Post by cjm on Jul 7, 2016 17:53:46 GMT
LETTER: Apartheid plugged dyke for 50 years
July 07 2016, 05:00
I REFER to your correspondent Alan Hirsch’s list of so-called apartheid laws set out in a schedule attached to his article (Institute will equip future leaders to beat inequality, June 29).
As far as I know, apartheid came into formal existence (English version "separate development") under the first National Party government elected to power in 1948. Thus the pre-1948 "apartheid" laws were in fact not so — they were legislated by the British government and its minions, who were variously governing and warring and throwing their weight around during these periods, after which Gen Jannie Smuts’s United Party hummed and hawed about "qualified franchises" until the hammer came down on the ducking and diving in 1948.
Prior to law number 38 in your columnist’s list, the British were quite unambiguous about naming their laws, as they dealt with the "Asiatics in northern districts", "natives in urban areas", "black land" and, of course, "masters and servants", in the act of the same name of 1856.
We all know apartheid laws were basically continuations of the early diktats imposed by the British and their political proxies, yet the poor Afrikaners have since, and will forever, be blamed for this "crime against humanity".
One can muse about what SA would have looked like had apartheid not been introduced in 1948.
A breathing space of sorts was created — 50 years without black economic empowerment, affirmative action, ruinous unionism, millions crossing our unmanned borders, farm invasions, city and agricultural destruction, corruption, incompetence, nepotism and arrogance.
Then there were the pluses — Sasol, Iscor, Eskom, Armscor and nuclear achievements.
We could have had a Jacob Zuma or a Kwame Nkrumah 50 years earlier. The mind boggles. Ask the apartheid critics what they would have done if faced with hundreds of thousands of illiterate rural blacks streaming into the cities, looking for work. Indeed, was there a better option than apartheid, other than the "democracy" that was to sweep through Africa after India’s independence and is now devouring SA?
G Graser
Pretoria
July 07 2016, 05:00
I REFER to your correspondent Alan Hirsch’s list of so-called apartheid laws set out in a schedule attached to his article (Institute will equip future leaders to beat inequality, June 29).
As far as I know, apartheid came into formal existence (English version "separate development") under the first National Party government elected to power in 1948. Thus the pre-1948 "apartheid" laws were in fact not so — they were legislated by the British government and its minions, who were variously governing and warring and throwing their weight around during these periods, after which Gen Jannie Smuts’s United Party hummed and hawed about "qualified franchises" until the hammer came down on the ducking and diving in 1948.
Prior to law number 38 in your columnist’s list, the British were quite unambiguous about naming their laws, as they dealt with the "Asiatics in northern districts", "natives in urban areas", "black land" and, of course, "masters and servants", in the act of the same name of 1856.
We all know apartheid laws were basically continuations of the early diktats imposed by the British and their political proxies, yet the poor Afrikaners have since, and will forever, be blamed for this "crime against humanity".
One can muse about what SA would have looked like had apartheid not been introduced in 1948.
A breathing space of sorts was created — 50 years without black economic empowerment, affirmative action, ruinous unionism, millions crossing our unmanned borders, farm invasions, city and agricultural destruction, corruption, incompetence, nepotism and arrogance.
Then there were the pluses — Sasol, Iscor, Eskom, Armscor and nuclear achievements.
We could have had a Jacob Zuma or a Kwame Nkrumah 50 years earlier. The mind boggles. Ask the apartheid critics what they would have done if faced with hundreds of thousands of illiterate rural blacks streaming into the cities, looking for work. Indeed, was there a better option than apartheid, other than the "democracy" that was to sweep through Africa after India’s independence and is now devouring SA?
G Graser
Pretoria