Lord Sebastian Coe keeps referring to Caster Semenya as “A daughter, a sister”, yet he is still planning to force her to medically change how her body chemistry naturally works.
If you are thinking he may have a point, please read:
Lord Coe cannot hide his hostile and racist intentions behind words like “daughter” and “sister”.
The corrupt, womanising sexist Silvio Berlusconi who mismanaged Italy’s economy to the point where it had to be rescued by the EU (Germany, really) was democratically elected several times. In South Africa, the majority of voters support a very similar man.
Australians are so anti-(non-white)-immigrant, Kevin Rudd could not get re-elected by promising to make his Labor party’s policies even more hostile to boat-people because the democracy preferred a man whose “stop the boats” promises included appointing a general(1) to oversee stopping them, and they also now withhold information about what happens to them. This man, newly elected prime minister Tony Abbott, is so sexist and vile, friends from his student days could impress him by exposing themselves an urinating in front of female activists in order to intimidate them. Even as a student, he was so connected to power, he could enlist a legal team that included a QC to get him out of the trouble he caused(2). He will do great harm.
Americans recently preferred Bush jr, and Obama – both men who unleashed bloodshed and secrecy onto the world, along with their ever obedient British counterparts.
The cases of Berlusconi and Zuma show that a democracy can prefer leaders who are bad for the country, while the British, Australian and Americans cases show that a democracy can prefer men who do evil abroad and to refugees.
To avoid that democracies take these regrettable paths, an ethical awareness should live within every citizen. I think this awareness is republicanism. It should should consist of every citizen truly believing in, and fighting for the ideas summarised by the republican slogan of “Liberty, equality, fraternity”. These powerful ideas inspired a lot of good in the world, such as the abolition of slavery in the US, equal rights for women, and the idea that the state should advance economic equality through public education and healthcare. Only if citizens really believe in continually advancing these ideals can they make democracy (and politicians) achieve things the good things democracy is claimed to bring.
What about Marxism?
Marxism also provides a basis for the kind of awareness I am talking about, and Marxists are usually republican. But Marxism is newer, and more elaborate. This means Marxists can be wrong more, and have been wrong a lot of the time through being statist, totalitarian or undemocratic ( I get that Marxism is a way of thinking, and doesn’t necesarily have to support these things)
But Republicans can use ideas from Marxism and also avoid the mistakes and and dogmatism of Marxists, because it only has some core ideals, and can be pragmatic about how to achieve them. Republicans can more easily admit that economies and economics is complex, and can promote an open and free society more easily than than Marxists have tended to.
References:
1. Tony Abbott, the man who promised to ‘stop the boats’, sails to victory
Prince William at the Vaiku Falekaupule Ceremony in Polynesia. Pic from City Press
Pretoria was founded in 1855 by republicans, people who believe that the area is the basis of community, as opposed to nationalists, for whom blood is that basis.
For Republicans, the community can grow by accepting others, including immigrants, while for nationalists the community can only grow through procreation. The takeover of republicanism by nationalism is one of the great tragedies of Afrikaner history.
Translated from ‘n Rooi Z4 en ‘n Renaissance-kasteel, (Johann Rossouw) January 2000
Many British and American people seem to accept and trust instinctively that the spying on ordinary people as uncovered by Edward Snowden and The Guardian newspaper is really in their interests. They may have expressed a fleeting concern about their “civil liberties”, but as soon as the thuggishness of the NSA, GSHQ and the politicians behind them are exposed, many rush to the defence, for example:
These are just examples from one day from The Telegraph. I did not visit the Murdoch Press or the Hate Mail (UK Daily Mail), but I’m sure they would have more of the same.
There is a danger to everyone’s civil liberties in the NSA and GSHQ activities – there is even a threat to companies that their business secrets can be passed on to more politically connected US and British competitors.
Despite these threats to nearly everyone’s rights, many can be seen defending the existence of these programs, and there can be only one reason why: these people still have a Cold War and Colonialist mentality where it is OK for the US and Britain to spy on, kill and do whatever dirty trick they can think of, to gain control in those areas and of those peoples where their power is not yet fully dominant: Muslims, The Arab world, China, South America, Non-whites.
In certain countries the threat to an Internet user who expresses anti-imperialists sentiments online, is literally that a drone bomb can crash through his roof, killing his wife and children compliments of Google or Facebook. This is what NSA and GSHQ supporters are supportive of.
***
Note: Christopher Sultan has written in Spiegel Online about the cozy relationship between many British journalists, the government and the intelligence agencies
Internationalism, as opposed to nationalism and imperialism must be the most fair and humane principle to organise world affairs.
Many of these ideals are used in speeches by British, US, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian leaders, and they tend to talk about world affairs, and the “international community” in a way that make it seem that they have everyone’s interests at heart.
Yet these 5 countries go to war together quite often. They attack distant Muslim countries that are not really threatening them.
Together, they run the the “five eyes” surveillance project which they use to spy on the citizens of the world, including even their European allies.
Why should we not suspect the existence of a multi-country Anglo imperialism not unlike nationalism in the evils it does and its ethnic basis, but cloaked by habitual soft talk and ethical internationalist language? This sort of Anglo collusion seems like a stab in the back to the ideal of an end to ethnic chauvinism.
Afrikaners are a people who have been colonisers and colonized – and have the memory of both. I do not want to gloss over or excuse what we have done, but this post is to defend us against the sort of hypocrisy I sometimes encounter in the English speaking world with regard to Afrikaans as a “language of oppression”.
Colonialism is not a thing of the distant past – we see Anglo-led conquest in the Middle East to this day, along with drone attacks that kill innocent people on a daily basis. We can expect the Anglicisation of Iraq and Afghanistan to progress at similar speed to that of South Africa or India.
English is still the language that colonised Africans, Afrikaners and many other peoples in a very violent way.
When I read how easily British group Impact Oil & Gas got oil exploration rights along South Africa’s coast, I also wonder why we do not say that English is the language of compradores and neocolonialism in South Africa and the developing world. There are more such examples, for example also BAE and the South African arms scandal.
The racism that is rife in the old English colonies must be a result, to a very great extent, of the way the British rewarded white people in the colonies to administer their interests and subjugate the black people. In this situation, the colonial administrators began to think that they, along with their masters in London, are of a superior race. I think we can safely say racism is a result of colonialism.
That is not to say we should not take responsibility for fighting our racism – it is just saying that racism did not just pop into existence in South Africa and other colonies without any causes.
I also remember how the majority of white English people supported the National Party, and how their young men, like me, were willing conscripts to the SADF. To a large extent, this was Cold War behaviour, but these days some people pretend there was no Cold War, as if the deeds of the SADF in Southern Africa was just Afrikaner belligerence, and the West did not support it.
The actions of the SADF was part of the West’s murderous campaign to ensure that Communism does not take hold in the developing world.
People also pretend that Apartheid was an injustice that stood on its own. They pretend that Britain played no role in the formation of Apartheid. The truth is not so simple – see Richard Dowden here (archived here) and here.
For these reasons, I feel it is untenable for English speakers, if they want to be honest, to feel ethicaly superior to Afrikaners, and keep on calling Afrikaans the language of oppression.
But what if you apply the same test of trustworthiness to adherents of a different ideology. I do not trust the Right, but here I’m trying out “Never trust a Leftist”, and came up with these supporting examples:
1. Leftist British Prime Minister Tony Blair led Britain to participate in the war on Iraq, and after that was re-elected by the British Left with an increased majority. The British Left clearly don’t care that much about how many people died in that war, and they still feel that Labour is not too morally tainted to carry on. Maybe they even see themselves as generally morally superior to everyone else.
2. The way Leftist Gwede Mantashe treated corruption fighters Alfred Motsi and Moss Phakoe who tried to take a case of serious corruption to him. He ignored them and when they persisted, called them troublemakers. Phakoe’s murder was then arranged by the object of his complaints (a previous Rustenburg ANC mayor, Matthews Wolmarans), while Motsi was suspended as chairman of the MK Veterans Association. See this Max du Preez article for the full story. You can utterly not trust this particular leftist (Mantashe).
3. The way many Leftist or development states dealt with dissidents have often been very brutal. Cuba, China, Libya under Gaddafi are just a few. (I’m not saying the same did not happen in right-wing states as well)
I can carry on in similar vein with names of Leftist like Jeremy Cronin, Julia Gillard, Jack Straw, Blade Nzimande.
When it comes to who to trust, I’d rather stick to my own instinct than ideology. I’d even go further and say that ordinary people are generally more trustworthy than leaders, politicians, celebrities or intellectuals.
What also annoys me about the attitude behind the “Never trust a liberal” – slogan, is the idea of perpetual enmity behind it. To me rich kids joining the Left seem a bit fake at times, while a rich kid joining the Right must be heartless.
A person from a wealthy background who do not bear ill will to the poor do not seem to have many choices other than choosing Liberal politics, especially when the Left disgrace themselves with corruption and violence as in South Africa and elsewhere.
Is it not true that the US Republican party, with their wars against developing countries is a disgrace to the ideals of Republicanism?
Of course it is.
But the US Republican party does not change the fact that Republicanism is a beautiful idea that has changed the world for the better.
Republikeins 