{"id":116246,"date":"2024-10-08T17:05:37","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T15:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=116246"},"modified":"2024-10-02T15:16:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T13:16:04","slug":"08-05-110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=116246","title":{"rendered":"Back in the USSA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Back in the USSA<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Will Tanner<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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In America as in postapartheid South Africa, an obsession with \u2018racial justice\u2019 can be a harbinger of social and economic collapse<\/strong>.<\/span><\/h4>\n

People gather after the murder of farmer Brendin Horner in Senekal, South Africa, 2020 \/ Mlungisi Louw\/Volksblad\/Gallo Images via Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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When Nelson Mandela ascended to power in 1994, with his African National Congress (ANC) winning South Africa\u2019s first multiracial election, the world was full of hope. South Africans hoped that the \u201crainbow nation\u201d would turn out differently than the Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Angola, among other decolonized lands where mass violence between ethnic groups and tribes filled the vacuum of postcolonial defeat and withdrawal. To this day, South Africa has seen no Gukurahundi between its native groups nor mass slaughter between natives and Europeans.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though it has avoided the worst outcomes, South Africa is hardly a multiracial paradise. Instead, it has trended toward chaos and internal disaster; its economy is in shambles, its once-budding space and nuclear programs are long gone. Crime rules in place of law and order. South Africa\u2019s internal issues are manifold but can be distilled down to two categories: economic tyranny stemming from an unyielding top-down emphasis on racial spoils programs in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mode, and anarcho-tyranny in which the government is both unable and unwilling to protect the Afrikaner, Anglo, and Indian populations from vicious criminals.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The economic aspect of South Africa\u2019s decline is primarily a result of its postapartheid obsession with extending the country\u2019s cursed racial logic, this time in the name of justice and equity. Though it didn\u2019t see the outright expropriations inflicted upon white farmers in Zimbabwe by Mugabe\u2019s government, it has seen softer forms of expropriation and reparations. For example, as of 2024, more than 24 million South Africans, the vast majority of them Black, received welfare grants from just 7.1 million taxpayers. That 3.38-to-1 grant-to-taxpayer ratio is plainly unsustainable<\/a>. However, with the leftist ANC in charge, it is part of the system now and seen<\/a> as an important social justice achievement. South Africa also has<\/a> an outright reparations program for victims of apartheid, another expensive tax money transfer program.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The affirmative action situation in hiring is even worse. The state enforces its agenda through the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) laws. B-BBEE aims<\/a> to \u201credress the inequalities of the past in every sphere: political, social and economic\u201d and<\/a> \u201cpromote economic transformation and enable meaningful participation of black people in the South African economy, through increased participation in ownership and management structures, increasing the involvement of communities and employees in economic activities and skills training.\u201d It does so, as consulting firm Baker McKenzie notes<\/a>, by requiring that \u201cevery organ of state and public entity must apply any relevant code of good practice issued in terms of the B-BBEE Act when, amongst other things, determining the qualification criteria for the issuing of licenses, permits or other authorizations, when determining their procurement policies and when developing criteria for entering into partnerships with the private sector.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Post-Mandela South Africa is in a state of disaster that seems likely to get worse. In public life, tyranny reigns as the government enforces race-based mandates.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In short, B-BBEE requires racial preferences in hiring and promotion and handing shares of ownership to Blacks. The state measures compliance with B-BBEE via a scoring system that tracks compliance based on how companies hire Black workers under the B-BBEE racial preferences requirements; promote Black workers to management positions; and give ownership stakes to Blacks. Though the B-BBEE laws don\u2019t directly burden the private sector, they require that the state only engage private companies in procurement contracts and issue licenses and authorizations if they comply with B-BBEE requirements.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As a result, most companies have played along with B-BBEE. That is particularly true of highly regulated entities like Eskom, South Africa\u2019s electric utility, which prides itself on its B-BBEE compliance<\/a> and recently planned to cut thousands of white engineers and other employees, though it backtracked<\/a> on those cuts and instead promised to focus on hiring and promoting Black employees. Eskom\u2019s ability to provide electrical power has meanwhile devolved<\/a> to the point of frequent blackouts and legitimate fears of a total grid collapse.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Eskom is far from the only company to degenerate in the face of South Africa\u2019s race laws. The country\u2019s economy is shrinking<\/a> while unemployment is crushingly<\/a> high. South African universities struggle to produce qualified graduates while being known for overt racial discrimination<\/a>. Corrupt politicians and party-linked, gangsterlike entities use<\/a> the country\u2019s racial laws<\/a> to skim profits off the struggling economy. Basic infrastructure like the hospital system has crumbled<\/a>. Meanwhile, what\u2019s left is being pillaged<\/a> or frittered away in bribery schemes by some of the most corrupt<\/a> politicians and civil servants on the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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B-BBEE, though an albatross on the neck of South Africa\u2019s economy, isn\u2019t the country\u2019s only pressing issue, however. In April 2023, President Ramaphosa signed the Employment Equity Amendment Act into law requiring \u201cequity,\u201d meaning racial-ratio-based representation of staff members in all companies employing 50 people or more, threatening to bring what remains of private enterprise inside the country\u2019s racial spoils system.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The result of South Africa\u2019s policies, racial and otherwise, is, as the Center for International Development described in \u201cGrowth Through Inclusion in South Africa,\u201d that its vast postapartheid promise has been frittered away, and economic stagnation has taken hold, impoverishing everyone, regardless of race. As the South African economy has lost critical capabilities, the disadvantaged suffer the most.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Economic woes are just part of South Africa\u2019s problems. It also suffers under a significant and ongoing crime wave that the state is both unable and unwilling to handle. As of 2023, South Africa was the most<\/a> crime-ridden country on the African continent, beating out even Somalia for that dubious distinction. Most of its once-sparkling cities are uninhabitable<\/a> due to crime that the state refuses to stop. The resulting state of lawlessness can rightly be called anarcho-tyranny.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Armed, illegal miners called zama zamas<\/em><\/a> run extensive operations in full view. Copper cable thieves are rampant<\/a> and exacerbate Eskom\u2019s B-BBEE woes. Private security forces are now a necessity<\/a> for those who want to stay safe, as the police can\u2019t or won\u2019t keep citizens safe from robbers, burglars, rapists, kidnappers, and murderers.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The worst of the crimes under which South Africans suffer are the farm murders, in which African criminals use equipment, including signal jammers and automatic weapons, to break into isolated farmsteads and torture, kill, rape, and rob the predominantly Boer inhabitants. These attacks are known for their brutality, with atrocities like drowning children<\/a> in boiling water and gang-raping female victims being close to the norm<\/a> rather than radically atypical. Similar atrocities<\/a> are inflicted on other South Africans, including<\/a> children.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The horrific murder of 79-year-old farmer Theo Bekker and the assault on his wife serve as a telling example of what happens in these stomach-churning attacks. In Mr. Bekker\u2019s case<\/a>, at least four thugs broke into his farmstead and demanded guns and money. They then bludgeoned Mr. Bekker on the head with an iron bar and slit his throat with a knife, killing him. They tied up his wife, suffocated her with a plastic bag they put over her head, and then assaulted her numerous times. Fortunately, she survived.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another example of the brutality of farm attacks comes from a survivor who wrote<\/a> in 2001, \u201cThe first time I was attacked was in August 1998. I came back home and parked my van. My boy said there were three people looking for work. I said I only want one, and I went out to meet them in the garage. They said they wanted work, but then one with a revolver signed to the other one, who grabbed my boy; the first one pulled out his gun, but it jammed. I grabbed a broom and hit him, and then the other one, and then I ran inside to get my gun. But they knocked me down and fractured my skull, so I was unconscious. They chased my boy, but the dogs went after them, and they ran out. The fellows from the farmwatch picked them up on the road. They shot one, arrested another, and the third one later gave himself up. But all three later escaped from the police cells.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sadly, America has flirted with following the same dark path as South Africa. The outcome has been the rise of sectarian grievance politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The scale of these farm attacks is extreme, with attackers, according to data from 2023,<\/a> committing about one farm murder a week and nearly one attack a day. At the very least, the problem is \u201clarge scale,\u201d as former President Donald Trump posted<\/a> on X, then-Twitter, that his administration would study \u201cthe South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.\u201d Describing the attacks in even more extreme language, the South African artist Steve Hofmeyr, said that the attacks are a genocide. As he put it<\/a>, \u201cIf you think that the slaughter of South African farmers is not genocide enough, ask them about their land, language, religion, education, universities, heritage, monuments, safety, dignity, and the race-based regulations imposed upon them and their children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though farm attacks are less frequent than other crimes that plague South Africa, such as cash-in-transit heists, they are renowned for their extreme brutality. Jack Loggenberg of the Transvaal Agricultural Union, describing that aspect of the crime and what makes them worse than other crimes, said<\/a>, \u201cWe say it is not only crime but something else; the way the people are handled, not only killed, but also tortured brutally, and sometimes nothing is stolen. And not doing anything about it gives the impression that this is acceptable. It could be organized, but we don\u2019t have the facts. We find that in farm murders a lot of research is done, in 100 percent of cases there is prior reconnaissance and then there is extreme violence used.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Observers, such as Ernst Roets in his book Kill the Boer: Government Complicity in South Africa\u2019s Brutal Farm Murders<\/em>, make the case that agents of the South African government, such as law enforcement officers, are either not willing to stop the farm attackers or actively assisting the brutal murderers. Some farmers and Boers, for example, hold<\/a> the \u201cbelief that the government is training former members of MK or APLA to assassinate white farm owners.\u201d Others argue that even if the government is not actively assisting the farm murderers, it is doing little to investigate them and bring the perpetrators to justice. At the very least, 95% of the farm murders go unsolved<\/a>, and the government allows<\/a>, despite prohibiting other \u201chate speech,\u201d chants like \u201cKill the Boer\u201d that encourage the horrific farm murders. Additionally, the government refuses to set up specialized task forces to investigate and stop farm murders, despite doing so to investigate crimes like the illegal mining of the zama zamas<\/em> and cash-in-transit robberies.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jacques Broodryk, AfriForum\u2019s chief spokesperson for community safety, said<\/a> that the South African government and police force see farm murders as less important than other murders and that it is shocking it will not develop unique police resources to handle the problem. \u201cHowever, there are questions as to why the South African government refuses to follow the same approach with farm attacks and murders. In certain cases, the occurrence of farm attacks and murders is much higher, more violent, and requires a much more specialized approach than some of the crimes that were prioritized,\u201d Broodryk said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On the same note, Mike de Lange, formerly head of the KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union, argued that the government is intentionally ignoring the sickening attacks for ideological reasons. He said<\/a>, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that there is an organized plan to drive farmers off the land; but I do believe that the government knows what is happening and is doing nothing about it.\u201d Adding credence to the claims of Broodryk and de Lange about South African indifference toward the fate of farmers is that when former President Trump posted about the frequent attacks, the South African government responded<\/a> not by pledging to solve the murders but by accusing him of spreading \u201cfalse information\u201d and holding a \u201cnarrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In addition to common crime, there are terrible riots that the government is unable and often unwilling to stop. For example, chaos broke out in 2021 and caused<\/a> billions of dollars in damage, quite a significant amount for the small South African economy. Those rioters ran wild for days and were only stopped<\/a> from committing more crimes by heavily armed militias, and it was in the wake of the militias stopping the riots that the government returned.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What makes the situation all the worse is that crime and economic issues frequently intersect. For example, the Eskom blackouts can lead to more crime, as the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warned its citizens visiting South Africa. It said<\/a>, in part, \u201ctraffic jams due to power outages provide opportunities for smash-and-grab crime,\u201d and \u201cResidences can be targeted when lights are out and security systems are not functioning. Ongoing conditions have led to increased protests and demonstrations, and in some cases, civil unrest, throughout the country.\u201d In short, South Africa is at war with itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It seems clear that post-Mandela South Africa is in a state of disaster that seems likely to get worse. In public life, tyranny reigns as the government enforces race-based mandates on companies that are suffering mightily under the burden. In private life, the government levies taxes to pay for welfare programs, but otherwise, it is largely absent as criminals cause an immense amount of suffering and are rarely stopped by the police. Meanwhile, politicians like those in the EFF encourage criminals to engage in more crime as a form of punishment or reparations for apartheid. All of these localized disasters stem from the decision to continue putting race at the center of postapartheid South African life and thereby producing a photo-negative version of the past, rather than trying to build a new and better society.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sadly, America has flirted with following the same dark path as South Africa. America suffered months<\/a> of riots in 2020, much as riots racked South Africa in 2021. In America, as in South Africa, armed civilians had to defend their property when<\/a> the police couldn\u2019t or wouldn\u2019t do so, while leftist politicians encouraged<\/a> the rioters. Just as farm attacks go unsolved because of police incompetence and unwillingness in South Africa, murders are now only<\/a> solved at about a 50% rate in America, the worst in the Occident. Some cities, such as Kansas City, have plummeted<\/a> to under 40% clearance rates for homicides. Additionally, as robbers and farm attackers in South Africa, gangs in America are now using<\/a> signal jammers to assist in burglaries.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Comparisons between America and South Africa aren\u2019t limited to criminality, though. Some on the American left see<\/a> South Africa\u2019s reparations program as a model for an American reparations program. There is also the issue of affirmative action in higher education admissions and hiring. Although the American system now must<\/a> be less open about racial preferences in admissions, the general effect is the same: Colleges ignore worse scores<\/a> and admit<\/a> favored groups. Though outright affirmative action is now illegal and quotas banned, unlike in South Africa, schools have found ways to discriminate regardless<\/a>. Similarly, in the job market, proponents of affirmative action policies admit<\/a> that they \u201cshape the U.S. labor market\u201d and argue that further affirmative action, or racial preference, policies are needed to achieve \u201cequity\u201d in the workplace. Bloomberg, reporting on diversity in the workplace, noted<\/a> that \u201cthe biggest public companies added over 300,000 jobs\u2014and 94% of them went to people of color.\u201d When Bloomberg included replacements for old jobs rather than just new ones, the number remained around 80%. With white Americans making up around 62% of the American population, the only way to achieve such a DEI success was though racial preferences, as companies pledged<\/a> to \u201chire and promote more Black people and others from underrepresented groups.\u201d Of course that also means discriminating against white Americans in the process, much as South African companies like Eskom discriminate. Even companies engaged in hazardous activities, such as airlines, for which merit ought to be the sole qualification, have pledged<\/a> to prioritize diversity.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though America is not at South Africa\u2019s disastrous level, it may be trending that way. Blackouts are growing more common<\/a> as political agendas, such as \u201cclean\u201d energy, are prioritized supplying cheap and reliable electricity. Additionally, as Johannesburg is now uninhabitable<\/a> for law-abiding people, Americans are fleeing<\/a> their once-great coastal cities for safer and greener pastures in the Southwest and Southeast. As South African business and political leaders use their B-BBEE policies to skim off the top, America\u2019s DEI-demanded struggle sessions<\/a> are an opportunity for grift<\/a> that is as massive as it is frequently abused. As a result of the various forms of indirect bribery and insider profiting, most Americans see<\/a> their politicians as highly corrupt, an opinion with which many taxpayers in South Africa certainly agree. Meanwhile, much as South Africa\u2019s nuclear and space programs are long gone, ours are mere shadows of their former selves.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Finally, there is the fact that America\u2019s drift away from merit and toward South Africa-style CRT and affirmative action came after segregation had ended, much as South Africa\u2019s Marxist change for the worse came after apartheid had voluntarily ended de jure long after it had ended in fact. As Ronald Reagan noted<\/a> in 1986, \u201cBlack workers have been permitted to unionize, to bargain collectively and build the strongest free trade union movement in all of Africa. The infamous pass laws have been ended, as have many of the laws denying blacks the right to live, work and own property in South Africa\u2019s cities. Citizenship wrongly stripped away has been restored to nearly 6 million blacks. Segregation in universities and public facilities is being set aside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The indignities inflicted upon people by segregation and apartheid are indefensible. But in both cases, one outcome of dismantling those systems has been the rise of sectarian grievance politics. Segregation, as Reagan said, was being set aside; now it\u2019s coming back. New generations changed the rules to benefit the dispossessed; as a result, they are now disenfranchised. Let\u2019s hope that America\u2019s story has a happier ending.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Will Tanner<\/strong> is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and the Wake Forest School of Law. He now writes about the world before the Guns of August and the horrors of decolonization. Find him on X @will_tanner_1<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Back in the USSA Will Tanner In America as in postapartheid South Africa, an obsession with \u2018racial justice\u2019 can be a harbinger of social and economic collapse. People gather after the murder of farmer Brendin Horner in Senekal, South Africa, 2020 \/ Mlungisi Louw\/Volksblad\/Gallo Images via Getty Images When Nelson Mandela ascended to power in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116246"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116272,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116246\/revisions\/116272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}