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Were blacks better off under apartheid?
Jewish World Review ^ | Jan. 9, 2001 | Walter Williams

Posted on 01/09/2002 5:57:06 AM PST by SJackson

MORAL crusaders have the habit of heading off to their next crusade without bothering to see whether anything went wrong on their last one. During the '80s, TransAfrica, NAACP, Black Congressional Caucus, Hollywood glitterati, college students, and other groups held massive protests on college campuses and at the South African Embassy, built shanty towns, and called for disinvestment and sanctions against South Africa for its racist apartheid system.

There's no longer apartheid and there's black rule in South Africa, but what's the story there now? Andrew Kenny writes about it in his article, "Black People Aren't Animals." The article appears in the December 15 issue of the British magazine The Spectator, the world's oldest continuously published English language magazine (est. 1838).

Each South African day sees an average of 59 murders, 145 rapes and 752 serious assaults out of its 42 million population. The new crime is the rape of babies; some AIDS-infected African men believe that having sex with a virgin is a cure. Twelve percent of South Africa's population is HIV-positive, but President Mbeki says that HIV cannot cause AIDS.

In response to growing violence, South Africa's minister of safety and security, Steve Tshwete, says: "We can't police this; there's nothing more we can do. South Africa's currency, the rand, has fallen about 70 percent since the African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994. Emigration from South Africa (mainly of skilled people) is now at its highest level ever."

....snip....

Kenny says that whites treat blacks like animals. When a dog misbehaves, we don't blame the dog -- we blame the owner for improper training. In Africa, when blacks behave badly, Kenny says colonialism, imperialism, apartheid, globalization or multi-nationalism is blamed for not bringing up blacks properly. Liberals saw South Africa's apartheid and other human-rights abuses as unjust because blacks were suffering at the hands of whites. They hold whites accountable to civilized standards of behavior. Blacks are not held to civilized standards of behavior. From the liberal's point of view, it might even be racist to expect blacks to adhere to civilized standards of behavior.

During South Africa's apartheid era, I visited several times and lectured at just about every university. In a 1987 syndicated column, I wrote: "Africa's past experience should give Western anti-apartheid activists some pause for thought. Wouldn't it be the supreme tragedy if South African blacks might ponder at some future date, like the animals of Jones' Manor (George Orwell's Animal Farm), whether they were better off under apartheid? That's why blacks must answer what's to come after apartheid? Black rule alone is no guarantee for black freedom."

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TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: africawatch
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To: one_particular_harbour
Yeah, and in the mean-time we will be the recipeints of terrorism and blackmail... We don't HAVE a few years to wait. It is far beyond that. Sorry to burst your feel-good bubble.

Semper Fi

21 posted on 01/09/2002 1:14:44 PM PST by Trident/Delta
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To: anniegetyourgun
bttt
22 posted on 01/09/2002 1:15:11 PM PST by Don Myers
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To: SJackson
"From the liberal's point of view, it might even be racist to expect blacks to adhere to civilized standards of behavior. "

So they think that blacks are savages and expect them to act that way.

23 posted on 01/09/2002 1:16:28 PM PST by Don Myers
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To: SJackson
Disagreement. There should be no laws of racial seperatism. They reduce freedom.
26 posted on 01/09/2002 1:29:27 PM PST by AMMON-CENTRIST
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To: Trident/Delta
I just KNOW I am going to be flamed for this, but, can anyone point to a black governed nation that is successful????

Since you didn't bother to define what (and who) is a black governed nation: The United States of America. Mark all those boxes on the census - be all that you can be.

28 posted on 01/09/2002 1:43:01 PM PST by Tis The Time''s Plague
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To: KC_Conspirator
Well, it probably would have helped if they had not embraced totalitarians, communism, and socialism after the colonial governments left.

Your are right, but India has struggled because they sent their future leaders to England to be educated. English schools is where they learned socialism. Even today Socialism is entrenched in India's political class.

29 posted on 01/09/2002 1:50:48 PM PST by Sci Fi Guy
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To: one_particular_harbour
I usually like him, but it is easy for him to say it since he didn't have to live under it. Sorry, folks, racial subjugation is always wrong.

I hope that "FOLKS" doesn't include me...I agree... RACIAL SUBJUGATION IS WRONG UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE...EVEN YOUR OWN RACE!!!

C-O-M-M-O-N-S-E-N-S-E

30 posted on 01/09/2002 3:40:16 PM PST by notyourregularhandle
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To: one_particular_harbour
European colonialism interfered with the natural development of the local cultures, and when they left, they left vacuums in education and infrastructure, all because they sucked the economic life from the colonies while transferring little in return.

Glib explanation. Please account for the difference in outcome between sub-Sahara Africa and the European colonies of Hong Kong, Formosa (Taiwan), and India.

Could it be that the Asian colonies were composed of people who were already familiar with the concepts of civilization? While the African colonies were natively populated by savages who were taught English and given pants to wear, but otherwise retained their pre-civilized customs?

Do you seriously think that people who had not progressed past the Paleolithic stage by the time the Europeans arrived, would have magicly caught up if they had been left alone?

31 posted on 01/09/2002 4:30:59 PM PST by SauronOfMordor
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To: one_particular_harbour
Really? I'd think some of us would be used to this kind of thing by now...
35 posted on 01/09/2002 6:52:39 PM PST by StoneColdGOP
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To: one_particular_harbour
You have a much greater opinion of Indian culture than I do, and a different definition of success.

I have a very basic definition of success:

  1. Are the people able to live in relative peace?
  2. Are economic conditions basicly improving on the long-term trend?
India is growing economicly, people are not starving, and you hardly ever hear of thousands being massacred by machete-wielding thugs -- which is distinctly different from how things are in sub-Sahara Africa.

There is something inherently wrong with cultures which cannot seem to get their acts together no matter what anybody might try in order to help them.

37 posted on 01/10/2002 6:11:35 AM PST by SauronOfMordor
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To: one_particular_harbour
Wow. That is a pretty sickening post to find on Free Republic.

What about it was sickening? That it happened to be true?

38 posted on 01/10/2002 6:43:45 AM PST by SauronOfMordor
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To: one_particular_harbour
Wow. That is a pretty sickening post to find on Free Republic.

As the cliche goes, if you cannot argue the facts, attack the messenger.

39 posted on 01/10/2002 6:43:46 AM PST by ExpandNATO
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To: one_particular_harbour
Take a trip to South Africa and see how things were there in the 1980s. Then compare that with today and see if anyone is better off.
40 posted on 01/10/2002 6:55:18 AM PST by PaulKersey
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