The one opportunity I never miss, is to ask a political opponent for his opinion on my position. Whichever way he responds, it must be to my benefit. If his opinion is valid, and it often is, I regard it as an opinion taken from a position which I don’t have, consequently revealing a potential weakness in my own position. If his opinion is obvious nonsense, it reveals a weakness in his position, because he would hardly voice an opinion which he doesn’t believe himself. And on that weakness I can capitalise in future.
This morning I attended a meeting in Cape Town and found myself seated, at the lunch table, next to Mr. Mahomed S – a veteran activist of the struggle and hard core Zuma-supporting ANC political animal from KZN. Pretty soon, as was to be expected, the conversation turned to politics and I asked him what his opinion was on white politics in the country. When he started answering me, I was glad that I had my note pad and pen with me, because I took some valuable shorthand notes.
What he said, boiled down to three basic things:
1) “The white man in South Africa is culturally and genetically groomed from his European ancestry never to question the motives of people in authority. He might not agree with it, but he will hardly ever oppose it. And if it comes to it, he will change his very conviction in the blink of an eye, because the government or some or the other person in authority says so. We saw that happen in a single afternoon on that 2 February when De Klerk made his speech. In that afternoon the majority of white people said to themselves: ‘O all right, we drop everything we believed in and everything we fought for over 3 centuries and we take up a new position, because the Sate President says that is the best thing to do.’
The white man might mumble a bit, go home to his wife and say: ‘I’m not happy about this at all, but let’s just go with the flow and see what happens.’ You won’t ever see the white man saying: ‘No bloody ways, this is not what I want, I refuse to co-operate, who’s with me?!”
2) He continued by saying: (and I quote from my notes) “The second thing that enslaved the white man politically for 20 years now and will keep him in political chains for many years to come, is his mortal fear of being branded. I have been called a traitor, a criminal, a terrorist and my stand on it throughout was: So why the hell should I care about what your opinion of me is? This is my conviction and I’m fighting for it! Not the white South African. He fell into the habit of saying to himself: ‘O, I shouldn’t say this or do that – they might call me a racist or think I’m longing for the days of apartheid! I might lose my position in society for that’. What is the value of a position in a society of which you don’t feel a part of in the first place? The white South African should define himself by his own definitions and stop worrying about the brand on his forehead which is put there by people whose opinion should not matter to him in the first place!”
3) “The third thing that killed white politics is the white man’s disbelief in his own power. He would rather start off any opinion with: ‘If we only had the numbers…’ or ‘If somebody would only stand up and take the lead…’. You’ll hardly ever see a white person who simply stands up and speaks his mind without looking for support first. Why does the white man not believe that he himself has the power to take the lead and empower the people around him? Why is he always looking for somebody to lead and somebody to cover his back? As long as the white man believes himself to be powerless, he will remain powerless and he will not realise that all political power movements started in the minds and the kitchens of ordinary people who said: I have had enough now!”
He turned to me and asked me whether this made any sense to me. Which I had to admit that it did indeed make me think.
“You see,” Mr. S then concluded, “ these are the reasons why we in the ANC have nothing to fear from white politics at this stage. We studied you for generations and once we got into your minds, the conquest was easy. And it is this very same reason why a liberal party such as the DA take your vote for granted. They know all too well: As long as you use your limited numbers as an excuse, as long as you fear to be branded and as long as you believe that the figures in authority acts in your interest, you wouldn’t take your vote away from them. And you will be in the position in which you are now as long as we, and them, decide to keep you there.”
PS: In my own opinion, this is more than enough of a wake-up call to take a step back, look at our own position and shift gears…NOW!
Read the original article by Daniel Lötter on Front Nasionaal SA – blad
South Africa Today – South Africa News
