WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-04-11 Time: 05:00:01 Posted By: News Poster
By Aubrey Matshiqi
Johannesburg – THE historical events which shaped South African society occurred within the same geographical territory, but the different races that inhabit this common territory do not share a common historical or collective memory. These divergent collective and historical memories have both intraracial and interracial dimensions.
For instance, some Afrikaners foreground their suffering during the South African War (Anglo-Boer War) when the British used scorched-earth tactics and sent women and children to concentration camps. Among the Xhosa, the historical events that led to the Gcaleka-Rharhabe split are still hotly disputed to this day.
But it is the interracial dimension of collective memory that, in post-apartheid SA, is either a manifestation or one of the causes of racial cleavages.
The thing about collective memory, however, is that it is seldom about the past. It is almost always about the present. Another thing about collective memory is that it is sometimes deployed selectively, especially when it is employed in support of a political strategy. What we choose to remember about our past is sometimes part of an attempt to gain social, economic or political advantage at the expense of others. This tendency is more pernicious and assumes the most virulent of forms when it is tied to race or class identity and interests. When this happens, debates about the nation are dominated by hysteria, selective perception and distortion.
Lest I be misconstrued, I am not claiming to be a paragon of objectivity in this regard. To the extent that all representational discourses are socially constructed, the disease of self-serving selection and distortion extends to us too. Political commentators and the fourth estate are not immune from the malaise. This is why, dear reader, you must never think of news and what I do as valueless. Because what we do is socially constructed, the content is value-laden. We bring to social commentary, political commentary and news content dimensions of our identity that shape our responses to political events and the behaviour of prominent political figures.
It is for this reason that I am not surprised by the manner in which the selective nature of our perceptions has shaped our response to the murder of Eugene TerreBlanche. This tragic incident has, unfortunately, given me more cause to remind the country that every cause, no matter how noble it is, has its tyrants. When our interests are threatened, we seem to think we are justified to suppress views and political behaviour that do not coincide with what we believe are hegemonic sensibilities.
A case in point are attempts to ban the apartheid flag, the apartheid national anthem and the singing of certain struggle songs. Frankly, this is pretentious and amounts to the imposition of self-serving or sectional narratives.
This is post-apartheid realism gone mad. If this is democracy, I do not want it. I know that some among us will argue that flying the old South African flag or the singing of certain struggle songs is a threat to our democracy and race relations. My advice: grow up and stop living in a country that exists mainly in the imagination of the overly pessimistic and wide-eyed optimists. I need to be persuaded that ours is so fragile a democracy that we should countenance the tyranny of ordinary citizens disguised as a commitment to the creation of a rainbow nation.
The old South African flag or struggle songs are not the cause of poor race relations. They are but symptoms of a deeper malaise. They represent, not the failure of the reconciliation project, but the gap between reality and aspiration.
It is this gap that, in part, is responsible for our hysterical responses and, therefore, attempts to link the killing of TerreBlanche to the behaviour of African National Congress Youth League chief demagogue Julius Malema. To me, it seems Malema and some of his detractors have become two sides of the same irrational coin.
The solution to our race problems is not hysteria but the recognition that there is no group whose fears must take precedence over the concerns of others.
Matshiqi is senior research associate at the Centre for Policy Studies.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 9 April 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201004090424.html?viewall=1