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Die afgelope naweek het Rapport bekendgemaak dat hy sy internetuitgawe later beskikbaar stel in ‘n poging om vas te stel of die sirkulasie van die koerant se papieruitgawe deur die aanlynweergawe beïnvloed word.

Ook is die koerant se internetlesers in ‘n opname gevra of hulle bereid sou wees “om vir Rapport se aanlyn-inhoud te betaal”. Agt-en-tagtig persent van die aanlynlesers het egter geantwoord dat hulle nie bereid is om te betaal nie.

As ek eerlik moet wees, sal ek ook nie vir Rapport betaal nie, hetsy op papier, hetsy op my rekenaarskerm. Benewens sensasionele berigte oor Steve Hofmeyr se owerspel en foto’s van Saterdag se rugby, bevat Rapport geen nuus wat my as opgevoede Afrikanerleser interesseer nie.

Dan praat ek nie eens van die koerant se redaksionele kommentaar in die vorm van hoofartikels en rubriekskrywers nie. Daar is die Snotkop Jan-Jan Joubert wat eers ‘n Mbeki-bewonderaar was en deesdae ‘n soort adolessente aanbidding vir Helen Zille koester. Die goue draad van Snotkop Joubert se oppervlakkige, onintelligente menings is egter sy afkeer van alles wat van die Afrikaner is: ons geskiedenis, Standaardafrikaans, die gedagte dat ons oor taal-, kultuur- of minderheidsregte mag beskik.

‘n Ander weeklikse rubriekskrywer in Rapport is Daggakop Kombuis. Onlangs het ek al menige artikel gelees waarin daar beweer word dat blootstelling aan dagga en ander dwelms permanente breinskade tot gevolg het. Daar is ‘n soort ligsinnigheid omtrent hom wat spreek van ‘n verwronge werklikheidsbesef. Hoe meer geweldsmisdaad daar in Suid-Afrika gepleeg word en hoe meer ons infrastruktuur in duie stort, hoe meer juig Koos Kombuis oor “demokrasie” en “vryheid”. Vir hom is daar geen verskil tussen ‘n rockkonsert en ‘n verkiesing nie; albei is vorme van massavermaak wat met ‘n bottel Tassenberg geniet kan word. Dat Rapport hoegenaamd kans sien om Koos Kombuis as ‘n politieke kommentator aan te bied, toon dat die koerant insgelyks sy kontak met die werklikheid kwyt is.

Asof ‘n Snotkop en ‘n Daggakop nie genoeg is nie, vergas Rapport ons ook op die halfgebakte skrywes van die Warkop Andries (alias Roof) Bezuidenhout. Benewens rocksanger, is Roof ook dosent of navorser aan Wits in ‘n geesteswetenskaplike dissipline. As iemand wat self aan Wits gestudeer het in die dae toe daar nog toelatingsvereistes was, kan ek getuig van die mate waartoe die geesteswetenskappe in daardie tyd reeds gerysmier is deur ‘n bonte versameling malles wat onder die vaandels van Marxisme, Feminisme en Afrikanisme die res van die samelewing as boos beskou het. Wits het nooit die ineenstorting van die Berlynse muur oorkom nie en sedertdien gryp die toenemend gehawende groepie sosioloë, politieke wetenskaplikes en literatore aan daardie universiteit na al hoe meer vergesogte teorieë en linkse clichés wat Robert Mugage na ‘n groot wysgeer laat voorkom. Roof voel hom vir seker tuis by Wits en tussen die blaaie van Rapport waar hy, die Warkop, geredelik saam met Snotkop en Daggakop deelneem aan allerlei klagtes en beledigings teen die normale, heteroseksuele en boonop blanke Afrikaner wat die meerderheid van Rapport se lesers verteenwoordig.

Dan is daar nog, les bes, Jakes Gerwel, wat al odes aan die Kommunistiese Party in Rapport geskryf het en blykbaar letterlik in trane uitgebars het toe die skare vanuit Oos-Berlyn in 1989 oor die Glienickebrug gestroom het sonder dat die destydse Oos-Duitse muurskieters op hulle geskiet het om hulle in hul werkersparadys gevange te hou. Ek sou Jakes Gerwel seker Kroeskop kon noem, maar netnou word ek van rassisme beskuldig. Noem hom dan maar eerder Rooikop, wat nie die kleur van sy hare uitdruk nie, maar wel sy matelose bewondering vir alles wat met die SAKP en ANC te make het. Trouens, elkeen van sy stukke kommentaar in Rapport gaan gewoonlik oor een of ander figuur in die SAKP of ANC wat ons eer en agting verdien. Waarskynlik is hy die enigste kaartdraende lid van die ANC wat sowel ‘n aanhanger van Thabo Mbeki as Jacob Zuma is, want hy koester ‘n kinderlike bewondering vir albei. Hy is ook alewig besig met “nasiebou” en om alles in dié droewe land goed te praat. Elke donker wolk het sy silwer randjie en as jy gister in jou huis aangeval is of daar is ontlasting in Sannieshof se drinkwater, onthou net: dis ‘n voorreg om deur die groot leiers van die ANC en SAKP regeer te word.

Voeg hierby nog Christi van der Westhuizen, Mad Max du Preez en ander Afrikanerhaters wat meer of minder gereeld in Rapport hul ekstremistiese menings lug en dis duidelik dat die koerant oor ‘n doodswens beskik, ten minste wat sy sirkulasie betref. Sedert die heengaan van die ewe ultralinkse Insig, swerf ‘n bepaalde groepie Kaapse joernaliste egter van een Afrikaanse publikasie na die ander rond op soek na nog ‘n platform van waar hulle die Afrikanerpubliek kan beledig en slegsê.

Volgens Chris Louw beskik Harald Pakendorf oor die onderskeiding dat hy nie minder as vier Afrikaanse koerante “toegemaak het” nie. Liza Albrecht, die redaktrise van Rapport, is duidelik van plan om Pakendorf se rekord te oortref en vermoedelik daal die sirkulasie van die grootste en enigste Afrikaanse Sondagkoerant reeds. Albrecht het haar tande geslyp by die bylaag “By” waar Max du Preez, Christi van der Westhuizen en enigeen wat van Karl Marx, Andrea Dworkin en Carlos die Jakkals hou, welkom is om die kolomme vol te maak. Die voordeel van “By” is natuurlik dat kopers van Beeld, Die Burger en Volksblad dit as ‘n bylaag ontvang en dus maar verlief met die inhoud moet neem. Niemand sal ‘n sent daarvoor betaal nie.

Eintlik kan mens nie sê dat Liza Albrecht “uit voeling” met haar lesers is nie. Sy weet min of meer waarvan hulle hou – en gee hulle presies die teenoorgestelde. Die aanslag van Rapport – en van By – is dat Snotkop, Daggakop, Warkop, Rooikop en al die ander -koppe oor ‘n soort vrypas beskik om die Afrikanerlesers van dié publikasies week vir week te beskuldig, af te kraak en te demoraliseer. Enigiemand wat homself ‘n Afrikaner noem, is per definisie ‘n rassis en elkeen wat van skoon drinkwater hou, is ‘n Nazi wat nie die noodsaak vir diversiteit en transformasie wil erken nie.

Toevallig sien ek so pas raak dat Liza Albrecht oor ‘n Twitter-profiel beskik. Ja, reg geraai, sy beskryf haarself, nogal in die Rooitaal, as: “I’m the editor of an Afrikaans newspaper in South Africa.” Ene Jannie Momberg, redakteur van News24, ‘n volgeling van haar op Twitter, het beswaar teen die gebruik van blankes met blonde hare op die Vryheidsfront Plus se verkiesingsplakkate.

Ek vermoed Liza Albrecht het ook ‘n beswaar teen die ras en haarkleur, asook taalvoorkeur, van haar lesers. Vandaar haar veldtog om Rapport te herposisioneer as ‘n byderwetse, linkse, regstellende-aksiekoerant wat iewers in die toekoms met City Press gaan saamsmelt om net in Engels te verskyn.

Liza Albrecht en haar medejoernaliste – of eerder: -propagandiste – sal seker altyd werk hê. Immers is hulle konformiste wat bloot die heersende ideologie wat vanaf die ANC-beheerde SAUK se kassie uitgebasuin word, aanhang en in Afrikaans aan die dom Boere wat steeds aanhou om Afrikaanse koerante te koop, opdis. As Rapport weens sy grondige minagting vir sy eie Afrikanerlesers ophou bestaan, sal Albrecht vir News24, City Press of enige ander publikasie in die Naspersstal gaan werk.

Die tragedie vir Afrikaans lê daarin dat dít wat vir die “editor of an Afrikaans newspaper in South Africa” net nog ‘n werk is, waarskynlik vir die voortbestaan van ons taal, selfs ons fisieke voortbestaan in dié land, van wesentlike belang is.

Die internet gaan in die nabye toekoms die leemte vul wat deur kwynende Afrikaanse koerante soos Rapport gelaat gaan word. Allerlei “alternatiewe Afrikaanse media” wat grotendeels aan die dwangbuis van politieke korrektheid en konformisme ontkom, bestaan reeds op die wêreldwye web. Maar vir die afsienbare toekoms gaan daar steeds mense wees wat, hetsy nie oor rekenaars beskik nie, hetsy verkies om hul nuus op papier te lees.

Ek kan voorsien dat, soos wat publikasies soos Rapport saam met hul ANC-ideologie oor die afgrond stort, ons ook met omsigtigheid alternatiewe op papier gaan skep. Daar bestaan allerlei streeks-, gemeenskaps- en partykoerante in Afrikaans wat met ‘n bietjie verbeelding gekonsolideer kan word om ‘n alternatief vir Rapport in gedrukte vorm te bied.

In so ‘n geval sal die heengaan van Rapport, jou anti-Afrikanerkoerant op ‘n Sondag, geen tragedie vir ons taal wees nie, maar eerder ‘n bevryding.

Intussen het ons by praag.co.za, wat grotendeels ‘n vrywillige inernetpublikasie is, besluit om ten minste elke Sondagoggend ook ‘n uitgawe aan lesers te bied wat finaal genoeg van die Rapportkoppe gehad het.

Boekmerk by:

When I read the first Associated Press report on the arrest of Louis Henry Gates Jr., it was obvious to me that that particular storm in a teacup would be blown up into something of a racial hurricane. Not surprisingly, America’s half-blood prince, as Steve Sailer had christened Obama, was not far behind in meddling in what was supposedly a purely local, Cambridge affair.

The fact that Obama has since effected something of a volte face, even offering to have a beer with the much-maligned Sergeant Jim Crowley and his histrionical victim, does not detract from the incident as having demonstrated the fraught nature of US race relations.

Most American pundits have by now flogged this particular black horse to death, including Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan who at least cannot be accused of being liberals. However, even in their “conservative” reactions, we discern a certain embarrassment in dealing with the case of the “arrested professor” who had suffered the indignity of having been, at least fleetingly, a burglary suspect.

Apart from the obvious way in which the incident had demonstrated the fragility of what amounts to America’s manufactured consensus on race, the entire melodrama took place within the vicinity of America’s greatest university, Harvard.

Or should I say, once greatest university? Because Harvard and its W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Researches represent the pinnacle of the American academic system with its “tenured radicals”, those social-science and literature professors who actually hate everything that America stands for or used to stand for. Not for nothing did Louis Henry Gates Jr. call the president of Harvard after his gruelling ordeal of being peacably escorted to the local police station.

Gates, the self-defined “black man in America”, should consider the plight of a white man in South Africa, a game farmer by the name of Ettienne van Wyk. He was arrested by some black policemen for transporting his animals without a permit. He and his farm manager, Mr. Zacharia Duvenhage, were tossed into a cell with 14 hardened black criminals: murderers, robbers, rapists. At around 3.00 a.m. Van Wyk was sodomized by some of the inmates, while the others sang songs to drown out his screams. During this impromptu a capello performance, the station commander was sound asleep.

Van Wyk later sued the South African minister of police for R1.2 million or $150 000 in damages. Duvenhage, who was not sodomized, sued for only R350 000 or $44 000 for suffering several minor injuries.

Why is this, another incident, so many thousands of miles away, relevant? Because the case of Van Wyk represents something like the mirror image of Louis Henry Gates’s minor spat with the law. He, “a black man in America”, was arrested and taken to the police station by a white policeman painfully conscious of his duty as an enforcer of the law. He suffered no injury, except to his zeppelin of an ego. Yet the global media lavished more attention on Gates, a self-confessed creation of affirmative action, than on the war in Afghanistan and a few other wars combined. In contradistinction, the liberal champions of racial justice and equality will never spare a thought, let alone a minute of prime time, for Ettienne van Wyk, a white man arrested for a minor offence concerning the transport of his own animals and sexually assaulted by black criminals while under the authority of a black policeman.

Gates knew that he could rely on the universal belief that all blacks are victims. Probably that is what prompted his fit of rage at the white policeman in the first place. He was playing the agent provocateur, hoping to increase his standing in the victim stakes, which is necessary, when one has a cushy job at Harvard and a house in a neighborhood that is anything but shabby.

Even when the shoe is on the other foot and the black is the pepetrator, to liberals he remains a victim. Something, or someone, “made him do it”. In the aftermath of Gates’s rise in the victim stakes, someone will – no doubt – ascribe the more objectionable facets of his behavior to whites or white racism. Ultimately, the burden of racial pain is sinmply too much to bear and no amount of material comfort will ever suffice to attenuate its effects which may flare up at any moment.

In a normal world, of course, such incidents would not take place. An alleged slight to the dignity of some affirmative-action academic would not be news. There would be no global theatre for blacks to play out their sense of inferiority and inadequacy in front of a sympathetic audience of guilty whites.

However, the so-called fight against racism is both byzantine and insiduous. Like the class struggle of Marxist lore, it affects or infects individuals and society. Whole institutions, as well as states like the USA, Great Britain or South Africa, kow-tow to the social god of racial correctness. Affirmative action and diversity are to Harvard what dialectical materialism and the class struggle were to the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University in the old Soviet Union. Recent jokes about the USSA, the United Socialist States of America, that have taken over where the USSR left off, may contain more than a grain of truth.

In this sense, Louis Henry Gates Jr. is not so much a product of black nationalism, although he is an academic specialist of everything black. Some forms of black nationalism may actually be good, being a natural expression of the keen sense of racial identity felt by all Africans, even the Westernized ones residing in America. Rather, Gates is essentially a product of the American university where whites and blacks alike are indoctrinated in the official ideology of diversity and affirmative action. When California’s Proposition 209 was voted into law in 1996, essentially prohibiting the state from applying anti-white measures during hiring or admissions to schools and universities, the University of California continued to apply racial preference policies in defiance of the law.

In a video made in the same year, 1996, and available on YouTube, Gates boasts about having been a beneficiary of affirmative action and having been able to study at Yale “with white boys and girls”.In his Ivy League world, black is king, period. Academics live in the same mortal fear of being accused of “racism” (or “sexism”) as Catholics did in the days of the Spanish Inquisition when an accusation of heresy could result in being burnt at the stake. Gates is probably highly surprised that anyone, including Obama, should have listened to the white policeman’s version at all. For in his rarefied university world, no white would ever speak up to a black, let alone arrest one.

On the whole, Sergeant James Crowley did the US and the world a favor. He pricked the bubble of Gates’s privileged existence. For once, diversity parasites all over America got the terrifying message that they might be treated equally with whites. If only for that, the man deserves some sort of police medal.

But such incidents have an even greater value in that they demonstrate the correctness of Jared Taylor’s claim that diversity is a burden and not a benefit to institutions and society. They are also polarizing, rupturing the usually polite silence on race that prevents any rational discussion of the dilemma facing not only America, but the entire world.

Slouching toward multicultural utopia and the probable collapse of our civilization, we are in dire need of such confrontations and the debates they must provoke.

Boekmerk by:

Filosofiekafee Café Riche, Kerkplein, Pretoria, 31 Januarie 2003

Dit was net ‘n kwessie van tyd voordat globalisering in terme van ‘n Ryk gesien sou word.  Die Verenigde State van Amerika word toenemend as ‘n nuwe Rome beskryf.  Engels is die nuwe Latyn, en sodoende beleef ons een van daardie historiese herhalings wat vir filosowe en historici deur die eeue ‘n sisteem aan die geskiedenis verleen het.

Enersyds, veral uit die geledere van ekonome, word globalisering verwelkom as verhoogde mededinging, en die vryelike sirkulering van goedere en dienste.  Andersyds word dit egter gekritiseer as ‘n oorheersing van die Noorde oor die Suide, van die nywerheidslande oor die Derde Wêreld.  Met die einde van die Koue Oorlog is dit beswaarlik meer van pas om van ‘n regs/links-verdeling te praat, maar tipies sou ons kon sê dat globalisering van regs verwelkom word en van links afgewys word.  Net om daardie rede is die werk van Hardt en Negri waarna ek gaan verwys, belangwekkend, want hulle sien in globalisering en ‘n herrese Ryk ‘n positiewe, selfs bevrydende ontwikkeling.  En hulle is geen regse ekonome wat soos Milton Friedman die vrye keuse van die markekonomie bepleit nie, maar linkse intellektuele.  Trouens, Antonio Negri is so links dat hy ten tye van die skryf van Empire steeds besig was om ‘n vonnis uit te dien as voormalige terroris van die Brigati Rossi, die Italiaanse Rooi Brigade.  Ek kon hom seker ‘n stedelike guerilla genoem het, maar gegewe die onlangse bomontploffings in Suid-Afrika, sou ek dalk kwalik geneem word indien ek enige sulke optrede sou wou goedpraat deur neutrale terme te gebruik.

Boekmerk by:

Suid-Afrika, of Mzanzi, soos dit toenemend genoem word, ken nie eintlik meer politieke debatte nie. Daar heers ‘n gefabriseerde konsensus rondom die najaag van ‘n multikulturele sukkelstaat.

So ‘n week of wat gelede het ek ‘n klip in die bos gegooi rondom die idee van ‘n volkstaat vir die Afrikaner op die webblad LitNet, wat gewoonlik deur liberale of linkse briefskrywers oorheers word.

Reaksie het nie uitgebly nie en in die aanloop tot die huidige verkiesing is dit waarskynlik die enigste politieke debat wat daar tans gevoer word.Ek het verwag dat die opponente van ‘n volkstaat hulle op beginsels soos die eenheid van die Mzanziese nasie sou beroep, of die Afrikaner se morele agterstand by die res van die bevolking wat maak dat hy “verdrukking verdien”.

Tot my uiterste verbasing argumenteer die meeste teenstanders van die volkstaat vanuit die hoek van “mag is reg” en vind hulle die huidige bestel selfregverdigend: omdat die ANC die hef in die hand het, mag hy aan die Afrikaner voorskryf wat hy wil, hetsy op die gebied van taal en kultuur, hetsy deur rassewetgewing wat ons ekonomiese, opvoedings- en sportkanse beperk.

Hieronder volg my skrywes, asook enkele reaksies op LitNet:

Hoe die volkstaat gaan werk, Oom Daan Dan Roodt 4 Maart 2009

Kom ons praat bietjie verder as dagdrome en die kwasi-filosofiese geswymel oor vryheid en selfbeskikking (1) Krokodil 4 Maart 2009

Kom ons praat bietjie verder as dagdrome en die kwasi-filosofiese geswymel oor vryheid en selfbeskikking (2) Krokodil 4 Maart 2009

Die Afrikaner se luigatgeit, Bobbejaan Oom Daan 4 Maart 2009

Wat is die redes, Oester? Werner Pereira 4 Maart 2009

Hipotetiese situasie vir Oester Anton B 4 Maart 2009

Een vragie aan die tuislanders Albatros van Marion-eiland 4 Maart 2009

Gelukkig bly ek klaar in Dan Roodt se Volkstaat, Oom Daan Bobbejaan 5 Maart 2009

Volkstaat, O Volkstaat Johrné van Huyssteen 5 Maart 2009

Siener, jou onderbroek hang uit – en Albatros hang om jou nek Blou Makou 5 Maart 2009

Vraag of twee, Dan Roodt oester 5 Maart 2009

Volkstaat is nie vergesog, of stem VF Plus (1) Dan Roodt 5 Maart 2005

Volkstaat is nie vergesog, of stem VF Plus (2) Dan Roodt 5 Maart 2005

Boekmerk by:

Have another look at this, my classic article from late 2004; it is still as valid as ever.

During the time of National Party reforms in the seventies and eighties, the cliché “adapt or die” used to do the rounds. Nowadays, given the highest murder rate in the world, this should be modified slightly to read, “adapt and die”. For the endemic social violence in South Africa is probably incurable.

Optimists think that violent crime can be solved through better policing, more efficient courts and more secure prisons. Even assuming that such improvements were possible under conditions of hard-core affirmative action, it must be admitted that criminal justice treats the symptom and not the cause of social violence. The Department of Correctional Services, for one, has lost 496 out of 500 former Deputy Directors since 1994, representing most of the intellectual capital in the department. Newcomers may learn their job properly, or they may not, but they have to be flown to overseas countries to find out how prisons work as most of those previously involved in managing our prisons are no longer there.

South Africa used to have a problem of political violence. It was not as bad as elsewhere in Africa, but for some reason elicited hysterical international condemnation. However, actors in political violence are mostly driven by some sort of creed or belief system. Whether such a person is a communist, an anarchist, a neo-Nazi or an ethnic or religious guerilla fighter, he is usually amenable to persuasion or compromise. Even a group of Muslim suicide bombers might declare peace if they were given a territory in which to set up an Islamic theocracy, governed only by themselves and not subject to any outside influence.

In the same way, South Africa’s so-called liberation movements who were at one time fanatically convinced of the need for violent and bloody revolution, laid down arms and bombs upon being told that F.W. de Klerk would surrender power unconditionally. Solving political violence is often intractable, but not impossible.

Not so social violence. Endemic crime, the breakdown of the social fabric, a sense of drift regarding norms of good conduct, point to a far deeper problem. The freedom fighter or urban terrorist is ultimately rational, despite a value system that normal society might find idiosyncratic.

But what is “normal society”? It is only the sum-total of behaviours prevalent in any given society at any given time. The Aztecs, infamously, practised daily human sacrifice to appease their sun god. It might revolt many of us today, but to them it was entirely normal. South Africa currently sacrifices about 87 humans per day to violent crime, or 32 000 per year. Those are only the ones who actually die. Scores of others are injured, maimed, traumatised, robbed, raped, burgled and so on.

In any suburb today an entire history of murders, hijackings, and other violent events can be written, if only the locals were narcissistic enough to consider their own history worth recording for posterity. On the other hand, social violence lacks the charm and grandeur of political violence as it is usually not committed in the interest of some glamorous cause like national liberation or world revolution but simply to acquire some hapless person’s BMW or rape his wife because she happened to be inside.

However, some time ago a Johannesburg newspaper engaged in chronicling some local history in the suburbs of Westdene and Lakefield in Benoni. Nearly every resident had a story to tell, an entire litany of mayhem. Mr. John Gee miraculously survived a shot through the eye, but now feels traumatised. His wife says, “One lives in fear in one’s own home. One does not sleep. One prays for protection, yet only more fears come.”

But who are the authors of South Africa’s social violence? Even asking this question presents one with a sense of discomfort, because most violent criminals in South Africa are young black men between the ages of 16 and 36. As one surgeon who had stitched together at least three child rape victims, two of whom were infants, said recently, “Probably white men commit such acts too; it is just that no-one in South Africa has come across such a case.”

Of course, it would be preposterous to say that all young black men are prone to violence. Judging from our daily experiences in crime-torn South Africa, however, a sub-section of that population, large enough to cause more havoc than even a well-equipped guerilla army of a few thousand men, has taken up practices such as heists, hold-ups, murders, sexual violence exacted upon women and children, and so on.

Explanations for such deviancy are manifold. The ubiquitous answer of it being due to apartheid might have been satisfying if other African societies never subject to group areas and a homeland system did not display similar traits. The Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone come to mind. There is a whole nature/nurture debate around black violence, except that no adherent of the “nature” side would publicly admit to being one, for fear of being branded a racist. Even though mainstream American cancer research has conclusively shown that black men have higher levels of testosterone than their white counterparts, few would hazard the notion that this might be linked to their greater propensity for violent crime.

America has a gargantuan prison population of two million, over half of which consists of African-Americans. This is despite their minority status in the USA, comprising only 12% of an overall population amounting to 290 million. South Africa could neither afford nor succeed, given the dire state of our criminal justice system, in jailing a similar number of black male offenders. Currently, only 10% of murderers in South Africa get arrested and only 6% are convicted. Any murderer therefore has a 94% chance of getting away with it.

If by some miracle all serious criminals in the country had to be caught and imprisoned, the prison population would surely treble or quadruple from the present 200 000, which is already high by world standards. Not only is such an improvement inconceivable under current conditions, but it would also be politically unpopular with the ruling ANC who would be incarcerating large numbers of young black males who are mostly its own supporters at the polls. Few whites, if any, commit violent crime and there are only 3 900 of them in prison, mostly for white-collar offences such as fraud or insider trading on the stock exchange.

All that remains in the world’s most violent society, is precisely to adapt and die. Twice as many South Africans of all races now die of murder than of road accidents – even though the road accident rate is also the highest in the world, surpassing that of Turkey. Crime extends to trade in driver’s licences, so that a large number of drivers use so-called “bought licences”, hardly a contribution to road safety.

There are some people naive enough to think that “something can be done about crime” in South Africa, mostly opposition politicians who dream about diverting funds from arms procurement to policing, but this would be futile. There are already three times as many private security personnel as state-employed policemen, and even they do not succeed in containing what has become Africa’s only peacetime killing field.

“I killed them because they were white.” These famous words were spoken last year by William Kekana, who participated in one of the most horrendous incidents in which the entire family of Mr. Clifford Rawstorne was wiped out, consisting of his fiancée, baby, as well as his own mother. Even this massacre of an entire family would not have made headlines, were it not for the fact that one year-old Kayla was executed on her very first birthday with a shot in the head. Needless to say, the two adult women were first raped before being killed. Both William Kekana and his accomplice, Charles Fido Baloyi, fell into the high-risk group of young black (and Coloured) males who commit almost all violent crime in the country.

South Africa actually has a Minister of Safety and Security, which to some might seem like an example of absurd humour. His Excellency Mr. Charles Nqakula, whose official résumé proudly states that he was once “a waiter and wine steward”, has immortalised himself by euphemistically stating that there was no real crime problem in South Africa, except that it was “a little on the high side”.

All in all, South Africa has got remarkably used to its new-found status as the crime capital of the world. The high-rise districts of Hillbrow and Berea in Johannesburg have been officially designated by Interpol as having the highest murder rate in the world, that is, 600 people per 100 000 population members per annum. Consider for a moment that such a figure represents 12 times the rate found in inner-city ghettoes in the United States, often seen as no-go zones by many Americans.

One British immigrant to South Africa who has survived three car hijackings, refuses to emigrate, stating that he is now accustomed to having Kalachnikovs pointed at him from point-blank range. Everyone knows a relative or friend who has been killed or at least subjected to some form of violent crime, and no South African can remotely imagine a society where people do not live behind razor wire, electrified fences, high walls, burglar bars and similar decorative props.

Outsiders might find our lifestyle bizarre, but many pundits in South Africa consider our society to be much more “normal” now than at any time in the past, which was tarnished by ethnic separation albeit without the present large-scale violence. At the height of segregation and apartheid under Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was almost as peaceful as Switzerland but she was immoral. Today we are the apotheosis of racial morality and political correctness, yet as violent as the Congo or Liberia. Surprisingly, however, our economy continues to function amid the carnage. No economist has ever studied this as far as I know, but not only is crime our biggest industry – bigger than gold-mining or manufacturing – it also stimulates consumption as stolen goods are replaced; it is a boon to the insurance and security industries and ultimately makes surgeons and undertakers rich. The government earns billions of rands in Value-Added Tax on stolent goods being replaced with new ones. So crime pays.

News about killings or shoot-outs no longer elicits the slightest surprise. It is part of our daily existence, and one assumes the lethal risks attending to something as simple as going shopping or driving to work. My wife, for example, has twice been to the local shopping centre where in the one instance a shoot-out was taking place in the parking area so that she had to hide between the cars with our 18 month-old son in her arms; in the second case an armed robbery had just taken place with the robbers casually strolling by with their guns and their loot.

Everyone knows someone who has been killed, raped or maimed. Just this week, the wife of a friend and former literary editor of Die Burger, François Smith, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in their home in Wellington, near Cape Town. Her murderer was a 16-year-old squatter camp resident whose race was omitted by the press but presumably few, if any whites, reside in his particular squatter camp which is dedicated to black Africans. Lisbé Smuts-Smith was a well-known academic and head of the Afrikaans literature department at the University of Cape Town. Just two weeks ago, another UCT academic, mathematician Brian Hahn, was attacked by a former student, dr. Maleafisha Steve Tladi (35). Hahn died in hospital a week later, while Tladi was released on bail of R500 (about $80).

Two years ago Louw Rabie, a brilliant albeit reclusive geologist and brother of author Jan Rabie, was beaten to death with a fence pole by two Coloured men to whom he had lent some money a week earlier. Police in the small Cape town of Montagu readily caught his murderers because they happened to have drinking money during the week, taken from his home. He was 80 years old, but in good health. He is reputed to have been one of the most brilliant geologists and intellectuals this country has ever produced, writing copiously throughout his life but disdaining publication and public esteem. Africans with their oral tradition are fond of saying that “when an old person dies, a library burns down”. What strikes me about the relentless killings of educated whites, is that the criminals are indeed “burning down the libraries” of this country and physically exterminating the intellectual class, much like Pol Pot did in Cambodia. The media are celebrating youth, dance, colour, being black and exuberant – as opposed to the quiet studiousness of middle-aged and elderly whites, the bearers of knowledge and understanding. Are these learned whites who are being killed in exuberant, paradisiacal outbreaks of violence simply the remnants of a civilisation that is being eradicated in the name of decolonisation? No government spokesman has ever condemned such killings; so we may assume that the present regime is completely indifferent to them, where such killings do not enjoy their tacit support.

Around our local school in the past week there have been two car hijackings, as well as one murder. It is not really considered to be an exceptionally violent area. Most of this is not even reported in the press, because there really is not enough space and ordinary crime is no longer newsworthy. It needs some further sadistic element to make the front page, such as babies getting killed or raped, or elderly farmers being tortured to death. Farming in South Africa is now arguably the most dangerous profession in the world with more than 1600 farmers murdered since 1994, often in macabre and dehumanising ways.

To the outside world, white South Africans are congenitally evil. If our murderers and rapists had been white and their victims black, Europe or the United States would long ago have sent an expeditionary force to put a stop to it. At present, news of white suffering in South Africa inspires the occasional yawn in Western capitals. This is why a recent article in The Despatch, detailing the rape of a dog by three black men, gave me some hope that a chord will be struck somewhere in the coolly indifferent breasts of our fellow-Westerners. Even if the lives of Louw Rabie, Brian Hahn, Lisbé Smuts-Smith, Kayla Rawstorne and tens of thousands of others are of no value to them, perhaps they will take pity on the mongrel bitch in Grahamstown that was recently raped by three black men. Or perhaps two black men, as the third one protested his innocence upon being dragged out of the shack by screaming, “I came here to relieve myself. These two were raping the dog when I arrived!” Cruelty to humans, especially white humans, is today a normal feature of our society, just like human sacrifice used to be in the culture of the Aztecs. Cruelty to animals, or non-consensual sex with dogs, may still evoke some sympathy, not only locally, but also internationally. I therefore feel sorry for Masganda – the name of the dog concerned – who was rescued with a bleeding vagina and in need of veterinary attention, but perhaps this lowly creature of uncertain lineage could become a martyr for our cause in alerting opinion-makers and political leaders of our plight.

Cycling has become a popular sport in South Africa. However, its practitioners regularly get shot at by gangs of black youths in the street, so that many of them carry guns and knives for self-defence on their bicycles. Members of the Johannesburg mountain-bike club were outraged a while ago when two cyclists, Scott and Lloyd Griffith, were charged with murder after an armed battle with their four black assailants, one of whom succumbed to his wounds.

Most of the time, however, whites are helpless victims of crime. The government has recently passed a new gun law which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to own a fire-arm. They have also abolished rural commandos of military reservists entrusted with crime-prevention in the country, without any police units replacing them. Occasionally the newspapers carry stories of crime victims successfully defending themselves against attacks, offering armed resistance. As a result of the new gun law, this will soon end and we shall simply be able to hide or flee from our assailants. Defending oneself against a marauding robber or rapist might be a manifestation of racism, and is therefore frowned upon as being a kind of “right-wing” response.

Being robbed of one’s vehicle or household belongings is now considered quite normal, and often people ascribe escaping with their lives to their own astuteness, such as being friendly to the robber, helping him load the effects into a vehicle, not looking him in the face so as not to recognise him afterwards, et cetera. A friend of mine in Kempton Park kept up a reasonable conversation with the thieves emptying his house, tied up as he was with a gun pointed at him. He survived, although his elderly mother was badly roughed up and had to be hospitalised. In other instances, of course, people are not so lucky and they become just another murder statistic. Then they simply adapt and die.

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Ek het so pas hierdie nuwe woernaal geskep, wat in samehang met www.praag.co.za sal bestaan, maar waar ek my diverse internetgeskrifte, boeke, briewe aan die pers en ander materiaal byeen gaan bring.

Ook sal ek hier meer informele kommentaar en skakels na interessante berigte op die web plaas.

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