[Thanks for this Ben.

Take a close look at this article. This article seems to come from a black radio station. This is actually written by a black guy who is ALSO questioning whether Crime isn’t the new war of black attacking white. He writes it off to the fact that blacks have not really benefitted under ANC rule. He also refers to S.Africa as Azania.

Below it, I posted a reply to this post by a white S.Africa. The reply is excellent.

However, it is interesting that perhaps blacks and whites agree that S.Africa’s Race War has indeed started! Jan]

Here is the URL of RASA FM
By Ntokozo Mthembu 28 June 2006

Today the media and electronic publications tell us about the soaring crime rate and its negative effect on South Africa. But it is interesting that we hear little or nothing about the rationale behind these incidents of (152)˜crime™; all we hear is that (152)˜crime does not pay™ and this and that. This situation raises a lot of questions about what is really facing this country, in view of the fact that it is a country still characterised by clear lines between the former (and still) oppressed and the former (and still) apartheid beneficiaries. I wonder whether these reports that crime is rising in this country are true. Perhaps the better question is whether these activities should actually be described as criminal; labelling these activities as (152)˜crime™ fails to acknowledge the fact that disadvantaged communities are sick and tired of being given false promises that things will be better.

In order to better understand exactly what is happening in South Africa, one must look to the historical background of this highly celebrated country. With this in mind, it becomes clearer that what is viewed or defined as crime by the capitalists or the rulers in a particular time or place cannot necessarily be regarded as such by the poor populace and visa versa. Writers like Sche(182)¶nteich et al (2001) urge us to note that crime cannot be understood as a problem of today, and must be understood within South Africa™s history. It is argued that the issue of so-called crime began to be seen as a threat to apartheid capitalism in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Some people will recall that this was a period of intensified struggle by the popular organisations resisting against the apartheid regime. This period was characterised by intense, violent crime perpetrated by the South African security forces against anybody who was identified as or associated with (152)˜terrorists™.

Most of the oppressed majority hoped that this violent time would pass; they hoped that the country™s majority who had been dispossessed of their land would get their land back. They hoped for more than the dangling carrot in the form of the so-called right to vote. The criminals who dispossessed the Black majority, on the other hand, hoped that the dispossessed people would just sheepishly accept the crumbs which fell from the capitalist masters™ tables, without any form of resistance. These hopes were not realised after 1994 because levels of recorded (152)˜crime™ (what I will call (152)˜incidences of resistance™) have increased since then. I would argue that if the so-called (152)˜crime™ has been increasing this only shows that the Black majority™s aspirations were not met; it means that people are continuing with the resistance that was hijacked by the Black elite in conjunction with their buddies – (152)˜amabhunu™ – at the expense of the oppressed populace. In addition, if (152)˜crime™ started increasing in the 1980s, it shows that the goals of these actions were to unseat the apartheid regime and its economic system (goals which were not achieved). Instead of thrashing down apartheid, we saw the co-optation of a few Black elite into the ranks of capitalist apartheid.

On the other hand, the super-exploited majority remains in the same status as they were in the times of Botha and de Klerk; now under Mbeki they are still subjected to selling their labour power as the (152)˜only™ way of making a livelihood, but the labour market still sees very high rates of unemployment. In addition, the Black townships and city streets are still characterised by that famous dance, the toyi-toyi; the rich still lock themselves in behind high concrete walls. The majority remain beggars in the city streets – a sign of not yet uhuru, not yet liberation.

The poor black people remain landless despite their tireless struggles to liberate themselves from the vicious oppressive system; their elite leadership had a different view, as they saw the only way to fight colonisation as becoming part of it.

It seems that the leadership of the oppressed majority opted to follow the famous proverb that says (152)˜if you cannot beat them, join them™. In other words, the leadership did not have a mandate that was reached at CODESA (the Convention for a Democratic South Africa); instead deals with (152)˜amabhunu™ were made that secured the stolen property in the hands of the thieves and ensured that the Black majority remained squashed in the labour reserves.

Incidences of (152)˜crime™ are viewed differently by the (152)˜Rainbow Nation™ community, as they have different interests in the survival of the (152)˜New South Africa™; they are encouraged to see everything as as normal as possible, given their interests in the new dispensation. Again, I ask myself whether these incidences that are reported as crime are not in fact the continuation of popular resistance. Popular resistance under apartheid came in various forms, many of which are being repeated now; workers strike and attack what they see as part of the problem. Communities are up-in-arms in various parts of the country, demanding the same old demands such as access to basic services and land distribution. I know the schools of thought of resistance differ but, in reality, when did this thing of (152)˜crime™ start? In the 1980s, blacks increased attacks on whites in various forms that included making them feel uncomfortable in their stolen cocoons and that was regarded as (152)˜crime™. But what about the crime committed by whites to the blacks, crimes that include colonisation that was characterised by extreme violence, at magnitudes unseen before. Furthermore, it is criminal to continuously mislead Black people into accepting that the land is not theirs.

In short, I am trying to highlight fundamental things which cannot be easily ignored by sober-minded people, especially when we aspire for a peaceful world, free from hatred in the form of racism, violence, crime and exploitation for profit. When we talk of the rise of crime in South Africa (Azania) what are we really saying? Are we judging (152)˜crime™ as threats against capitalists, whose profits and interests continue to grow? What is it that is happening in the land of the (152)˜colonised and the coloniser™?

Reply by White S.African:-
You claim, to summarise, that the majority black people in SA today are still without farms (land) and in exactly the same position as they were before they started the struggle, right? You then justify (or excuse) crime as the continuation of popular resistance in order to achieve (152)˜liberation™ goals, right? Then you must also admit that the Apartheid word (theory behind it) and the œabolishment” thereof was and still is nothing but major political trickery (national and international propaganda), right? (…it tricked you, for one!). Now THAT is exactly what us whities were trying to tell you all along (referendum: 80%(43)+ whites pro-liberation, remember?) but you were too deafened by all the BLACK POWER promises and your own chanting and toyi-toying to even consider the one and only solution: “Let™s walk the road together!” All South Africans together!

12 years into the “Promised Land” and I find a letter like yours (a black SA citizen!), posted on the Internet for the world to see, shamelessly and lamely blaming the same dead propaganda horse, apartheid and whites, as the “confused majority™s” justified reason for increased crime activities! How embarrasing to all black people this must be!

Black South Africans, just in case you didn™t know, are socially and economically, the most priviliged blacks in all of Africa with the highest per capita income (even during your “apartheid”) and the most oppurtunities (by law affirmatively priviliged above whites) for education, sport and financial success. 70% of the votes were for the ruling party whose top priority should be to create safety and security for its citizens, …but you blame apartheid for your shortfalls?

Wake up! The honeymoon is over! There are no free farms and there will never be, no matter who rules! I™m white and never had a farm (I Wish!)! Neither is there a free lunch! Farmers desert SA farm workers to take on Zimbabwean refugees, why?, because they are prepared to WORK! No strikes!

And lastly, no matter how hard you try to create guilt in us for being white, I know that your future, my friend, would have been a certainty if only you™ve opened yours eyes in time. At the end of this year, because of CRIME, our family of six white South Africans, two engineers, a lawyer, an actress, an A-level matriculant and a baby without a future here will be leaving this country for good – thanks to scary articles like yours. And the brain – drain continues… (won™t be surprised if this doesn™t make your forum!)

URL: http://rasa.m2014.net/spip/article.php3?id_ar…/p>