as a way of preserving superiority over the so called "Blacks" emboldened by divisions sown by politics amongst the African communities. In predominantly White formations including those that have sort to draw the African and Coloured communities are almost distinct in their approach on issues pertaining to the racial divide.
Those who seek to be seen as liberal will be almost critical of racial discrimination on issues of equal opportunities but ditch their stance when it comes to policies that seek to address these issues. An example of this is the Democratic Alliance which is totally against Affirmative action, Radical Socio-Economic transformation which it called “Populism” during the SONA debate.
It sounds so good when another African demolishes the attempt to address the imbalances of the past, especially where these measures are threatening the status quo of the white population. One is reminded of the tactics that the Belgian Monarch and United States’ CIA employed during the independence of the Congo and the subsequent assassination of Patrice Lumumba. The assassination of Chris Hani was also similarly sinister.
The rise in these racial spews is indicative of the damage both African and white people have swept under carpet since the birth of a rainbow nation and is being given a lifeline through the division of “black” vote. You will note after 1994 elections there was a threat of a three thirds majority and these racist rants were confined to family diners, braais and boot camps.
The movement that seeks to undermine efforts by the government could well have grown in numbers graduated from the boot camps and emboldened by their assumed god given right to superiority and use of the courts to reverse most of the gains the country has made. But Roets would not tell the commission about that. He might spoil the cart, and mess up the private prosecution project which according to Section 179 of the Constitution is unconstitutional in that NPA is the only recognized statutory body.
AfriForum's Roets is correct on the double standards. One group started racial discrimination and is indoctrinated into hating and belittling the other for three hundred years to date, non-repentant, whilst the other only reacts to such aggressions. And it is not South Africa alone, the US and Australia has successfully managed to suppress dissent of the indigenous people in those lands. The most common used description of the indigenous people in those countries is that of Baboons, Monkeys, and these slurs are found even in sports. Is that generalization? Not, when it is not coincidence that where whites have settled there will be some kind of atrocities against the indigenous people of those lands and a clear legislated campaign to safe guard their interests way after independence or democratic dispensation as in SA.
Personally, I have been on a receiving end of this language during my participation in online news debates where I was called a Bonobos, a dwarf or pygmy chimpanzee which is aggressively sexually active beyond mere mating. It was easy to observe that during these public spats even the most outspoken liberals are conveniently and deafeningly silent or offline. But I am not about to throw insults and enjoin persecution of whites. That is my double standard.
The commission needs come to the small towns to get a clear picture of what is really going on and not only engage with Mr. Ernst Roets and former apartheid regime President Mr. Frederick De Klerk about social media spillages. Because these rants are just that…SPILLAGES
