The social media was abuzz last night after a tweet by an 18 year old black South African student from Port Elizabeth, called Abongile Gasa. He posted on Twitter (and later removed it) that he regarded the death of 22 white victims in Manchester as a “blessing from God” and he prayed for more such blessings.
I don’t plan to pay much attention to what he says. It is pure hatred, stupidity, racism and youthful ignorance. It was, however, the comments that followed his tweet, which made me think. Because, amongst the comments of white South Africans who gave Gasa a piece of their mind, I recognised at least three names of people who, the day before yesterday, stated: “That is what they deserve, they sold us out to the ANC!”
This made me think: Isn’t it time for us, as white South Africans, to admit that Manchester also tells us something about our own conduct and opinions? There are a number of questions that we need to ask ourselves:
1) Are we at all objective in our judgement of the European perception of white South Africa? It is absolutely true that European governments in the 70’s and 80’s were not tolerant towards us, but we have to also recognise the fact that Europeans seldom understand our position completely. The Germans are a majority in Germany, the French are a majority in France. The “ordinary” European cannot picture what it means to be a very small minority in your own country. They cannot understand the huge and irreconcilable differences in all aspects between white and black South Africans. The black man they know in Europe is a small group and conformed to Western values completely. That is why they can judge us so easily, because they do not have the full picture and were, therefore, easily misguided.
2) Do we understand the current position of Europe at all? South Africa looks radically different than what it looked like in the 70’s and 80’s – and so does Europe. The European transformation was less dramatic, but no less meaningful. Yes, we are angry, but our anger is towards the governments of Valerie Giscard d’Estaing and Francois Mitterand. We are angry at Joop den Uyl and Dries van Agt, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan and Olof Palme. But France and The Netherlands and Germany and Britain and Sweden are also angry at them these days. We recognise that by watching European politics these days – Europeans are awaking with a shock in realising what they are faced with – nothing less than what we faced here in the 70’s and 80’s! If we are angry about young white South Africans who are being victimised by Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment, even though they were born years AFTER apartheid, why should we then blame the young European for the misguided foolishness of liberal governments in power long before their time? And that raises a third question:
3) What are the main priorities? If we, as white South Africans, have a choice to say what our most urgent crisis is..Jacob Zuma or the Islamic migration to Italy, one need not think too long on what our answer will be. Why then do we expect the Austrian and the Frenchman and the Italian to put their own crisis aside to address ours first?
Eventually it all boils down to a matter of priorities and what our cultural and moral level of development as Westeners teach us. If we want to brand Abongile Gasa this morning as a cruel, monstrous, uncivilised, bloodthirsty, revengeful barbaric terrorist because he says: “You deserved to die in Manchester because you are white”, how is that any different from when we say: “You deserved to die in Manchester because you are liberal!”? We have to be consequent in our judgements keeping in mind that Abongile feels the same towards the apartheid government as we feel towards the European governments of the 70’s and 80’s. If, therefore, we approve of the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London and Paris and Brussels and St Petersburg, we are by definition destroying the only distinction between Abongile Gasa and ourselves: The ability to maintain a higher level of moral understanding and civilisation.
Only recently we commemorated the Church Street bombing of May 20th, 1983 in Pretoria. We are still angry and sad at that terrorist attack by the ANC against innocent civilians. That is why I fail to understand how we can be angry about that, but then say: Good, you British deserve Manchester! Good, you French were looking for retaliation! Good! You Belgians are now getting payback for what you allowed to happen to us! Good! You Swedish now understand what karma means!
I lived in London in 2005 and was a freelance news reported for a prominent radio station in the West End. On the morning of 7 July, coincidentally my 32nd birthday, I took the number 30 bus direction Kong’s Cross, to catch a train from there to Gatwick for my flight to Amsterdam later that day. Back in those days we didn’t have smart phones yet, only mobile phones with text messages. The last text message I received before the mobile services were cut informed all journalists to rush to either one of four sites where bombings took place to report from there. I must’ve been 5 or 6 blocks away from Tavistock Square, so I ran at full speed with all my luggage to get there.
Arriving at the square it was already abuzz with reporters, emergency personel, police and security. I immediately realised that another journalist wasn’t needed, but that I might somehow assist in another way. Consequently I knelt down next to very lovely young girl, about 20 or 22 years old. I later learned that she was an Argentinian student in London. She was a victim of the bombing that day. The girl was lying on her back and about 3 metres away from her was her left arm, intact with beautifully manicure nails and the wrist watch still in place, but brutally severed from her elbow. She was moaning softly in a heavy Spanish accent while I was holding her other hand, trying to console her. “Mama, mama,” she moaned. “Oh God, it hurts so much! Please pray for me, Santa Maria, please pray for me!” And then she suddenly opened her two dark, lovely eyes, looked straight at me and said: “I am so sorry for the blood on your shirt, sir.”
Such a picture never disappears from your memory completely. If, that morning, I did not have a second cup of coffee at Starbucks in Leicester Square, or I woke up 15 minutes earlier I would’ve been on that bus with her and would my 32nd birthday probably have been my last day on earth. To this day I avoid speaking of this, it is painful and difficult to tell this story to people.
It is so easy to voice a hasty opinion on the social media from the safety of your chair behind your computer screen. But there is an implication to what we say, which brings us to introspection. There are hundreds of white South Africans who witnessed and survived the border war, but very few who witnessed and survived a civilian terrorist bombing. Those white South Africans who, so easily, talk about the coming civil war and even revel in it, tend to forget that this will be the face of such a war. May the Good Lord protect us from that! Violence, murder, bloodshed and intimidation does not belong in politics, because they turn politics into terrorism. Let us not, through our statements and actions, turn ourselves into terrorists as well.
Because, when I read of an 8 year old little girl whose body was torn apart by a bomb in Manchester, with all the historical anger in me, I cannot bring myself to the point of saying: “For what your ancestors did to mine, this is what you deserve!” That is why I, as a white South African, are different from Abongile Gasa and I thank the Almighty for that this day!
Daniel Lötter – Front Nasionaal
South Africa Today – South Africa News
