METHINKS my detractors do protest too much!
In their letters to the editor on 16 January, Messrs Johnston and Veitch take umbrage at my criticism of the WCED and at the privileged beneficiaries of generational wealth living in the leafy suburbs.
For both of them I sinned by invoking our colonial and apartheid pasts as structural causes of the widespread, ongoing poverty within which the majority of our citizens are trapped. For them, history began in 1994. How convenient? It means we can blame all our woes on the ANC.
This rather reminds me of the attempt by so many pro-Israeli supporters to locate the starting point to the conflict in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Forget about apartheid. Forget about slavery. Forget about colonialism. Forget about apartheid. These are the constant invocations to the oppressed and downtrodden. (I’ve yet to hear anyone say “forget about the Holocaust.”)
In a single swipe of his metaphorical hand, Neil Veitch dismisses the devastating job reductions we’re facing as nothing other than the result of “tough economic times.” In other words, accept it; live with it; it’s normal.
He directs me to Barbie Sandler’s “forensic examination of the country’s ills.” I am familiar with her views. Like theirs, her perspective tends to be totally ahistorical, and her prescriptions usually have nothing to do with the political and economic power balance in the country, nor with how the past and present are inseparable and continuous.
Why won’t the privileged minority in society face up to the real facts? Is it about guilt? Fear? Greed? Or worse, racism?
Until as a society, we can overcome denialism and defensiveness, and confront our problems with openness and honesty, we risk keeping the seeds of conflict alive, going forward.
Charles Thomas | Rondebosch East
Cape Times