OPINION

The unbearable being of whiteness

David Bullard writes on the racial humbug of Cyril Ramaphosa & Co.

OUT TO LUNCH

Last week’s President’s letter to the nation was so full of racial nonsense that it simply had to be included in the bumper edition of Raceballs 20 which appeared to great acclaim on this website.

It does seem a great pity that a nation that really should be going all out to avoid complete collapse in these troubled times should have so many influential people promoting white hatred at the moment.

Of course there were the usual suspects. Poor Ferial Haffajee seems to be sucking up to the loony left even more than usual at the moment. She has managed to conjure out of thin air an entirely new political species called “The New Right” which she claims already includes the IRR’s Hermann Pretorius and Afriforum’s Ernst Roets. Both these men are, as the mainstream media tirelessly inform us, extremely dangerous.

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Previously labelled as members of the “alt-right” (of which I am also apparently a member) and “white supremacists” they are known to be armed and to have large caches of ammunition stashed away. Armed with wit and opinion that is and with a large cache of facts and data at their disposal. If you haven’t watched the recent eNCA debate between Hermann Pretorius and a very agitated and out of his depth Prince Mashele yet I urge you to search for it on YouTube.

To these she has added the names of Gwen Ngwenya and John Steenhuisen, presumably because they also have strong opinions and won’t allow themselves to be bullied by the crackpot lefty media. Of course these days any association with the DA is sufficient to mark you as extreme right wing in South Africa in the eyes of those who want to suck up to the ANC whereas in Europe the DA would be viewed as left of centre.

As I’ve remarked previously, one wonders what sort of a country many of our self flagellating journalists yearn for. Clearly not one where diverse opinions and fresh ideas for the economy are welcomed…well not from those suffering from white privilege at any rate.

But hang on, the last time I saw Gwen Ngwenya she didn’t look at all white to me so what’s up? Well, it’s all part of the lefty fake news agenda. Lump Gwen in with the bad boys and some of the dirt is bound to rub off. Fortunately Gwen is more than capable of putting hysterical journos like Haffajee in their place.

Anti capitalist Ismael Lagardien saw a good opportunity to the boot into Ngwenya’s reappointment as DA policy head. Lagardien’s stock in trade is to eschew any sort of wit or charm in his writing and to make up complete nonsense such as this:

“The new DA 2.0, now increasingly being captured by the classical liberals, would defend the most egregious of capitalism’s iniquities with claims that 5,000 years ago we did not have flushing toilets and now we have smartphones – so “shut up!” and don’t complain about inequality or patriarchy”.

Has anybody in the DA ever suggested this? Of course not but why let facts get in the way of a good anti capitalist (and, by definition) anti white rant.

Irvin Jim, Mmusi Maimane and Herman Mashaba all get dishonourable mentions with the erudite Mr Jim claiming in his rather stilted way that:

“J Steenhiaen (sic) of DA propangandist (sic) is for racist legacy of Toney (sic) Leon and Zille if he doubts he must go and ask Maimane, Confused Mashaba and he is just being used to help extreme right wingers in politics who thinks that blaks (sic) and Africans don’t deserve to own the SA Economy?”

As if our racial groupings aren’t confusing enough already without Mr Jim adding the new category of “blaks”. As I frequently have to remind Mr Jim on Twitter, never tweet when you’re over excited or when you’ve been drinking heavily.

One of the most distressing entries in the latest Raceballs league table was Prof Jonathan Jansen at position number three. Jansen was once considered a level head among academics and commentators but the poor chap had a meltdown in a Stellenbosch stationery shop last week when the shop assistant (whose skin colour wasn’t revealed) politely asked him in Afrikaans if he was the Prof from the Free State. No he snarled, “ I’m DJ Black Coffee”.

Oh how they must have laughed at his Swiftian wit. Jansen blamed his uncouth behaviour on “language intolerance” towards blacks. Since he was speaking to the shop assistant in English and not in a black language I think this is a bit unconvincing.

But it was our peripatetic President’s comments that really caught my eye. Not only did he explain how the ANC is both for and against race domination and for and against non racism but he also went on to lambaste the private sector for being too white.

The upper echelons of management in private companies are still dominated by white men although they make up only 5% of the population and Cyril doesn’t like this, notwithstanding his government have just begged a white man to sort out the mess they’ve made of Eskom.

Reaffirming his faith in the now largely discredited affirmative action (what well qualified black professional would want everybody to believe he landed his job because of his skin colour?) and black economic enrichment (sorry…I meant empowerment) he drew on stats from the recently released report from the ever so slightly biased Commission for Employment Equity to highlight what he calls “an outright disregard for the law” in not employing more black bosses.

One might be forgiven for glancing across at the public sector and commenting rather negatively about how that has worked out for them. Does it not perhaps occur to Cyril (who sat on several boards drawing a handsome fee once upon a time and was chairman of Bidvest) that the private owners of a business, whether quoted on the JSE or not, might be the better judges of who should be running their business than a government notorious for its ineptitude and corrupt practices.

Is this sort of gobbledygook really the sort of message we should be sending out to the international investment community when we are so perilously close to a junk downgrade? South Africa is open for business, build your factories here but we’ll tell you who will be running your business and who to employ. I’m not sure the Chinese would go for that one.

It doesn’t seem as though the relentless attacks on white wealth creators is going to let up any time soon. Who would blame them for throwing in the towel and moving their businesses to somewhere more appreciative? After all, it would be no loss to SA since there is apparently a long queue of talented and inspired black senior managers just waiting to show us all how it should be done.

O tempora o mores.