I am a white African. My family dates back to the original Dutch immigrants into Southern Africa. Thanks to a typo by the governor Simon van der Stel, my family name is not spelt as it was in Holland. I am a proud South African. I am proud of South Africa's performance as a peace-keeping nation in Africa. I am proud of Thabo Mbeki attempting to be a mediator. I am proud of the Kaspir, albeit apartheid technology. I am proud that South Africa was the first nation to voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons capacity. I am proud that South Africa hosted the 2010 Soccer World Cup. I am proud that South Africa has won the Rugby World Cup twice. I am proud that South African diplomats were key to the result in the 2010 Cancun summit. I am proud of the South African constitution. I am proud that we were touched by Gandhi. I am proud of what the South African government has achieved... You do not change forty years of the results of Apartheid during just ten years.
My shame lies in Apartheid's legacy; My shame lies in the xenophobic attacks (and the unnamed third force involved) of 2008; My shame lies in the recent UN Vote by South Africa that violates the South African constitution. I worry that the African National Congress still sees itself as a revolutionary force. It has to adapt to the fact that its former enemy disolved. The ANC has to see that it now fights ideas; Poverty, Corruption, Crime, Nepotism, etc. ANCYL has to respecify its focus... be for the youth... don't just be there to annoy the media, annoy the ANC elite, annoy the enemies of the ANC... ANCYL should be there to make youngters excited about the ANC... ANCYL has still to evolve.
I am ashamed that South Africa has not effected a great change in Zimbabwe (I'm not talking about regime change, or popular change, etc), I'm talking about restoring the breadbasket of Africa to its former glory. Without Zimbabwe being strong, we cannot strengthen SADC to its potential. Without a strong and stable SADC region, we cannot influence central Africa. Without doing that, we can never make an African Alliance be a dominant power in the world.
If South Africa is attacked by any nation (and I accentuate ANY)... I will fight for South Africa to the death.
I sometimes extract some books about South African history from my shelves. My Mother studied Journalism in Apartheid South Africa. My Father was a businessman, and from what I saw of his dealings, he was a fair man. Together they travelled and collected books relating to South Africa's political and historical history... to the latter years, mainly for personal travel purposes.
They were both ardent amateur ornithologists.
I now own all of these books, most of them still packed away in boxes from my last house-move. My maternal grandfather is a historian on the Boer Wars. From time to time I manage to find a book with information (which may even be Apartheid Propaganda)... but I try to keep to facts.
I do appreciate that my parents left it to the New South African syllabus after 1994 to have me learn about Apartheid. Some may say that they had protected my sister and myself by doing so. Years later, I heard stories from strangers on how my dad had responded to invitations to incite violence. I am proud of him for keeping to principles which was instilled to him by his mother.
When it comes to Southern Africa before the Europeans settled in it... very little information can be trusted. We can all agree that the Bushmen have been around longer than any other tribe in Southern Africa... but the grey area comes when we try to establish when the first militant peoples first arrived in the region.
A lot of people will blurt out that it was the Europeans... after all... they had muskets and gunpowder. This is probably true (gunpowder being the military might). Although African tribes were being forced southwards from the North, the first African wars in Southern Africa was probably never recorded. Yet, Shaka Zulu caused so much havoc with his wars, that we will never know the real composition of Southern Africa before his reign. There's too many stories that contradict each other before that period to take any of it as fact (unfortunately).
Bottom line... I can only start giving input on Wikipedia on books that I believe understood a region/incident/person properly closer to the time... And I will keep trying to find info of the like.
I will stick to logic, not just personal opinion. I have changed stories on Wikipedia to reflect fact, not just argument, I will continue to put the fact that I discover, even if I previously thought otherwise. After all, logic will prevail. Just give it a bit of time.
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