Peter Darley on racism and colonialism

Hi,

Don’t you think that we are getting tired of the constant references to ‘racism’? A term which is never defined and is, in fact, indefinable.

Consider the following facts:

Governance: there is no successful Black government in the world and there never has been. Haiti has been independent for 200 years. Would you want to live there? Liberia has been independent since 1847. Would you want to live there? Ethiopia (apart from a short occupation by Italians) has been independent for 3000 years. Would you want to live there? Boy Julia (I just love whoever came up with that!) bemoans the lack of Black people in the ‘economic cluster’. The history of post-colonial Africa is not encouraging. “Are we only good enough for the security cluster?” That is hardly a shining success, either, is it? If you are able to step far enough back to obverse from a distance, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that government is the problem, not the solution.

‘Transformation’: this is merely the modern equivalent of ‘Africanisation’; even the ANC shies away from the term. Changing the name will not change the outcome.

Failed state: any country, such as South Africa, where the number of people receiving welfare payments exceeds the number of taxpayers by a factor of 3:1 is a failed state.

Constitution: it is clear from commentary that most people have no idea of the purpose of a constitution. It is to protect the people from the government.

Education: I have come to the conclusion after many years of thinking about and studying things that governments do not want educated people. Now, why should this be, you are wondering. Educated people cannot be fooled by governments. Mass education has only been available for less than 200 years. Before that, ‘rulers’ (mostly self-appointed kings, dukes, bishops and mullahs (and your ‘traditional’ leaders)) deliberately restricted education to just sufficient people to keep their autocratic systems going. These (mostly self-perpetuating) autocrats depended on the ignorance of the masses for their very survival. Therefore, it was necessary to keep the masses ignorant and thinking how lucky they were just to be able to work 12 hours a day for only the basic necessities. This ‘luck’, of course, was attributed to the benevolence of the autocrats. There is no evidence that the ten most recent generations have had more brain capacity than people 2000 years ago. If governments wanted educated people, why do they make such a complete hash of it? It is clear that privately sponsored education produces a much greater proportion of educated, productive people.

Poverty: by the same token, governments do not want to eradicate poverty. You surely cannot believe that poverty could not have been eradicated over the last 2000 years. Millions of people have dedicated their whole lives to the task—and failed. Why? Failure keeps them in a cushy job for life. But we have found the answer—it is called laissez faire capitalism. Capitalism, properly applied, guarantees equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The irony is that the ‘leaders’ all know how prosperity is created—they just cannot bring themselves to give up control of the people.

Capitalism: there is not now, and has not been for almost 100 years, a capitalist country. The flowering of capitalism was in the US between the end of the Civil War and about 1918. Everyone in the world is now living on the products of that capitalist period. What we have now, in most ‘democratic’ countries, is fascism i.e. control of business by government.

Economies: the crucial point that most people never learn is that governments do not create economies. Economies are created by millions of ordinary people going about their daily business of making a living.

National Health Insurance: the much-touted NHI scheme is destined for failure. For one very good reason—whenever something ‘free’ is offered, the demand will far exceed the supply. The result can only be rationing—some will get more health care than others. Guess how valuable
your ANC membership (or your skin colour) will be then. The government has admitted that the existing health system is not functioning. If it is not functioning now, what will change it and why do they not change it now? “Government must ensure that the best brains and expertise the country has to offer are utilised”. Where will these come from? The ANC has demonstrated no ability to manage anything over the last fifteen years. Think SABC, SAA, Transnet, Denel, Eskom, Land Bank, hundreds of dysfunctional municipal councils. All of the ‘managers’ of the Metro Police departments are Black. They cannot persuade their staff to enforce the law, especially with regard to motorists. So what are they ‘managing’?

Drugs: check the patent record of life-extending drugs. (There are no life-saving drugs, because everyone dies). The patents are taken out in semi-free Western countries—overwhelmingly by White people, overwhelmingly by males. Name one drug that was developed in the former Soviet Union, in Cuba, in Africa.

Socialism: Let me tell you a story. “My mother convened five of her offspring who were still at school. She produced 74 loaves of bread, containers of peanut butter, jam, egg salad, tuna fish, grated cheese, sliced polony and mayonnaise. My mother had grown weary of packing five lunches a night, five days a week, nine months a year. She instructed us to start making a year’s worth of sandwiches. Each of us was under the impression that we were creating the sandwiches we ourselves would eat. The results tended to be moist and plump, precisely to personal taste. We crafted sandwiches for three hours, at the rate of four sandwiches per person per hour. Then, realising that we would be at it until well into the following week, my mother intervened. She decreed, in effect that the capitalist ideal of individual initiative in the pursuit of individual reward be replaced by quotas. Our personal stacks were nationalised; all sandwiches would belong to the collective. The quality of workmanship underwent an abrupt decline. Many sandwiches found their way into the freezer without mayonnaise or filling of any kind. Some members of our brigade deliberately spread jam over tuna or combined peanut butter and egg.” And there, my friend, is the root of socialism’s eternal failure. If this can happen within one family, you may understand why socialism does not and cannot work.

Food: it was recently mentioned that the Congo (the other one) would make available 10 m hectares for cultivation (by foreign farmers). This is 29% of the whole country’s land area. As usual, the elephant in the room was completely ignored, and the question has never been publicly asked: why can Black farmers in the Congo not do this?

Pensions: when this (or its successor) government has finished pissing all the money into the sewer of welfare payments and health care costs (both non-productive), the only money left will be in the pension funds. What do you expect to happen then? As I mentioned to your former colleague, Jameson Maluleke, some years ago, you are part of the luckiest of all Black South African generations. Your children will be fighting over the remaining scraps and your grandchildren will be back to scratching in the dust for subsistence. Don’t believe me? Go to any other post-colonial African country and see how the grandchildren of the ‘liberators’ are living. I have been to Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and DRC and I have seen it. Try going there yourself and see how the ordinary people live. Then come back and think “Why will it be different here?”

Colonialism: if it were not for the White man, Johannesburg would not exist; Cape Town would not exist; Cedric Mboyisa would not exist.

Regards

Peter Darley