The United States, the leader of the free world, a proponent of freedom and democracy, almost single-handedly pushed South Africa into what is becoming a Communist failed state. Sure, we had help from other do-gooder countries in the 1990s who ganged up on this once jewel of the African continent. However, it never would have happened if we hadn’t led the charge.
It should be no surprise that President Cyril Ramaphosa recently confirmed his government plans to expropriate private property without compensation. For the uninitiated, this means taking the farms of white landowners and supposedly redistributing them to the black majority in the name of “fairness.” This will hasten the country’s economic slide that began shortly after the “universal” elections of 1994 which transferred power to the communist-led African National Congress.
The mainstream media, for the most part, is mum on this and other recent developments in South Africa. Why? It never would have happened if our media hadn’t fanned the flames of the Communist sympathizers in the name of creating racial equality.
“Universal” elections sound wonderful where everyone within the country’s boundary has one vote. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?
There is a saying in Africa I did not fully understand until the 1990s when I went to South Africa with Renaissance Women as part of a fact-finding mission: “One man, one vote, one time.” It was a well-worn pattern in Africa, as country after country was abandoned by its largely democratic colonists and left to fend for itself. One by one these countries fell into the hands of brutal dictatorships.
South Africa’s problems were not well-understood by most U.S. citizens who supported our boycotts and meddling that helped drive this country to its knees.
South Africa’s early settlers were a racial mix. They included black tribes, primarily Xhosa and Zulus, who had migrated from the north; Europeans from Portugal, who arrived in the 1400s, and the Dutch and the English who arrived in the 1600s.
The blacks were organized by tribes and preferred the bush country where game was plentiful, while the white settlers took to farming and gradually created towns and cities. After some time, blacks began migrating to the cities and began to adapt to the advances that had taken place there.
In the 20th century, other black tribesmen began to travel and see the progress their relatives had made in the cities. This trickle of migration soon turned into a flood. Legislation then was enacted to control the flow of people into the cities. In 1948, the white-led government instituted a system of racial segregation known as apartheid to protect its minority.
By the time our country began to beat up on South Africa, this segregation practice – while still on the books – existed in name only and was mostly economic, as it has been in our country.
When I arrived in South Africa, I was surprised to see blacks and whites living side-by-side in upscale, previously all-white areas. I also was surprised to see so many black-led, highly profitable corporations and small business owners. I visited black townships that were often featured on our nightly news as shanty towns, where I saw middle and upper-class neighborhoods.
I saw a government trying, as best it could, to educate and accommodate what was now a deluge of new arrivals.
I also learned that this race war we had heard so much about was a war between blacks. Those aligned with the violent, communist ANC often threatened and killed their neighbors who supported the peaceful, anti-communist Inkatha Freedom Party headed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
I also discovered black citizens already had the vote in all but the national elections. Inkatha maintained that this mass of uneducated new arrivals was easily-controlled by the ANC, promising them free stuff. (Any of this sound familiar?) Inkatha wanted the transition to happen slowly, after the new arrivals were educated, fearing that the ANC would turn South Africa into a Communist country where everyone would suffer except the politically connected and the ruling class. We, in effect, handed South Africa to the Communists.
On my 1990s visit, I spoke with a maid in my hotel about the future. She explained that when the ANC takes over, it will take a house from its white owner and give it to her. She’s likely now out of a job, but still waiting.
We forced South Africa into holding premature “universal” elections and now the rest is history – a history the liberal media is unwilling to tell.
