The Bubble Has Burst

I am tired of the emails going around about how South Africa is completely falling apart. And the way to prove this is to compare it to life before 1994.

Well, the life that us white people lived. Except the blatant distinction of that seems to go unmentioned. When us white people had roads, us white people had good health care, when us white people had smaller schools and more attentive teachers.

Many of these arguments are quick to base their validity on that even a black person has said to them that life was better before 1994’s democratic political change.

Really?

You have asked every person who was imprisoned because of their political beliefs and outspoken ways whether life was better then? You have discussed this topic with those people who were beaten, tortured, had family members murdered or exiled about how they like the political, economic and social order then versus now? What of those men and women who were not allowed to love or associate with each other because of their skin colour? The thousands of people who were woken up late into the night to a raid or forced removal?

Whether South African men and women who were once termed “Non-White” prefer to go back to the subhuman role they had been allocated by a racist oppressive government, one they were not even allowed to vote or speak against. Back then before the year of 1994.

Pre-‘94 involved Pass Books. Restricted movement. No vote. Bantustans. Propaganda. Two States of Emergencies. Raids and Riots. Forced Removals. Murder and torture. Economic exploitation. Being told daily that you are useless, worthless, less than, that you deserved to live as a subhuman, and you required a white master to order you how to live each day, because you are too stupid to do this properly.
Do people who send the racist simplistic emails around not realise how the Apartheid propaganda still lives in their heads. Voster and Verwoed win each time you argue that Just look at this example, see how it shows these black people cannot govern a country!

Why is the argument that we either live as we do now, or that we return to a state regime that worked for 20% of the people, mainly by ensuring the oppression of the other 80% of the South African population?

I have no desire for our country to return to pre-1994. Call me mad, but I do not believe in racial oppression. I believe in striving towards & fighting for human equality.

Are the majority of white people now oppressed, as seems to be ridiculously concluded in some articles?

No.

We have passports. We have choices. We have voices. We have freedom of association. Freedom of movement. We can vote. We can create political parties. We can march to government buildings to shout about how we cannot tolerate crime any longer. We can march without fear of tear gas and bullets. We can start newspapers or newsletters or blogs. We are able to receive basic education and health care. Now we can access grants when we reach dire straits. We have job prospects, even though now we have to fight to get these.

And should you sit cursing my words, think firstly that if you are reading this that means you have internet access, computer access, time to take out of your day to read this. Do you have a house? A car? An opportunity to accept a job? Where did you travel today? Were you stopped by a policeman and asked to see if you were entitled to be in that area?

This country is riddled with troubles right now.

Fight against our government’s wrongs and mistakes. Definitely.

But how can anyone who believes in Universal Human Rights argue that life was better under the Apartheid government?

Fight for now and towards the future. Why are you arguing back to the past?
The Bubble has burst.

A thousand and one new cultures have come flooding in. We need to learn about these, rather than to try to reconstruct The Bubble. Jobs now have to be competed for, like they do in other parts of the world. A good life is no longer achievable through the oppression and near-enslavery of other people.

Now it has to be achieved through holding this government accountable, and making our voices heard and our anger felt when all South Africans are having our rights dismissed.

What should every South African be receiving now or within the next generation? And what did white people only receive before ’94 because of an oppressive racist regime?

“No, but that’s not what I was saying?”

Really? What implied conclusions were you supporting then by writing or forwarding that article?