The Sublime and The Ridiculous

The last time the CU had Kwame Nkrumah’s photo at the top, there were people who did not know who it was. This time round, on the 50th Anniversary of Ghana’s Independence, there should be no mistake. Cameron Duodo gave a stirring eye-witness account of the event in Sunday’s City Press. See the link below.

Do you understand what is going on at the level of the SA Public Investment Corporation? The interview given by Brian Molefe to Chris Barron, published in the Sunday Times, may help. Here is a state institution using taxpayers’ money to ensure that capitalism has its roots spread wider in the population than before. We support that, don’t we? We support Brian Molefe, at least. See the link for this very interesting interview.

Another Anniversary that passed this week is that of the Venezuelan “Caracazo” of 1989. This event roughly corresponds to June 1976 in South African history. Without it the course of subsequent history would have been different. You don’t have to buy the stuff about “World War IV”, but see the link below.

Venezuela’s Communist Party has been meeting to discuss amalgamation in one big “Chavista” or Bolivarian formation. It looks like they are going to reject this option, and rightly so. See the very fair article from the International Herald Tribune, linked below.

Venezuela is a black country and a Caribbean country, as well as an Indian country with white colonial settlers, some of them historically progressive and revolutionary figures (e.g. Miranda, Bolivar). There are dialectical complexities there as much as here. But no doubt the old-fashioned kind of racism can still be found there at times.

Certainly, racism can still be found in South Africa any time, any day. Steve Dlamini-Kabini in Sunday’s City Press, and Xolani Xundu in the Sunday Times, give clear-cut examples of something which is not nice to think about. But there it is. It is undeniable. See the two linked articles below.

If you should still prefer to think that racism is rare or insignificant, read the evidence with your own eyes in the words of the racist Dan Roodt, published in the same Sunday Times, facing Xolani Xundu’s article. This is typical of the racism of the 20th century. It reveals just as much of itself as it dares at any moment, leaving the rest to be guessed at without doubt, but if necessary deniable.

What makes it certain that Roodt is a racist of the worst kind is the change in his tone when he thinks circumstances are a little more favourable to him. Where he used to pretend to be an intellectual, now he openly takes on the clothes of the demagogue and the bully.

In this article Roodt has gone too far. There is no way that he can disguise himself from now on. His words are on record. Sorry that they are shocking and repulsive, but from time to time one must know. Even if you did not care to read this article on Sunday, it is worth looking at it now, so that you can see that there is no confusion about this. This is a nasty, unmistakeable racist who needs to be opposed. This is danger. See the link.

Click on these links:

Africans independent, Cameron Duodo, City Press (665 words)

Success won’t go to head of Brian Molefe, Chris Barron, S Times (1478 words)

Caracazo, George Cicciarello-Maher, Counterpunch (2192 words)

Venezuela communists resist single party, AP, Int Herald Trib (670 words)

Racism in the motoring industry, Steve Dlamini-Kabini, C Press (651 words)

Racism died in 1994 - NOT, Xolani Xundu, Sunday Times (753 words)

Longing for De la Rey, Dan Roodt, Sunday Times (826 words)