What is the color of racism in the example of the United States and South Africa?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Today in the United States and Europe, the problem of the pandemic has clearly receded into the background, and even to a more distant plan. The first was the riot of the black population in the United States, which spawned the movement "Black Lives Matter" (BLM). His many protests have been shaking the foundations of "blessed America" for months.

For the first time, US citizens faced such a brutal aggression of the "poor oppressed" who smash shops, set fire to cars, beat people for their white skin color and simply because they came to hand. And in response, the whites kneel in front of them, kiss their shoes and sob bitterly, allegedly in a paroxysm of remorse for the guilt of their own and others' slave-traders and the national policy of the United States.

This farce in America is presented by many politicians and the media as a "fight against racism." And for some reason no one is confused by the fact that at the same time one race again humiliates the other. In practice, it is thus recognized that the great experiment of creating one country for people of different races ended in failure. In the United States, an attempt to provide everyone with equal rights has transformed into a system of "reverse discrimination" of the majority by a minority, where affairs are already run by "activists" of various non-traditional orientations. Now black racists are added to them, while the ratio of whites to blacks in the United States is approximately 72.4% to 12.6% (as of 2010). It is difficult to say how events will develop, but it seems that now the United States is on the verge of a civil war, but already a racial one. For the first time in the history of its independence, America found itself at such a dangerous line, which does not run along the "Black Belt" line, as predicted by American analysts several decades ago, but through every American house, street, and city.

At the same time, the appearance of BLM could not come as a surprise to the American authorities.

Back in 2016, the Movement for Black Lives coalition of black organizations put forward a number of demands to the American regime, including "compensation for the past and the present."

But if then the business ended with the demands of black, then the other day an event occurred with far-reaching consequences. BLM activists have demanded that the compilers of the Merriam-Webster dictionary change the wording of the term "racism." I must say that "Merriam-Webster" is the oldest dictionary of the American version of the English language, the first edition of which was published back in 1806. It, without exaggeration, is one of the bonds of the multi-tribal American society. It defines racism as: "The belief that race is the main determinant of human traits and abilities and that racial differences give rise to the superiority of one race or another." Now the wording - although no, perhaps it's already a formula - is: "Racism is a systemic manifestation of hatred, not just prejudice." As you can see, conceptual approaches to the definition of racism have fundamentally changed, since "systemic" means a consistent and internally consistent manifestation of hatred on racial grounds. And if today a black man claims that only the lives of blacks matter, then shouldn't it be understood to mean that the lives of others mean nothing?

Quite possible. According to objective experts, in the United States, the stage of blacks realizing themselves as a victim of whites has already passed, the stage of consensus on demanding debt from the oppressors - also, now there is an accumulation of sentiments in the spirit of: "They will answer us for everything!" (Didn't Nazism in Germany begin with similar "formulas"?)Like other pseudo-philosophical racist doctrines, this one is about the exceptional superiority of the black race. And why not, if the West has for centuries maintained the idea of white supremacy over all other peoples?

At the same time, racism is equally disgusting for people of any skin color. Neither the role of the former victim, nor the current oppressed situation, and no other "mitigating circumstances" can justify him. Nonetheless, the ideas of Negritude have poured into the minds of the black masses and led to the conviction of the "sense of guilt" of the whites. Naturally, unrest and riots in the United States not only spread to many other countries, but also provoked an outbreak of controversial attention to the racial issue around the world. This problem, which is painful for both the colonial West (first of all) and its former colonies, is actively used by various forces to achieve their political and even commercial goals.

It should have been recognized for a long time, and at the UN level, that in the modern world the white population also experiences socio-political oppression from the blacks, or is even forced out of the country created by their ancestors.

This happens, for example, in Zimbabwe, other countries of tropical Africa, in Haiti. But many experts are inclined to compare the events in the United States with the events in South Africa, predicting America's South African future.

It is in South Africa that many politicians consider the ideology of negritu here called "ubuntu" to be necessary for the Great African Renaissance, which has no unambiguous interpretation. In the Zulu language, ubuntu denotes different meanings: either "humanity in relation to others", then "belief in the universal bonds of community that bind all of humanity." But, moving from theory to practice, South African freedom fighters widely practiced and practice, including the "execution with the necklace." The white man they have caught is put on a car tire and set on fire. And when such facts become known to the general public, then for some reason it is recalled how in 1976 the world, and especially the USSR, was outraged by the brutal suppression of riots in the South African city of Soweto. According to official figures, 23 blacks were killed there (unofficially, hundreds). In Soviet schools, we unanimously condemned apartheid in South Africa and called for the release of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned by white racists. At the same time, African students, imitating the American "Black Power" movement, formed their own movement - "Black Consciousness". Somewhat earlier, the ANC formed the "Spear of the Nation" militant wing, which for 30 years (1961 - 1991) waged an armed struggle against the apartheid regime.

The policy of apartheid divided South Africa (until 1961 the Union of South Africa) into ethnically unequal groups. It was carried out by the government of the National Party, which was in power from 1948 to 1994. Its ultimate goal was to create "South Africa for whites", blacks were supposed to completely deprive South African citizenship.

The dominant position in government and the army at that time was occupied by Afrikaners, descendants of colonists from the Netherlands, France, Germany and some other countries of continental Europe. Black South Africans have been severely discriminated against and exploited. There was separate education for whites and non-whites, separate churches, work, a ban on interracial marriages, the residence of Africans in separate designated areas-territories - Bantustans, in general, there were two different states on the same territory, two parallel worlds, but where by that time there were already three the world of white people dominated for centuries. Very similar to the United States, isn't it?

The history of present-day South Africa began on April 6, 1652, when Jan van Riebeck, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, founded a settlement at the Cape of Storms (also the Cape of Good Hope) - now it is Kapstad or Cape Town. After the Dutch, French Huguenots who fled from the massacre perpetrated by the Catholics landed here, then German, Portuguese, Italian settlers (today they are all Afrikaners). Until recently, there were almost 4 million descendants of those colonists in modern South Africa. By religion, they are predominantly Protestants, speaking Afrikaans (a mixture of the southern dialect of Dutch, German and French). Boers (from boeren Dutch peasants) are considered a sub-ethnic group of Afrikaners, lead a conservative way of life, which was formed during the first settlers.

Initially, Boer settlements were formed in the east of the Cape Colony, but then the aggression of the British (in 1795) forced free farmers to go to the "Great Track" - inland. In the developed territories, they created the Orange Republic, the Transvaal and the colony in Natal - three enclaves of the "new statehood". The happiness of a free life was short-lived: in 1867, on the border of the Orange Republic and the Cape Colony captured by the British, the world's largest diamond deposit was discovered, and gold was found. The dispute over wealth led to conflicts, and then to a war with the British Empire, which built all its power on the robbery of the peoples oppressed by it. The Boers won the first Anglo-Boer war (1880-1881), but five years later (when gold-bearing deposits were also discovered in the Transvaal), a second war took place, in which the British, putting up a 500-thousand army against 45 thousand Boer warriors, with a cruelty rare even for that time, they achieved victory - the Orange Republic and the "Boer freemen" were drowned in blood.

By the way, after the Second Boer War (1899-1902), in which more than 200 Russian volunteers fought on the side of the Boers against the British, the famous singer of colonialism, the Englishman Rudyard Kipling, said: "The problem with Russians is that they are white."

The Russians themselves, we note, never even mention the color of their skin. This problem did not exist in our national consciousness both in those distant times and now. In South Africa, Russians, like more than a hundred years ago, are called "non-local", but not white. In the USA, about our journalists, black Protestants say: "You are not white, you are Russians!" - and allow you to withdraw your shares.

… Then, to suppress the dissatisfied, the British created a number of concentration camps, including for children. The Germans are by no means the founders of this system of extermination of people. They just copied the idea from the British. But if you look the historical truth in the eye, then the Boers were not "goodies." They drove the black population out of their homes, whose fate was of little interest to them. As then their fate of the British.

Just as American settlers conquered the "Wild West". However, today to deal with issues of historical justice is only to reopen old wounds and provoke new interethnic conflicts. I think that in the current explosive conditions in which the world finds itself, it is necessary to perceive the past as it was. Of course, history can be rewritten, but it cannot be rewritten.

… After four years of negotiations between the Boers and the British, the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, which included four British colonies: the Cape Colony, the Natal Colony, the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony. South Africa became the dominion of the British Empire and remained in this status until 1961, when it left the Commonwealth of Nations and became an independent state (South Africa). The reason for the withdrawal was the rejection of the policy of apartheid in other countries of the Commonwealth. (South Africa regained its membership in the Commonwealth in 1994)

Naturally, the non-white population, especially the Africans, could not be satisfied with this state of affairs, being, moreover, the majority of the population, and in every possible way fought against the white rule. In addition to whites and Africans, there were also the so-called "colored" - the descendants of interracial marriages, some of them did not look like Africans at all. For the "colored" there was a "pencil test", which consisted in the fact that a pencil was inserted into the hair, and if it did not fall (African curly hair, inherited from ancestors, held the pencil), then the person was not considered white and took his place in the racial hierarchy country. Everyone has experienced the oppression of the brutal government of the republic. Even the white population opposed the dictatorship and tyranny that had been established in the country for many years.

Democratic reforms, which resulted in the first free elections in South Africa's history, began after the coming to power in 1989 of the country's last white president, Frederick Willem de Klerk. The African National Congress (ANC) won the vote in April 1994, and its leader, Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, became the first popularly elected head of state.

The ANC asserted in its program documents the equality of all citizens of South Africa, including on racial grounds. They even talked about the creation of a "rainbow nation", but reality has shown that the national discourse in South Africa is inseparable from racial identity. Discrimination of the white population began, or even just destruction. To save their lives, many whites were forced to leave the country, according to some estimates, up to one million people, mainly to Australia.

And who should replace professionals, who should replace doctors and teachers? The standard of living in the country has fallen dramatically. Moreover, the black population has lost even more than the white. Novye Izvestia wrote: “Large companies are forced to invite specialists from abroad. All the infrastructure and civilization in this country was built by white people … All this has been declining in recent years. Farmers cannot live in remote areas without putting themselves and their families in mortal danger. Since 1994, about 4,000 white farmers have been killed by blacks in South Africa.”

While apartheid is now officially equated by the UN with crimes against humanity, and the word is now banned in South Africa, many whites complain that human life is valued very little among the black population. Even the life of their fellow tribesmen, not to mention the life of whites. There is unjustified cruelty in attacks and the commonality of such a crime as rape.

A spike in violence against white people in South Africa happened in 2018, when President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a program to take land from white farmers without any compensation. Now the authorities are trying to somehow normalize the situation, but they do it badly. Living standards continue to fall. There are 40% of the unemployed in the country.

However, according to Alexandra Arkhangelskaya, a researcher at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, “the country is developing, coping with enormous difficulties. There is a demographic boom: in 10 years - almost 10 million population growth. There are a lot of problems, a lot of criticism, but the African National Congress is in power quite stable."

It should also be said that within the framework of cooperation between the BRICS states, which South Africa joined in 2011, a new impetus was given to strengthen partnership relations between South Africa and the Russian Federation, where the basis is constant contacts for over 100 years. Back in 1898, diplomatic relations were established between the Russian Empire and the Republic of Transvaal, and the South African side appointed an official representative in the rank of envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary minister at the court of the Russian emperor. And during World War II, the USSR and the Union of South Africa were on the same side in the fight against Nazi Germany. The war caused a wide response among South Africans. Voluntary organizations 1942 -1944 collected 700 thousand pounds for Soviet citizens. In addition to monetary contributions, food, medicines, vaccines, warm clothing, vitamins, blood for transfusion and much more were sent from there to the USSR. We remember this with gratitude. And although in 1942 the Union of South Africa opened a Soviet consulate general in the capital of the state of Pretoria and a trade and economic office in Johannesburg, with the coming to power of the National Party in 1948 the work of diplomatic missions was gradually reduced. In 1956, diplomatic relations came to naught against the background of the growing contradictions between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War. Official contacts between our countries were interrupted for almost 35 years. For the first time in 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited South Africa. This visit played a fruitful role in building a dialogue between our states. An example of the acceleration of relations is the return to Johannesburg of the Russian trade mission, which is working to expand bilateral economic ties.

A new wave of aggression against the white population was provoked in South Africa by the Black Lives Matter in the United States. But if in the USA protesters destroy monuments to historical figures suspected of racism, in Europe demand the return of cultural property exported from Africa, then in South Africa they recalled the unofficial anthem of the local black population - "Kill the Boer."

Julius Malema, leader of the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, noted, for example: "We do not hate white people, we just love black people." At the same time, he clarified that he did not care about the feelings of whites. "All white people who vote for the DA (Democratic Alliance Party) … all of you can go to hell, we don't care."

The experience of South Africa clearly demonstrates that the experiment, which began about 40 years ago, failed and led to the replacement of one ethno-nationalist dictatorship by another. Is it not about a similar fate for the United States with its "melting pot" they are talking about today in the expert communities of Western countries? If so, America will face apartheid "vice versa."